"orkney" poems
this drinking hall
full of valour
awaits
the warlock
who talks
like a witch
casts evil
intent
with malice
but we
the few
armed
armed
with a cross
Cross of God
will drink
To Odin
And Christ
Apr 22, 2014
Apr 22, 2014 at 9:25 PM UTC
you want pretty pictures?
i want ugly.
i don't mean i want to be ugly, or that
i want a woman which is ugly,
or that you are, or that i am.
i just want that sick sad truth
told by lies. it can only be told by lies.
because the truth is what you leave out;
those whispers, little insignificant
details you "forgot" to mention;
those colours and smells that burn the
back of your brain, the shapes and sizes and
faces and flavors you savor and
forget as a favor
to yourself. the truth is that we want the
best, but never give our best,
you can't accept embarrassment
so it's denial, which tastes somewhat
sweeter.
so does scotch from orkney.
i write a lot, and get tired of sharing
because you must get tired of reading
about a drunk punk with
motionless ideas
who questions himself
and you
and your motives
and the everything in between;
craving solidarity, craving connection,
craving clarity,
craving does nothing until you sleep it off,
wake the godfuck up, and open your skull
to today.
therefore i sleep some more,
you turn the page,
and the globe
fits like
a glove.
Dec 22, 2011
Dec 22, 2011 at 11:42 PM UTC
Magnus sat in the ship
reciting psalms
arrows flying about
Magnus shipmates
thought Magnus
mad
Magnus stated he had no quarrel
And years later on the Orkneys
Magnus bowed his head
to his
Master of Peace.
Mar 23, 2014
Mar 23, 2014 at 8:46 PM UTC
Fire and poetry went hand in hand
with beer and feasting
in the great halls of Viking long winters
And now the winters are still cold and long
in Orkney, burial place of Viking saints and warriors.
Oct 4, 2015
Oct 4, 2015 at 1:13 PM UTC
16th April
Feast of St Magnus
Earl of Orkney
Martyred
Saint of our Isles
Apr 15, 2014
Apr 15, 2014 at 11:00 AM UTC
Cold
Streaked orange
blue outer
space
single
diamond
Mar 12, 2014
Mar 12, 2014 at 2:03 AM UTC
Riding the cusp of Summers solstice
around the Ring of Brodgar
where ancient hands set a stone circle
we hold hands and dance
Summers wild flowers in turf and hair
the colours of what the Earth brings forth
beautiful fragility for a season
and we children of the soil and stone
ride the cusp of Summers longest day.
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 7:55 AM UTC
The sounds of monks chanting the hours in latin
weave their way to heaven
and their answered grace lays softly
all over our small archipelago
Small islands in the desert of the surrounding seas
a haven from the World
the oasis within the oasis of hearts, waiting for the Master to return.
Apr 10, 2016
Apr 10, 2016 at 10:56 AM UTC
We all meet within the circle of the Sun
our ancestors bearing witness to our thoughts;
and you can see our circle today
The Stone Ring of dancing
Winter and Summer solstice
all the feasting and song
Welcome traveller and stranger
be at peace, you came to the right place
Sep 16, 2015
Sep 16, 2015 at 4:50 PM UTC
It was a warm sunny day.
The sun like a warm breast,
Soft against my cheek.
There was a fantastic mackerel sky
painting the blue.
The mountains were golden
Like eagles wings.
I walked by the hum of the river
And thought of you and I.
As I walked, the sun made love
Through the trees.
I remembered the touch of your hand
As I held it in mine....
I remembered our kiss whilst walking
Through the whiskey ambered leaves
That made the sound of dancing lips.
The smell of steaks in passageways
Came from the graveyard of white
Caravans along the riverbank.
The sweet tobacco-like fragrance
Of peat filtered about the Old Bridge Of Tilt;
made me think of summer holidays
When I was a young lad in Orkney.
I could have written a sonnet
Of birdsong for you;
The songs of thrushes.
Timeless and always sweet
You come to my mind.
The day was wonderful but I wished
That I had spent it just one
More time with you.
©Jack Aylward,
18/4/14
Aug 4, 2015
Aug 4, 2015 at 6:20 PM UTC
Here, the Orkney Islands are wracked by unstoppable winds
like all small archipelagos, at the mercy of great sea distances
unbroken natural forces vast in their cumulative strengths.
But that is the holidaymaker, tourist, toe in the water folk
who come and go, come and go, to experience and send home postcards
bemoaning the wind , if only they knew the Islands true heart
like us resident Orcadians, new, and old, they would forget the wind as the wind often will not blow, and stay until their bones are buried with the forgetting of the outside World.
Jan 7, 2017
Jan 7, 2017 at 3:18 PM UTC
Tomorrow would be the Feast Of St Magnus, Viking Earl Of Orkney, martyred in the eleventh century, his bones sealed up in one of the pillars of the Cathedral bearing his name.
He is very special to me and I ask his intervention daily, answers have come in the most unexpected of ways.
Tomorrow being the celebration of Easter, of course St Magnus takes a back seat so to speak. But if anyone reading this has a mind to ask intercession of Saints, I commend St Magnus to you.
Apr 15, 2017
Apr 15, 2017 at 2:12 PM UTC
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Sep 12, 2019
Sep 12, 2019 at 3:24 AM UTC
Where have you found your Orkney?
Where do you find you're centered?
Where would you say your true self is?
Where can you best be remembered?
Is it in a familiar voice?
Is it in a sound?
Is it in a childhood smell
or is it more place-bound?
Is it when you're free to dance
or when you get up to sing?
When you pick up a favourite pen
and your mind has taken wing?
Is it as you walk or stroll
or in the pace of a run?
Is it when you find your chill
or when you're having fun?
Is it when you're home alone
or when you're there with others?
Is it found when standing solo
or within greater numbers?
Where is your Orkney?
Where are you centred?
Wherever it is you're true self is -
go there and remember.
Aug 23, 2019
Aug 23, 2019 at 8:00 AM UTC
Incomer and native,
crowned princes of Orkney arts,
the two communed together
with wind, wave and wilderness.
Their works kindled many hearts
conjured festivals of Island
arts, tragic St. Magnus Opera,
Fairwell to Stromness, poetry,
newsprint and novels.
George Mackay Brown's words,
Peter Maxwell Davies' music,
they left us their works,
left wind, wave and wilderness.
Dec 4, 2019
Dec 4, 2019 at 5:58 AM UTC
Two brothers at arms length, both
earls of Orkney. Internecine
feud, inherited condition
or consequence of tradition.
Magnus sacrificed himself
to Haakon's axe man, saviour
of Orkney from civil war.
The memorial Cathedral of
St. Magnus, built by Earl Ragnvald,
tribute to his uncle's martyrdom
inspires the Bay of Kirkwall.
Within a pillar south of the ***** screen,
above head height and easily missed
was laid a block of lighter stone,
inscribed with a cross that guards the bones
of St. Magnus, focus of the pilgrim's dream.
Jul 31, 2019
Jul 31, 2019 at 6:24 AM UTC