.
In a costume of conflicting emotion,
of crossing diamondic colour,
with regal posture in grief,
the Harlequin and the King,
a display of opposites
creating a composite being,
that eases her body
gently into the waiting water,
to float away serene,
on her journey to the nether.

Midnight blue and emerald green,
the regalia of ermine,
both ostentatious and humble,
robeing the aspects,
understated in crowning splendour,
the gentleman King bows,
and the Harlequin laughs,
the bi-polar reaction
to the tragedy of misfortune,
with a sting in the myth-tale.

With the dark hues of mourning,
a legend passes on her way,
across the streams of time,
on a voyage to discover herself,
carrying her Harlequin in a purse,
holding her King to her breast,
owning them both in her heart,
the medicine wheel spins,
knowing the grapes of wrath
yield the wine of spite.

The motley speckles of attire,
a starry parody of night skies,
lighting the decorated funeral barge,
gliding along the rivers of space,
worn with the mantle of sorrow,
and it sails into the sunset,
as the Harlequin and King observe,
the mandala turns,
the bier of the Queen departing,
bears their sadness forth.

The Harlequin laughs and laughs 'til he cries,
his heart grows cold, then withers and dies,
whilst the King, statuesque, memoirs his life,
lamenting the legend of a Queen, his wife.



© Pagan Paul (24/07/18)

AROUND me the images of thirty years:
An ambush; pilgrims at the water-side;
Casement upon trial, half hidden by the bars,
Guarded; Griffith staring in hysterical pride;
Kevin O'Higgins' countenance that wears
A gentle questioning look that cannot hide
A soul incapable of remorse or rest;
A revolutionary soldier kneeling to be blessed;
An Abbot or Archbishop with an upraised hand
Blessing the Tricolour.  "This is not,' I say,
"The dead Ireland of my youth, but an Ireland
The poets have imagined, terrible and gay.'
Before a woman's portrait suddenly I stand,
Beautiful and gentle in her Venetian way.
I met her all but fifty years ago
For twenty minutes in some studio.

III
Heart-smitten with emotion I Sink down,
My heart recovering with covered eyes;
Wherever I had looked I had looked upon
My permanent or impermanent images:
Augusta Gregory's son; her sister's son,
Hugh Lane, "onlie begetter' of all these;
Hazel Lavery living and dying, that tale
As though some ballad-singer had sung it all;
Mancini's portrait of Augusta Gregory,
"Greatest since Rembrandt,' according to John Synge;
A great ebullient portrait certainly;
But where is the brush that could show anything
Of all that pride and that humility?
And I am in despair that time may bring
Approved patterns of women or of men
But not that selfsame excellence again.
My mediaeval knees lack health until they bend,
But in that woman, in that household where
Honour had lived so long, all lacking found.
Childless I thought, "My children may find here
Deep-rooted things,' but never foresaw its end,
And now that end has come I have not wept;
No fox can foul the lair the badger swept --

VI
(An image out of Spenser and the common tongue).
John Synge, I and Augusta Gregory, thought
All that we did, all that we said or sang
Must come from contact with the soil, from that
Contact everything Antaeus-like grew strong.
We three alone in modern times had brought
Everything down to that sole test again,
Dream of the noble and the beggar-man.

VII
And here's John Synge himself, that rooted man,
"Forgetting human words,' a grave deep face.
You that would judge me, do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends' portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland's history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man's glory most begins and ends,
And say my glory was I had such friends.

Dear vanity,
I don't mean to sound offensive,
But I really don't have time for you.
I struggle to make time for all the whims and worries you wear down upon my weary body,
The lies you tell, the lies you sing,
Oh this will only take a second,
Oh you have a curl out of place.
I have other things I am enslaved to that I must serve besides you.
Oh vanity, why do you continually haunt me?
You twist me up in your lies, twisting and wrapping and binding and tying me up in your lies so tight I can hardly move.
You say it'll make me have friends,
But we've already been down that bend.
For you oh vanity
Do I squirm and writhe as someone plucks out my hairs one by one like a mediaeval torture device.
For you oh vanity
Do I crinkle my nose as I pinch a blemish on my skin.
For you oh vanity do I trim my hair the way you like it so I can be in style
For you oh vanity do I wear a smile
So dear vanity,
I don't mean to be offensive
But I really don't have time for you.

I've come to see Saint Christopher,
a cult local celebrity -
commanding, remote, bearing
the burden of pious prayers,
a chip from Cheshire's sandstone lip -
to hitch a lift on his shoulders
into Norton priory's past.

Gingerly touching sandstone walls,
connecting with their history,
rough grains adhere to my hand.
I somehow feel part of it now,
watching mediaeval hoodies
as they celebrate the spilling
of some ancient sacred blood.

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com  
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                                             The Mediaeval Project

Let us progress to the Middle Ages
Those centuries that anchor us in love
Oh, yes, we’ll take along our antibiotics
Our printing presses, eyeglasses, and pocketknives

But we will progress to a living world
Of well-tended fields and chapels of ease
The daily mysteries of the Rosary
Following the mysteries of the plough

Let us progress to the Middle Ages
Each life a Word written on sunlit pages

What is poetry
Is that even a question
Poetry!
Marvellous words design in lines
Transform into verses
It gave birth to sonnet
It comes in lyric
Of beautiful rhyme
Serving as rhythm in melody

Poetry, as old as man
Formed  from the Mediaeval times
Down Neoclassical
My dear, it's Romance
Coming from Elizabethan era
Formed a modern movement
Something so beautiful
Beautiful to a fault, it's called poetry

Ask my fathers what poetry means.
To Thomas Watts it's a way of love
Butter Yaests  paths way for activism
Grace gives strength to recommendation
Ojiade fights corruption
Pope graces  Cesar
Osadibe makes appeal
And it a way of life in lines

What is poetry, you ask?
It is a way of redemption
Scribbled down, it's description
A map of direction
Given as recommendation
To a vast way of calculation

Ask a chemist, and he says what on earth is not chemistry
A physician says life is based on assumption
Psychology say man is nature
ichthyologists sees the beautiful aquaculture
A teacher sees the best methodology
Historian gives tells great mythology
Which gives ride to sociology
Yet poetry is nature.  

Bellah

Saying that final goodbye to a loved one,
it’s always been poignant and sad…
But recently it’s joined the online,
the surreal… the quite mad!
The scrolling photo’s on the crematorium wall
have always been more suited to the social media bag
than what, until the digital age,  had a more…
mediaeval...churchy, tag.
Cheers and farewell to Gran, Sis, Bro, Cuzz, Mum or Dad
can now be done without anything at all being said…
Or even, if you’re just a friend or a really distant relative,
long haul, away, abroad... or, just sitting up in bed!

Lawrence Hall, HSG
Mhall46184@aol.com


                             Colin Cloute on the First of January

                     And now is come thy wynters stormy state,
                     Thy mantle mard, wherein thou maskedst late

          -Spenser, The Shepheardes Calender, “Januarye,” 23-25

The calendar year is advertised as new
But the slanting, yellowing sun is old
Almost weepy-eyed, exhausted, and weak
Beyond the icy cirrhus clouds of dusk

In a few weeks I will turn over the garden soil
A mediaeval ploughman with his electric tiller
Following the ancient seasons of the English year
Anticipating Lent and Eastertide

For now, the fireside and a comforting page
And a cuppa for warming the bones of age