Circuits to Illium

Circuits to Illium

Odysseus, again plans a campaign
And facing him a world of wine dark seas
While some other Hector, constant in desire
Strides Sedd-El-Bahr, aligning paths of fire.

The battle ground has moved across the straits
A blink for Gods - eternity for men
And still we go, marching down the days
Dictated by destiny's strange ways.

Whose was the face that launched these ships?
What trophy, dancing like mirage
Demanded war? Nothing ever changes
But means of death from too familiar strangers.

Now Agammemnon leads the ANZAC Corps
With bold Achilles, fresh from Castlemaine
Fighting as they've never fought before
New players don the robes of 'Men at War'.

(c) Laurie Neill.

Seasons of the Witch

She'll pause and listen, in the hills
To sounds the seasons make.
The plaintive wind - the night-jar
The roebuck in the brake.
She gossamers the forest's face
Caressing fur and pine.
The squirrel licks her nut-brown flesh.
Her hair is dandelion.

She is the moon-dance in the glade,
Miasma on the fen.
The wilding of the wilderness
The glow-worm in the glen.
She is the shriek across the marsh
She is the midnight moan
Of salt wind clubbing chappel walls
And ancient standing stones.

And in the smoke of Autumn's stacks
With sheaves about her feet
She thrusts aloft the final 'neck'
The harvest is complete
From Hallowe'en to Beltane Night
'Round fires fuelled with pitch.
There are those who still observe
The Seasons of the Witch.
(c) Laurie Neill

A burning Wicker Man.

Huron 'Beltane' Fire Dance - Loreena McKennitt
Listen to the song and then buy the album at Loreena McKennitt's Official Website

Night Wind

Night Wind

The night wind is coming
surfing through street lamps
snapping the strings of dark Jasmine
and it breaks with the roar of the sea.

It comes flailing
yelping at the stars
whirling - a danse macabre -
along each empty street.

No honey-wind, the night wind
a cruel, demonic wind
a scalpel to thin your soul away
and then die raving
disembowelled inside a drain-pipe.

(c) Laurence Neill, 1980

Celtic Fire

Welcome

Hello my name is Laurence Neill, here in my blog I will be posting a selection of my published poems, writings and songs. Here is the first in my selection, "May Bush".

Apollo lusted after the nymph Daphne, she fled and to avoid his advances changed herself into a tree.

May Bush

Wind your leaves about her hair

Shield her from all men.

Let the blood of your sweet bark

Mummify her skin.

And tho they search thru winter

Thru thicket, brake and thorn

The lady in the rowan hides

And waits to be reborn.

(C) Laurence Neill, 1978