The Chronicles Of Albion

This is the first part of an epic poem I am working on I call The Chronicles of Albion, and it concerns the awakening of King Arthur and how the Black Dragon that controls the Wasteland of present Britain is defeated.

This is the first part and concerns the awakening of Arthur ;

The Chronicles of Albion.

A single blood drop falls to earth,
From a tine of the sacred stag,
Scarlet stains the cruel snow,
The sacred hart is dead, evil rules.

The slaughter of the White Hart,
Is the crime that awakens the sleeper,
Vengeance is the Hunters Horn,
That blasts the sunless wasteland.

The first febrile ray of dawn, purple hued,
Arises empyreal from the glimmering east,
On golden wings afire, blazing bright,
That with sudden uncanny aim,
Pierces the slouching stygian gloom,
That lingers low upon the solstice morn,

Flashing fast as an arrow,
Fired from a mighty bow,
Wielded by harsh and vengeful hands ,
It flows aflame, coruscating,
Over hill and vale, forest and fell,
Winter cloaked in winnowing white,
The wolf bite of a hoar frost hard,
Settled deep within earths dark marrow,
Slathered by a screaming blizzard ,
Gripping beasts of storm and snow,
Tear at the sacred rock, a shadowed cave,
Upon the stricken Western face,
Of Lundy set amidst a sea of ice,
Where frozen waves crash in silence,
Upon the cracked and ice rimed rock,
And burning penetrates the dark veil,
That sighing surrenders to the blazing brand,
Enters the hand hewn catacomb,
Then alights afire upon that regal rock,
Where lies Arthur, the one true King,
Secure within Avalon’s stone sepulchre,
Surrounded by ragged stalagmites,
That sparkle with the ice of aeons,
His noble form still enclosed within,
A mighty suit of adamantine armour,
As hard as the scars of sorrows,
That mark his pale and lifeless skin,
Borne beneath the ruptured metal,
Of a King and Nation torn apart by civil war,
Hands clasped in prayer still,
The promise of eternal rebirth,
Whose crimson petals time cannot fade,
As red as the blood which once ran,
From his rented spear pierced side,
Dead but deathless, living but lifeless,
A seed long dormant awaiting Spring,
Seeking the sacred hour, now returning,
When the divine cycle begins again.
The aureate dart of flashing fire finds its mark,
And strikes the pommel of the sword Caliban,
That in its scabbard rests upon Arthur’s hip,
A ruby gem the size of an wrens egg,
Carved into the shape of a mystic heart,
Is set upon the mystic weapons stag horn hilt
Sending forth a myriad sparks that fly,
Exploding into a thousand shimmering shards,
That illume the caves interior with flames,
Ancient energies awaken, delicate
As a newborn babies pulse,
A tremor runs through the land,
The rocky spine of Albion shakes,
White cliffs fall in an avalanche of rock,
Ley lines long dormant come alive,
Mountains tremble and rivers quicken,
A high tide drowns the sandy shore, foaming red
Clocks stop, engines stall, street lights flicker,
Wheels within wheels cease to turn,
The city ceases its turmoil for a second,
As a butchers blade ceases cutting meat,
For the shepherd in the field is first to see,
Freedoms glory shining in his eyes,
As a pillar of fire entering heaven,
Lifting from the ice clagged channel,
Rainbows rising to sunder the darkness,
Infant children laying in their cribs,
Laugh with joy at the newly lifting light,
Slaves cease from their constant toil,
Chains sudden light upon their limbs,
Eyes bright at the sign of liberty and hope,
An eagle screams upon Snowdons peak,
It wings clatter as it flees the killers throne,
As a white hares watches it wheel away,
No more the harrying hunt will it fear,
Skylarks ascend as one and sing,
Rising from fields of broken stems,
Praising its passing with a simple hymn,
Flowers in the meadow, heads still low,
In the slow ebb of evenings flow,
Unfurl to sup its precious lucence,
Delighting in in its simple treasure,
As in a cell of bible black sorrows,
A priest shuts the book and weeps,
The smiling soldiers sheaths their swords,
No more to war will they need to go,
The printing presses hiss and splutter,
Their snarls of lies cease to conspire,
No more will freedom be burnt,
Upon treasons funeral pyres,
Serpents in their finery slither away,
The palace guards desert the gilded gates,
Of Parliament, King and Bishops,
As evil books begin to burn,
All those whose words of war,
Are writ with words of blood,
Consume their creatures that infect,
The young with the sepsis of sins,
Whose forked tongues delight in lies,
And whose hard hearts feast on hate,
As a flower grows from a grave,
Its petals pale as winter snow,
Finds its root in bones buried far below,
And unfurls upon the sacred earth,
Pollen ripe it groans anew with life
Its name is hope, the promise of liberty.

The dragon who is Arthur’s oldest foe,
Who has stalked Man since time began,
That wears the many masks of god and state,

Evolving new forms of hate aeon after aeon,
Screams with a fear, it has never felt before,
Its feels its power on the wane,
The red rock runs as blood along a vein,
Molten streams blistering black,

Fire venting from its gaping jaws,
Fear transformed into impotent fury,
For the burning books that define its power,
And form the myriad halls of its hells,
Are now blackened ashes in the wind,
As all around the scales of doom fall,
From the eyes of men who finally see,
The foul beast that lies beneath,
The empty prisons that they call home,
Tear free from its baleful illusions,
Sought by fools fed on gold and wine,
Whose deeds eternal condemn them,
Abasing themselves with rising terror,
Before the black dragon upon its throne,
That laughs like thunder at their crawling,
For they fear the judgement drawing near,
And seek sanctuary in it stinking pits,
The reeking ulcers upon its skin,
Wherein lies the promise of evil,
Lies and luxuries proffered for fools,
Laying bloody offerings before the beast,
Their unborn children, liberty and honour,
Their country and their kin,
Surrender themselves in abject obedience,
Kissing the bloody rough stone idols,
Of Marx and Smith, Science and Religion,
That seethe with locust swarms of lies,
As the ghosts of all their savage crimes,
Gather in a silent mass, fingers pointing,
To crowd their guilty minds.
The fallen wyrm gathers its flocks,
Spilling like maggots from a festering wound,
From all four corners of the country,
The lost legions of its wasteland,
The black mass of Albions mourning,
Marching in time to the machines that lead them,
Bound by choice at psychic birth,
The dragon, scorched and blind,
Feculent, faceless and finite,
Bloated by its crimes, its flesh rotted,
Its essence corrupt and profane,
Tightens its grasp, talons tautening,
Keeping its slaves in mental chains,
Of atoms, fear and orthodoxy,
Books of law, religion, science and materialism,
Are vomited faster from its foul red maw,
Rotting eggs gushed forth in reeking green
Pulsing obscene in their pale shells,
one for every one of us, bestial parasites,
A fetish for every fool to desire,
A false idol in our own cave, self delusions
Squirming putrid in their fragile chrysalis,
Awaiting the moment when to feast,
Upon the blood of those who love them most,
The acolytes of blind devotion,
Writhing vines of thorn appear and embrace the fools,
Slicing into their willing flesh, rivulets run,
Blood to feed the spawn, tiny mouths thirsting,
Lap malign with long ulcered tongues,
Upon the septic flesh of the fallen,
Their razor teeth stripping to the bare bone,
Stealing beauty from their bodies,
And etching woe and villainy upon their brows,
That mark of shame and treason,
That no crown or honourable wig can hide,
It is the mark of all that serve the beast,
Fears the freedom of the imagination,
The infinite vistas of the eternal soul,
That man alone now possesses,
Once wisdom tricked it from his lips,
And blew its breathe into Man,
To raise him high above all beasts,

fear settled as a withering frost,

in the Black Dragons cold heart.

The Fairies of Kinver Hill

I went for a walk in Kinver in Staffordshire over the weekend. I took the photograph here with my mobile phone, and noticed how the honeysuckle blossoms appeared to resemble fairies dancing in a ring.

As I walked through the hills I wrote the poem below about the summer and the forests.





The Fairies of Kinver Hill.



(1)

Low lay a sacred and gilding light,
Upon the Kinver hills that rose aglimmer,
A sheen of glorious summer heat,
That constant shifts and shimmers,
We walked in silence amidst the wonder,
As from far away came rumbles of thunder,
Then in a shaded glade we glimpsed Frey,
Singing softly as he made his way,
Through a haze as pale as dog rose petal,
Now wilted white upon withered hips,
So hit the iron hammers of the heat,
As hard upon the hour as upon an anvil,
For in the temple of effulgent June,
The sun strains hard upon its leash,
As the growling of a distant storm,
Can be heard slouching in the East.



(2)

The drifting scent of honeysuckle blossom,
Sweetens the slow meandering breeze,
That laps the rustling laughing fronds,
Of mighty humbled conifers that weep,
Tears of joy that fall as cones to earth,
Which furtive squirrels then swiftly reap,
As the fragile vines so tight entwine,
The shy kind of Albion now come alive,
Upon the woodbine between its stems ,
Where sweet nectar gathers within,
Their blooms a myriad magic elfin rings,
Where pale fairies in circles dance and sing,
As foxgloves shiver in the wisping wind,
Their purple petals chime, pealing bells,
Ringing out across the verdant vales,
Where Englands spirit still prevails.



(3)

The hollow hills upon which we step,
So ancient legends tell, forever hide,
The hallowed halls of Herne inside,
As rippling rocks of red, ebb and flow,
Torrents gushing forth from dusty loam,
Crash in waves of weathered stone,
Between bracken torrents florid green,
Where sun dappled islands rise and fall,
Amidst the sighing sloughing streams,
In the sanctum of Vidar's wooded glade,
Where winters cloak of snow once laid,
The commands of a high sun king now here,
Whose glory crowns the wheel of year,
Transforming the flowering forest shade,
Into Freya's mystical wedding train,
And summers blessed bridal gown.

The March Storm

This is a poem about the storm that hit on the 10th March 2008.

I was on holiday in Devon and wrote this poem about the storm and how climate change is forcing us to realise that Nature is hitting back .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7285859.stm



The March Storm.


It was a fearsome gale that drew us out of our room,
Swept us out of our warm bed and into the gloom,
Of a moonless March night as we carefully stepped,
Along that dark cliff path and onto Croyde beach,
Down a wave wracked path by a hissing peddle ridge,
Then a slip deadly descent on weed clagged steps,
To that long spit where the tide sweeps the land,
Set between Baggy Point cliffs and Saunton sands,
We lurched forward slowly before the pummelling foe,
Seeking shelter from the winds ever rising flow,
As storm front and high tide, now moon entwined,
Conjured a mizzling mist that masked the rocks,
Where unseen peaks had snagged drifting nets,
Of passing fishing boats in snarls of debt and disgrace,
Sending forth a sea spray that salted our lips.


We watched the dark waters rise and then usurp,
The works of men that in moments became absurd,
The hubris of harbour walls that cracked and fell,
Before the oceans sudden shuddering swell,
The sea defences breach and moorings snap,
The waves in triumph overcome the banks,
Boats rolled on their backs, then lay dead in the water,
As if the victims of some arcane slaughter,
Then street lamps on the shoreline like golden braid,
Began to flicker and flash and then finally fade,
Then the night rushed in to fill the sudden void,
And darken the windows of every house in Croyde.


Sandbags lay drowned upon the tide steeped steps,
of houses where only candles gave light and heat,
As families huddled afraid in their upstairs rooms,
Awaiting the savage verdict of natures slow doom,
Frightened horses in the fields slipped their halters,
Galloped through the surf and then back to safety,
Whilst from the dunes a dervish of drifting sand,
Scoured our eyes as it writhed along the shore,
A dark omen from the dunes set free upon the earth ,
An portent of the dangers that we all now endure.


Amid the constant crash and roar of the wrecker waters,
We watched the cruel work of Rans nine daughters,
Who gathered like ravens on the rocks to feast,
Upon drowned mariners, the lost souls of broken fleets,
As that wild witch of the waves in a drunken rage,
Gorged on the tawny tide of her husband Aegirs mead,
Her bloated belly filled with broken bones,
The wind screamed and her victims moaned,
As through a scrying glass we saw the future reflected,
And a mighty tidal wave gather in the far distance,
Preparing to sweep away all our petty delusions,
And drown all our crimes with its final judgement.

As Tyr sought to fetter Fenris the wolf, we too have failed,
To bind the jaws of nature in our chains of science,
To exert control over the wild and over ourselves,
So it will return as it must return, but worse than before,
To wreak its vengeance, and demand the cost Man abhors,
And unleash that crimson beast of mocking Nemesis,
Revenge for every wrong against Nature we have inflicted,
To wreck the dreams of men and drown their goals,
And scatter the broken bones of fragile delusion,
Upon the bloody rocks of inevitable consequence.

For none may seek to turn that tide with wishes,
It seeks a prize of its own that we call vicious,
And seeks profit from our misery and riches in our loss,
To crucify us all as criminals upon our golden cross,
For that is the toll imposed upon us for our sins,
The tipping point where the rocks of reality impinge,
For we reap the harvest that we have sown ourselves,
And build with delusions the walls of our own prison cells,
So as to create for ourselves that certain hell,
Where only pale spirits forever in misery will dwell.

The White Hart and the Wolf

This is a poem about the killing of the sacred White Hart, the Guardian of the Land of Albion and how the spirits of Albion will have their vengeance.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-490058/Outrage-poachers-shoot-behead-Britains-white-stag.html

The White Hart and the Wolf

Arianrhod in her celestial castle amidst the stars, sheds fiery tears,
That sudden sear the dark, slipping silently into the void,
Their pale silvern fronds flashing forth, linger for a second,
Upon the velvet face of eternity, then slip swiftly into the night.

Across a mourning moon run white hounds of mystery, scudding clouds
That howl in ravening rage around her, for the wild hunt rides,
Furious hail spits forth from red maws, wind snarling squalls,
Wolf packs clashing as a hoar frost bites hard upon the earth.

Slathering snow seeks to hide the shame of men, to mask the crime
As a horned owl in the wild wood, ancient guardian of the gateway,
Seeks sanctuary within the haunted hollow of Hernes old oak,
Where a doorway to the dark side of the moon awaits, ever open.

The lips of a dead man move again at midnight, whispering leaves
Muttering in the sluagh sídhe tongue of the Otherworld,
as the wind twisted rope creaks around the neck of the White Hart,
The gods of night gather in fear around the Northern Crown.

Gather the ancient Sidhe from their sacred vaults of the dead,
Anger growing at this crime, the old gods conspire vengeance,
As between the branches of the scarlet yew, blood drips,
And the sun as black as sackcloth, sets between its icy tines.

The sun slips as a withered ivy leaf, into a womb made barren,
Then fades into the shadows and night rises forth,
As a black wildcat laps at the still steaming blood,
That forms a scralet puddle between the sodden roots.

Midnight shall see a dark reed dipped in blood, three days hence
When Herne the ristir of the runes carves an ancient curse
Thrice upon the rotted roots of yew, in the shadow side of the sun,
From vengeance sacred groves, a ghost rises from the grave.

The bees are husks in their hives, the honey as bitter as salt,
Whilst in the willows three sisters haunt the sacred glade,
communing with the ghosts of ancient druids, rasping ravens
foretell the wolf with talons, rank with the flesh of dead men.