Uploads from Giles C. Watson, with geodata

The Kore Ignores the Deeds of Artemis

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Sat, 11 May 2013 11:42:53 -0700

The Kore Ignores the Deeds of Artemis

I'm supposed to stand impassive
while the arch-eyed Artemis wades
in with shins thick as cedars, stops
the gobs of her horn-eared dogs
with giants' heads. I have averted
my gaze for centuries, as stone sweat
drips from big-men's armipts when
the canines sink into their brains,
and as if by reflex, their index
fingers gouge out eyes. My mouth
is stretched into the most artificial
grin I can muster, my hair done
in braids, my nipples perpetually
raised beneath the muslin-alabaster -
and my arm, knocked off long ago
by some clumsy jobsworth, still
proffers an invisible hare. I do it
by staring without pupils, so I
cannot see the moon. Last night,

I dared to look - and as the giants die,
a bead of blood runs down my inner thigh.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013. Inspired by a fortuitous juxtaposition in the Cast Gallery at the Ashmolean Museum: a group of Korai (women depicted in the height of late-archaic fashion, with brightly-painted clothes, holding out offerings of small animals) from the Athenian Acropolis, stand opposite an extraordinarily visceral cast from the Great Altar at Pergamon, depicting the battle between the Giants and the Gods.

The Pure in Heart

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 11:29:14 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

The Pure in Heart

The pure in heart show it by that look
of complete dependence, with upcast eyes seeking
assurance from the great arbitrator of fate
and bestower of bones. The pure in heart quake
at the slightest glimpse of anger, take others' sins
upon themselves, and only steal from bins
because they hate to waste discarded trimmings.
The pure in heart will stay, if you train them.
The pure in heart wear bells and collars, feign
delight. The pure in heart, put out at night,
are relatively patient, spend their leisure
meekly marking trees. The pure in heart
appease, widdle, wheedle on their knees.

The pure in heart looks upward - and she sees.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013. The picture shows a detail from a wool-merchant's memorial brass at Northleach Church, Gloucestershire.

The Merciful

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 23:02:10 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

The Merciful

She could strain it through a stocking
as though she were making jelly out of
rosehips: all those troublesome hairs
need not get between her teeth; the little
sympathies that really give her the pip.
She will turn her lip in a dimpled smirk
of impatience, squeeze out the homogenous
pink jollop in measured doses. The smell
of rendered mercy fills her kitchen; its
cloying residue solidifies on the lips
of pots, drips down the outsides of jars,
congealed by a certain cold precision.

So her sweetness, all too keen to bless,
Attracts bright wasps of obsequiousness.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013. The picture shows a detail from a memorial brass in Northleach church, Gloucestershire: wife of Thomas Adynet, a wool merchant; early 15th century.

They which do hunger and thirst

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:33:48 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

They which do hunger and thirst

I could really get my teeth into righteousness,
as into a hunk of freshly risen bread - could drink
deeply of its lifeblood - were it not for that old
weevil, self, spoiling the whole repast. Watch
closely how it channers through those yeasty holes
in the still-warm body of the loaf, half-blindly
awaiting its own metamorphosis into a black beetle.
No doubt it leaves a trail of bran-coloured dung
on which I could choke. No, I am not righteous -
nor would I have it conferred on me by grace, faith
or any other substitute for a wholesome meal.
The grub will find the centre, and drown in blood.

Love, lust, covetousness, desire: do your worst.
At least I'll live: I'll hunger and I'll thirst.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013. The picture shows a detail of a memorial brass in Northleach church, Gloucestershire, depicting Thomas Adynet, early 15th century.

They toil not, neither do they spin...

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 23:21:03 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

They toil not, neither do they spin...

... yet the lilies upstage Solomon
in a lungful of scent, and pollen
clagging on the ends of anthers,
the stigmas dangling like clappers,
petals peppered with a spectrum
of lusts: a scattering of gametes
blown by angels. There is an entire
architecture of sunlight, singing
psalms through the cellulose,
glancing off architraves, describing
gothic arches through symmentries
of plant-tissue and stone. The light

is wanton, voluptuous; lilies vex
the prudish with their gift of sex.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013. Inspired by a flower-arrangement in Northleach church, Gloucestershire.

Wild Words at the Grave of Dafydd ap Gwilym

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:36:50 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Wild Words at the Grave of Dafydd ap Gwilym...

...Who slept on the slope of Cadair Idris, and woke up neither dead nor mad;
Who rhymed until all the tongues had wound themselves three times round the room;
Whose harp was a loom; whose fingers were the fast-moving shuttle of joyousness and praise;
Who tangled Rhys Meigen with a mile-long lash of satire, stunned him with blunt metaphors, slit his throat with word-scythes;
Who gave thanks for gloves, and blackbirds, and the sidelong-glances of girls;
Who demolished walls with a sigh of assonance;

Who made messengers of the mistlethrush, songthrush, woodcock, seagull, titmouse, trout and glaze-eyed salmon;
Who kissed them as he charmed them, praised them as he tamed them, blessed them as he sent them;
Who harnessed the wind to his trade, swore by the light of stars, cursed the ice, did battle with brambles and with geese, poured out spite at clocks and crows;

Who made castles out of broom and serried their battlements with hawthorn and with sloes;
Who built naves out of branches, consecrated seeds of elms, took his communion at mountain springs with roe-deer and with swans;
Who saw bird-servers and choristers in the branches, singing praise to Mair and Dwynwen;
Who watered bowers with tears, breathed sunlight on the sprigs, powdered girls with pollen and spores of bracken;
Who hid there from heat and from husbands, held hands with Morfudd in the shadows, strung out her hair to shame the sun;
Who waited there for Dyddgu and was disappointed;

Who had the nuns, set his sights on the abbess;
Who arraigned his own penis in lawsuits;
Who was distracted in the cathedral;
Who made trouble in a tavern;
Who wore peacock-garlands on his arm;
Who left a trail of cuckolds;
Who gouged a furrow from Basaleg to Ystrad Fflur;
Who licked out half of Llanbadarn;

Who recanted his trade in perfect englynion;
Who caught plague as he had contracted love;
Who was the grief of Morfudd, Dyddgu and of nuns;
Who caused birds to weep tears;
Who made the fallow deer hang his antlers;
Who gave the cuckoo no answer;
Who became a yew tree;
Who sheds needles and berries;
Who grows hollow at his heart;
Whose bark is red, whose harp was glad;
Who slept on the slope of Cadair Idris;
Who woke up neither dead nor mad.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013. With apologies to Dylan Thomas and Allen Ginsberg. The Triads attest that anyone who sleeps on the slopes of Cadair Idris will be either dead, mad or a poet by morning. A long-standing tradition has it that Dafydd died of the plague, and was buried beneath the yew in the churchyard adjoining Ystrad Fflur (Strata Florida) Abbey.

On the rocks beyond Gwbert...

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:07:41 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

An old song lyric (part of a series of songs which we wrote under the inspiration of Eirwen Jones's marvellous little book, Folk Tales of Wales) with new images of the place itself.

Hywel and the Mermaid
Words by Giles Watson. Music by Kathryn Wheeler.

On the rocks beyond Gwbert where white seagulls fly,
With nothing before him but grey sea and sky,
Sat Hywel the fisherman, whistling a tune,
Whiling away a quiet afternoon.

He cast his blue eyes o’er the deep, swelling sea,
And watched the birds wheel, unfettered and free.
He looked down the shoreline, and she caught his eye:
A soft-singing mermaid, sitting nearby.

Her voice was like waves lapping pools in the sand,
Her tresses were long, with a comb in her hand,
And shellfish and sea-stars clung to her hair.
“I’ll take her home with me,” cried Hywel, “I swear!”

He carried her bodily back to his shack,
And Modlen the mermaid wept, “Sir, take me back!”
But he took her inside and he bolted the door;
She wept and she sobbed on the fisherman’s floor.

But Hywel’s friend Maredudd frowned when he heard,
Dark was his countenance; stern was his word:
“When a man takes a mermaid to be his fair bride
The end’s always tragedy - let her go at high tide

She’ll cast a spell on you; you must let her go!”
But he kept her his captive ‘til rain turned to snow,
And she pleaded, “Dear Hywel, take me back to the sea,
And I’ll warn of all danger, and watch over thee.”

In the surf then he waded, Modlen in his arms;
The shells in her hair like trinkets and charms.
Her hand trailed in water; her tail threshed the foam;
She slipped from his arms and swam back to her home.

One day Hywel’s fishing, he’s wiping his brow,
When Modlen appears at the end of the prow;
Crabs scuttle about as they fall from her hair;
The look in her eyes tells him, “Hywel, beware!”

“Hywel, Hywel!
Draw in your net!
Hywel, Hywel!”
Her hair’s lank and wet!
“Hywel, Hywel!”
Her eyes stare with fear
“Hywel! Hywel!
For danger is near!”

“Hywel, Hywel!”
Yet calm is the sea.
“Hywel! Hywel!
O hearken to me!
Hywel! Hywel!
The winds may be calm,
Hywel! Hywel!
Yet you’ll come to harm!”

“Hywel! Hywel!”
He hauls on the ropes,
“Hywel! Hywel!”
And for the oars gropes.
“Hywel! Hywel!”
For the shore does he steer.
“Hywel! Hywel!”
Other fishermen jeer.

“Hywel! Hywel!”
She touches his hand.
“Hywel! Hywel!”
As his boat reaches land.
“Hywel! Hywel!”
The mighty clouds form.
“Hywel! Hywel!”
The oncoming storm.

Bewildered then Hywel stood on the shore,
Beholding the lightning with wonder and awe:
Capsized the boats and their owners all drowned,
And gone the sweet woman with sea-creatures crowned.

“To Modlen the mermaid, whom I took for wife,
Do I owe my repentance, my love and my life.”
He turned for his home, weatherbeaten and cold,
Now no one will ever his mermaid behold.

Source: Welsh folk-tale, from Eirwen Jones, Folk Tales of Wales, London, 1947, pp. 94-97.

Raven

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Sun, 07 Apr 2013 04:32:00 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Raven

I look down on a raven
In flight above a sea
So still there is no reason
For fear in her or me.

The raven knows of nothing
This moment, but of flight
And air and wind and breathing
And joys of warmth and light,

And though I'm tired of loving
And my own light gutters out
And my heart is torn for leaving
And my stomach churns with doubt,

She is rising, she is plunging
With no effort and no art
And there's nothing but the flying
In her breastbone, brains and heart.

Could I learn this of the raven
Who is one with wind and sea?
Have I wings, or only reason?
Am I fettered, am I free?

Song lyric by Giles Watson, 2013.

Robins in Spring

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 15:52:38 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Robins in Spring

Last summer's umbels are broken now,
interwoven with newer growth. Robins
twine bird-claws with stems and barbs.
They flit unscathed through snagging
weaves of brambles, disappear behind
lime-white lichened stones, re-emerge
among gorse-spines and stiles: whin
flowers gilding winds with fragrance,
breathing haloes of midges. Every thorn
wears a nimbus, through which sun-stung
robins burst in flurries of wings and
pinions, piercing insects with bills

stropped by ice and hunger. The wasp
sting quivers. Spring is on the cusp.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013.

At the Grave of Dafydd ap Gwilym

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 01:23:55 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Under the yew-tree in the churchyard beside Strata Florida abbey, with my book of paraphrases of the poetry of Dafydd ap Gwilym:

www.lulu.com/shop/giles-watson/dafydd-ap-gwilym-paraphras...

Faith

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 14:51:35 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Faith

If you poked my mustard seed into this mountain,
deep as your finger would go, it might take root,
but there would be nothing seismic: no landslide
or cascade of shale, no pyroclastic flow, no blast
of Krakatoa. Fresh roots would worm their way
between stones, sending out a fuzz of whiteness.
Stem and leaves would push aside a sand-grain,
multiply a little, thrust out buds and cruciform
flowers, yellow as pollen. On sunny days, the air
would grow pungent, and then the petals would drop,
and blackening pods would thrust themselves between
curling sepals, before cracking open. If you poked
my mustard seed into this mountain, no sky would fall.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013.

Love

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 14:23:08 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Love

Love coiled up with herself in the corner
where there was a glow in the hearth, licked
her own tail, and fell asleep. A lintel
collapsed; a rafter fell. Faith kept
the shingles from cascading. Hope filled
the scar where the sky was bleeding through.

Love luxuriated, spread her legs, turned
her belly upward. Love was whiskers
and warmth. Leaves fell; branches gnarled;
rooks deserted nests. Then, nothing was
awake. Love turned, purred; the fireplace
spat a spark. The glass grew dark.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013.

Hope

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 16:34:11 -0800

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Hope

If hope grows no higher than the hung heads
of snowdrops, it will be sufficient. Petals
will be weighed down with jewels, leaves
brought low by lozenges of imprisoned light,
and even grass blades will sag under random
scatterings of crystal. I will stoop to find
hope where it has been overlooked, the knees
of my trousers soaked. I will lean on my elbows
to catch a better glimpse of the dewfall of all
this lowly, unheeded, cool and glistening hope.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013.

Shrouded

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 10:34:16 -0800

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Shrouded
for Nick Owen

She might be the Brown Lady descending the stairs,
dazzled by flash-bulbs, stuck in the translucence,
imprisoned between the hither and the nether,
pickled in the ether, raising her arm to fend off
the smothering atmosphere. She might be there,
or here, breathing or suffocating, staring out through
the film with eyeless orbs, smearing away the fug
of condensation where her mouth has clouded
the inside of the plastic. When she unveils, you might
be struck dumb by her beauty, or found dead
the next day, petrified or impaled. You have lost
your sense of scale. She might be a giantess.

She might be flesh, or stone, or butter. She might
melt, scream, sear you; deprive you of sound or sight.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013. Inspired by a classical sculpture wrapped in plastic sheeting in a new gallery of the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Pentre Ifan

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:23:35 -0700

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Pentre Ifan

Pentre Ifan defies sense;
is a stone sermon on dying.
You trust it, or are crushed.

The rock is held suspended
in gorse-yellow Pembroke air,
buttressed by grass-roots

hooked invisibly to clouds.
They strain downwards in clots
of cumulonimbus to hold it;

kestrels fan it skyward with
incessant hoverings; lizards
put their backs into it.

The soil that held it up
eroded before Christ; dry-
stone walls were crumbled.

Chieftains, disarticulated
from foetal positions, had
their bones nuzzled by lambs.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013.

The Bicycles

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:20:45 -0800

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

The Bicycles

At night, the bicycles become
one organism made of many;
a polyporus, with handlebar
tentacles. The road becomes
a tide, the streetlight
a moon, waxing and waning
in an instant. By day, they
are propelled by a welter
of animalcules, wearing
high-viz exoskeletons. At dusk,
risks are taken. Some fail
to turn on lanterns, conserving
luminescence. Others become
reckless in the flurry of cilia
and flagellae, risk their little
lives in wobblings and overtakings,
weave outwards into the stream.

Some are taken. Some are already gone.
At night, the bicycles become one.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013. Inspired by bicycles parked in Queen's Lane, Oxford.

Merton Street

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 15:09:46 -0800

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Merton Street

There are cobbles under asphalt
on the Coach and Horses Lane –
they’re breaking through the surface,
congregating at a drain.

Once they rang with horseshoes
by the window and the shutter
and the gaslight winked and quavered
in a gleam upon the gutter,

and Tolkien took his rooms here
as bicycles juddered past.
Now the lights are all electric
and the world whisks by too fast,

but the evening comes like dreaming
and night-light spreads like rust,
and the cobbles, half-forgotten
are breaking through the crust.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013.

Leading Lines

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Tue, 26 Feb 2013 15:34:37 -0800

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Leading Lines

Leading lines converge into the stillness,
half-engulfed by shadow. Moonlight
touches lichens and double yellow lines.

A tree wears lamplight, transpiring,
transfigured; a chapel, silhouetted,
is the chime of a dark angelus

ringing its way skywards. Cyclists
emerge, riding astride. Their lights
move like lovers, in thrall to leading lines.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013.

Magdalen College

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 13:18:43 -0800

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

Magdalen College

The street-light thrusts its orb out beyond
Jupiter. People stand perplexed. Walls
bend in upon the High Street. A car etches
its lights across the Keep Clears; illuminated
Christmas trees are clamped to poles. Christ
is a pair of bodiless headlights directly under
that searing orb, with its haloes, and its
searching solar flare. A blue arrow points
leftwards. A beautiful woman is a blur.
Two men watch her, becoming only
shadows, and under the sidelit upsweep
of branches, the college is a blaze of chimneys,
castellations, pinnacles – and a single ivory
tower, under a Virgin sky of ultramarine.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013.

The Flare of Light

nobody@flickr.com (Giles C. Watson) — Sun, 24 Feb 2013 09:52:49 -0800

Giles C. Watson posted a photo:

The Flare of Light

There are stone tablets telling us
who to remember. The bay window
is bathed in amber; a steeple,
silhouetted, seems to lean inward.
There is a blurred procession
of people and cars. Signals turn
green. Lights and thoughts have
their way of curving at a strange
and unexpected camber.

Poem by Giles Watson, 2013. Inspired by the High Street in Oxford, near to the Examination Schools, at night.