Six Poems by Gary Bills

 

A Gothic Song

  

The dead months come with wind and rain -

an owlet from the ruin calls

for wicked monks to sin again,

all cowled in deep satanic laws.

Now Jenny Witch will cross a throat

and blameless blood will stain her knife -

while from the wood, a shrieking stoat's

impatient for the tang of life -

And once the fire is burning low

and Jenny's in her lord's embrace,

the stoat’s abroad - for he must know

how spilled blood always leaves a trace.

Her filthy cauldron’s off the boil -

now stoat, be sly - let no one see,

and lick the gore from leaf and soil,

unhallowed though your supper be.

 

 

Low Sun

Waking up to violins of ice

as ferns and flowers splinter over glass

waking up to violins of ice

and penny whistles - rising from a dream

and many, many icicles are flutes -

inaudible then heard from hoarfrost eaves

waking up to violins of ice,

their scrapes of shadow reaching over fields - 

a sun to warm the bones is out of style

and even statues turn with puzzled faces,

because their time has frozen on the dial.

 

 

The Unknown God

  

We may have cause to be afraid 

Beyond the known meridians:

A scowling god with lips of jade,

With teeth of green obsidian.

Why set the sail for thunder’s isle,

For heat that smites the parrots low?

The unknown god may never smile

For all we know – for all we know

Volcanoes brood with guts of sun

And vomit on the vine and fern -

If there is spite where lavas run,

If Something seeks a man to burn.

 

 

The Transcendental Sea

 

He draws the blind – that record spins for me,

although the sound’s too low, for walls have ears.

I hear a choir – a transcendental sea,

but barely can I listen in my fears.  

Outside, the cries are frightening from the street –

from busted bars and girls with naked hands,

and there are shots and sounds of dragging feet –

quite normal, in these regulated lands.

Outside, the cries are frightening from the street,

but voices kiss in waves and bless the sun

and draw me to a circle so complete

I dream that grief and suffering are done.

My secret joy and God are not the same,

but where does one conclude, the other start?  

I only know, the murmuring tides of life

are bursting through the chambers of my heart.

 

Talisman

It's time to raise the Faerie Luck -

We'll mend it first with threads of blood,

That silken flag one touch might change.

We'll raise it with the bell and book

Then let the armies clash and die

And cap a fate that's cruel and strange -

For beldame stitches wild or plain

Are not the stuff that should remain -

Let towers fall as banners fly!

But let me keep a changeling's tear

And poems from a Bedlam's tongue

And beauty from his keening song -

Because the Dark is looming near.

Deaf like Goya

 

Beyond the garden wall, there’s blood, there’s violence -

no need to stick your fingers in your ears,

the dark unchains them all – both men and monsters

And you will hear them call, if you’re alert,

like Goya staring long at painted horrors

or painting foulest witches into silence.

Gary Bills was born at Wordsley, near Stourbridge. He took his first degree at Durham University, where he studied English, and he has subsequently worked as a journalist. He is fiction editor for Poetry on the Lake.

Gary gained his MA in Creative Writing at BCU, with a distinction.

He was nominated for a Pushcart Prize for his post-modernist epic poem, “Bredbeddle's Well”, which was published in Lothlorien in 2022, and he has been nominated for the Best of the Net awards, for his short story, “Country Burr”.

Gary's poetry has appeared in numerous publications, including The Guardian, Magma, HQ and Acumen, and he has had three full collections published, – “The Echo and the Breath” (Peterloo Poets, 2001); “The Ridiculous Nests of the Heart” (bluechrome, 2003); and “Laws for Honey” (erbacce 2020). In 2005, he edited “The Review of Contemporary Poetry”, for bluechrome.

His work has been translated in to German, Romanian and Italian. A US-based indie publisher, The Little French, published his first novel, “A Letter for Alice” in 2019, and a collection of stories, “Bizarre Fables”, in 2021. His second novel, "Sleep not my Wanton", came out in January 2022, and it is due out shortly as a Spanish language version.