Time Traveller
March 31, 2016
A poetry collection inspired by Celtic myth, the changing tides of life, and a love of the natural world and concern over our ecological legacy.
Read extract at https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MEFLS5W
The Time Traveller who gives expression to the spirit of poetry speaks in a myriad voices – ageless, androgynous, relentless, journeying through millennia and across continents, witnessing the world in all its beauty and savagery…..
I am a stranger,
who has travelled far.
My cloak is ragged,
my face a shadow.
I have no name.
There’s no place I call home.
But if you will listen to my story,
I can repay your hospitality.
I was old
when the world was young.
When I speak,
the spirits of the ancestors
dance upon my tongue.
In the Dreamtime,
I woke from fever’s delirium,
and shaped words around my visions.
Built them, phrase by phrase,
into a temple of tale:
the first to be told.
Curious,
my kin drew near,
and, listening,
saw galaxies spin
from my mind to theirs,
heard the roar of fire,
the crack of ice,
watched serpents rise
from fathomless oceans,
as mighty gods wove
the seasons of creation.
I gave voice to
the harmony of the skies,
the riddle the river recites,
the greeting of dawn,
the story-spell of the earth
as it turns.
Seeing the wildness of my heart, the madness in my eye,
the tribe set me apart:
marked by the gods,
torn between worlds.
To myself unknown,
in the sacred caves,
three nights, I watched alone,
watched until rock dissolved,
and spirits came to me
from beyond the threshold:
bison and deer, wolf and bear.
I honoured them,
for their sacrifice
on the hunting grounds.
With umber and ochre,
I painted their forms,
to roam free across the rock-face,
unchanging throughout the ages.
In frozen wastes,
their fur on our backs,
beneath summer’s moon and sun,
I told the tribe of animal wisdom,
of man and beast as one.
I learnt the magic of the word
to unbind the soul,
to mould new worlds.
My tale, my verse,
is medicine,
healing or weapon,
and I am called
to tread the endless road,
to gather about me
all who will listen.
From circles of stone,
across vast, black skies
I watched constellations rise and set.
In spirit I journeyed
the white celestial path,
and drew the star-story
down to earth –
to circles of humanity.
Building walls of wood,
we set down roots,
tamed the herds,
that once we followed,
marked the seasons
by seed-time and harvest.
New gods spoke with me:
teachers who taught
how to sow and reap,
the goddess who took our seed
into her body.
Her consorts of corn and grain
loved her and died
in my tales of sacrifice.
I am the memory,
the chain of blood and ancestry.
The names of the grandmothers
and grandfathers
are the links that bind us.
In dark, silent groves,
three moon tides I watched alone.
With my drum, I chanted,
until the spirits came to me:
oak and beech,
yew and holly.
I honoured them
for their sacrifice.
And in the huts,
around the fires,
of their wood-gift,
I told the tribe
of tree wisdom,
the dryad story,
the faery healing of leaf and berry,
of forest and humanity
in harmony.
I journeyed on.
Long seasons of the sun
I dwelt amongst mountains.
Fasted ‘til the spirits came to me:
gem and crystal,
ore and mineral.
I honoured them,
and honoured the earth
for her sacrifice:
the treasures brought forth
from her belly,
transformed by alchemy
to things of use and beauty:
bright gold and copper,
and iron’s power.
At the mead-feast,
I recited,
honoured before all,
beside chieftains and heroes,
for without me
who would recall
their deeds and their glory?
Rewards piled at my feet,
for tales and verse
of blood, of the sword,
of victory granted by gods or war.
Epic and saga, the treasures
of my word-hoard.
And walls and palisades grew higher,
bounding settlements,
encircling hills.
Stone by stone,
fortresses rose against the sky,
dividing man from man,
scarring the land.
I wear my flesh lightly.
Every colour, every creed –
the spirit of poetry knows no division.
Through the music of a thousand tongues,
it finds expression.
I wandered empire and city,
the marble-pillared forests
of wise kings and tyrants,
recited their rise and their fall,
satirized dead symbols
scratched on parchment scrolls.
From desert kingdom
to granite island,
my tales are the footprints
I leave behind.
Poet, troubadour, story-bearer,
I have carried legends of chivalry,
watched in vigil,
learnt the truth of the Holy Grail.
Beyond crusader castle walls,
I followed inspiration
down ancient tracks,
across barren moor,
traded tale with vagrant and villager
in tavern and port,
held the frayed threads
of myth together,
weaving the past
into the future.
In sulphurous citadels,
ruled by masters of coal and steel,
the din of cogs and wheels
drowned my voice,
smoke-stack breath dimmed the stars.
From pit and foundry,
slum and shanty town,
I cried out to the spirits.
They did not come to me.
I cried out to the gods.
The roar of the city replied.
I cried louder,
louder still,
and the voices of the ancestors,
the elementals, the land,
were raised in unity.
I have been called
revolutionary, drifter, dreamer.
But still the people are drawn to me,
for I speak what they feel,
but dare not say,
ease their pain.
I am the servant of speech,
the dust of all lands upon my feet.
While humanity lives,
I live, to bear witness.
I have seen the seas rise,
heard the crack of ice,
felt the earth shudder,
as man strives for divine power;
seen the shifting patterns,
the massed tribes,
the weapons of Titans.
My words are the bloodless fight.
I recite on the knife edge,
on life’s edge,
taking the fast lane
as time accelerates.
Virtual, actual,
making my way
between order and chaos.
On the outskirts
of some anonymous town,
I stopped. Waited.
‘til the spirit of mankind came to me.
And, gazing at the Wasteland,
I asked, ‘Why?’
Mourned the sacrifice.
And through the cracks in paved streets,
through the cracks of time,
I saw a glimmer of green,
a vision of forest and plain,
of man and land in harmony.
And I spoke what I saw
into the story of life.
A blessing on you,
for listening to a stranger
who has travelled far,
and who travels still.
