Tuesday 29 September 2015


BLOOD MOON


Your Pearl of Hope and Peace
is this night a blooded
Harvest moon, child. No claret
rose in Night's tresses 
am I, nor the keeper of dragons, 
sigils and eldritch incantations, 
nor a harbinger of cosmic
wrath and damnation.

I do not blush for shame, nor 
bleed my anguish, nor am I with
rage afire; Earth's shadows
I bear this night, my white seas
and plains tainted carmine, 
my ivory face eclipsed, for I align
this moment with the god
and goddess, that man may see
his deepest self.

A crimson glass am I this sacred
hour upon a dark vault,
bound by the Red of Life or Death,
after man's own choice.
The spirit's joy would he perceive
upon my sanguine sphere who
preserves his fellow man;
an ocean of blood confronts one
who spills his kindred's own.
My form wears your 
soul's Harvest.


© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image source: thenaturalistscorner.com

Sunday 27 September 2015



AUTUMN MOON

Upon Autumn's esplanade, I
steep myself in your
silver anodyne; life and death, 
tranquility and turmoil,
swirl and surge in the sliding 
satin of your sanative song,
a translucent alabaster
entity of light and tone, gentle, 
as the embrace of a divinity.

As a wind from the beyond it
blows through my spirit, 
driving the dust and webs of
illusion from my dark
soul-scape, draining spurious
chill and warmth from 
its vital centre, renewing its
columns and plinths,
its architraves and vaults.

By the hand you lead me home,
past the abodes of 
seeking spirits who worship at
your altar with hymns
and incense, with quill and brush,
by the light of hearts
that hear your own heartsong.
One such would I be, 
great goddess, for then would I
never know loneliness.


© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image: MOONLIGHT ON THE LAKE, ROUNDHAY PARK, LEEDS
Source: www.the-athenaeum.org
Artist: John Atkinson Grimshaw

Friday 25 September 2015


DARK WATERS

Dark waters stir in wrath alone;
Life's pinions battle
their cumbrous, treacly vapours,
shedding Her white 
feathers upon hoary, haunted 
banks amid grey marshlands.

Through a miasma of despairing
pasts and present I
ponder the seething reflection of
my lifeless presence,
its black tentacles stabbing
through dank air, piercing
my heart, leeching my blood.

My vampire shadow burrows into
my spirit, drawn to
swathes of swelling rage, feeding,
growing, in the liquid dark,
filling its dead vessel with the
terrible animation of
desperate fury.

My bitterest truths float upon dark
waters, submerse their
congealed mordants within its
voracious, viscous crypt. 

And I shall catch a floating white
feather and quest after
nurturing waters that would mirror
a wholeness that could still be.


© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image source: ru.freepik.com

Tuesday 22 September 2015


MISSING 

It is as though it had fallen
through a gash in
the womb that cradled my 
spirit into the tarry
cauldron of a singularity.
And here I stand as a sky
at noon with the 
sun cut out, a lifeless
cyan glow. 

I hear it whimper beneath
the wind and rain,
this phantom limb of my
forming spirit, 
flawed, insubstantial, yet,
its absence filling
my soul as a gaping hole, 
a visible, palpable
emptiness screaming 
‘Should have!’ 
‘Could have!’
'What if...?'

A white carapace encloses
this vacuum, its chalky
brittleness distends my skin,
revealing living veins
with dead ends,
an immured, expanding
vastness seeking to erupt
through this too thin
integument.

Pulsating pain perforates
its black spaces, 
transmutes into a life-force, 
nourishing this wishful 
abode of my soul's 
missing piece 
that claims the immensest
portion of my being.

And I, a foolish child, shall
scour the skies for a
dead star that conceals the
pulse of my anima,
never to reveal its soul to 
one maimed as I.


© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image: AMONG THE LILIES
Source: www.the-athenaeum.org
Artist: Anna Elizabeth Klumpke


Monday 21 September 2015


HEATHER

Violet and Rose in their graves lie,
as 'pon the heath I tearful sigh.
The north wind harps a solemn strain 
to the dull weeping of the rain.

Whither go your ashen spirits
after skies your scents inherit?
Do you count melancholy days,
ere Autumn sets the yews ablaze?

Do your hues flood yon barren swathe,
in Spring to tinge her blossoms rathe?
Or swirl 'mid greening, preening pines,
ere they haunt the goddess' shrines?

Do you pause by autumn fires,
glide o'er airy, fragrant spires...
or dance as a gay rainbow wight
thro' palls of smoky golden light?

Do you drift o'er browning meadows
into Winter's darkling shadows,
for 'pon her death-white form to rest
as Earth she coddles in her nest?

Songbirds to fairer climes have flown;
the raven calls from elms forlorn.
My blooms the frost shall ochre stain;
yet Spring shall in my heart remain.


© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image source: commons.wikimedia.org

Friday 18 September 2015


SUMMER DREAMS

 

A storm of cicadas shrills
through Summer's
lush, cloying sweetness,
bedevilling the dense
verdure as furies, as spirits 
of tortured mutes
who find a collective voice
in death.

Screaming blossoms haunt
my Summer garden,
Summer dreams,
I dream screaming dreams
in gardens of
slumberless Summers amid
blooms bleeding,
streaming strident strings 
into red synapses.

Her dead image they immure
in cold silver-framed
glass, in dusty, lifeless
memory books, bestowing
smiles denied her in life upon
her lightless likeness. 

Summer shall return, my sister,
weeping for those
whose tears no longer fall,
raging for our tongueless dead
amid wine-laced laughter
and feather beds.

They, who measure the fading
of hothouse blooms
and plot the contours of
gold-scented candle flames,
shall not hear those they failed
to see. My Summer's
light shall ever hold the waning
luminous emittance of your
dying eyes.

© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image: YOUNG GIRL WITH A VASE OF FLOWERS
Artist: Théo van Rysselberghe
Source: www.artscroll.ru

Wednesday 16 September 2015


WARRIOR

Little warrior,
naked, nameless,
from your cosy hull
they tore 
you.

Little warrior,
sacred, blameless,
it was your slayer
who bore
you.

Little warrior,
Goddess, abyss,
it was her helpmate
who begot
you.

Little warrior,
sinless, helpless
a blight on Earth
they thought
you.

Ruin and woe
you spelled.

Hopes and dreams
you felled

From maternal 
womb into 
Mother's own
you pilgrimaged,
breathing Her
dark brown
blood.

Nor sun, nor moon
shall you know,
nor stars,
nor little battlefields,
their deepest scars.

Little warrior,
Great light,
now Angels shall
adore
you.

© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image: fineartamerica.com

Tuesday 15 September 2015


AUTUMN'S CHILD

Leafless hollows shaped this
child, her lightless lure
born of sere woodlands and
shrivelled anemones 
beneath blooming grey skies,
baptised amid frosty violet winds. 

Her chill green irises shunned
the gay brightness of
Spring's blossoming, favouring
mazy spreads and 
veiled moonlight, the quieter
shine of twilight and
ice blue waters.

Armfuls of gloom she gathered
unto her as an infant
her first wildflowers. As a cold
island she stood amid
June's sun-drenched spaces, 
as though fettered to Mother's
wails, to Her lament.

Through the seasons she lurched,
as though bound to an unseen 
force that seemed
to reach from Earth's 
bleached bones, drawing her 
to the penumbral frontier her heart
alone sought to erase 
from memory.

Black shivers and roots she prised
from all she touched with
eyes and hands, with words and
rare smiles, her spirit's unspoken
mission defining her
aspect and gait, tinting her every
hour, her work and repose.

Into the realm of eternal Shadows
she stepped, 
this youthful deliverer,
upon its threshold to lay her
Harvest of Darkness.
Autumn's child
now lies upon Summer's bosom,
for the gates of Light alone
yield to all beauty.


© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image: Cèleste
Source: www pinterest com
Artist: Herbert Gustave Schmalz 

Saturday 12 September 2015


CAMELLIA


An artless blush nestled in 
pale green, quilted air
illumed the lonely garden's 
hoary nook. 

A petalled ingenue tiptoed
into the Dawn, whorls 
of shallow, frosted cups her
raiment and chaplet.

Whence emerged this rarity,
this miracle garbed in 
June's hues and September's
dew, a tuft of growing light
'pon a bed of shadows?

'Twas as tho' Summer's last
wish to Autumn's heart
had called in a borderland of
shorn orchards and 
nascent red-gold.
 
Blooming and Decay, warmth
and chill, radiance and
mist, entwined in felicitation
and commiseration,
in oneiric communion, sending
forth a mutual dream
to Earth.


© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image source: www.codiferro.it

Thursday 10 September 2015



AUTUMN'S SONG



'Neath blanching Gold my yarn I spin,
'mid harvest season's cheer;
all toil, for Summer's fruits to win,
ere skies grow drab and drear.

My umber loom deep gilt warps span,
bronze wefts my shuttles loop;
with russet tawn the Deity's plan,
'pon mists to her realm troop.

The growing Dark his shadows casts
o'er Purple, Fawn and Red;
their warmth they tote thro' frosty blasts,
such stain my silken thread.

My themes I sew 'pon hills and meads;
my essence bittersweet
to shrouded swathes guides ripened seeds,
where Birth and Death shall meet.

The woods in jewels I array,
that soon to Earth shall cleave,
for rich brocades 'pon Her to lay
thro' waning days I weave.

My fabric whirling winds enlace,
blooms' tears its folds adorn;
their silver thrushes 'pon it place,
the God's Light marks its bourn.


© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image source: framingpainting.com
Artist: Thomas Moran


Tuesday 8 September 2015



HOUR

The wych elm is his soul's clock,
its falling leaves stalling
Time's flow, protracting seconds
and minutes, marking a
division known to Creation alone.

The artist's Eye lingers upon the
horizon, as Night lures the
Moon into the maze
of an early Autumn sky, his spirit
aflame in anticipation of
a timeless vision, of a fathomless
pool into which he would dip
his palette and brush.

The eternal dichotomy of epochal
hours leaves mortal signs
in the grass; dolorous heart and
soaring spirit crush and
caress blades of brittle, bleached
teal in the stony chill.

Yet, he prevails, this intrepid reader
of the silver union of the
firmament and ripened radiance,
though neither heart nor eyes shall
see the light-scape his
inmost canvas holds; his soul
apprehends the synergy of memory
and recurrent evanescence.


© 2015 Lily's Verse
Lilium Candidum

Image source: archive.moe
Artist: John Atkinson Grimshaw