___________________________________________________________________________
CAUGHT IN THE NET 194 - POETRY BY JON KILLI
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I dance the sun I dance the night
I dance the green of trees
that dance with me
ancient god show teeth and grin
.
the dance is quiet now
the drums are dying
I’m old as age my soul
lost
In tearfog the shapes
the unseen shapes
that slide
in moonlit shimmer
lost
from Caught awake by Jon Killi |
________________________________________________________________
CONTENTS
1 - BIOGRAPHY
2 - POETRY
Caught awake Metamorphosis in concert Do ut des Siluric rock A supersolid phantasy Threat of mate Amantes amentes Conceit Beck and call Sea triptych |
3 - PUBLISHING HISTORY
4 - AFTERWORD
___________________________________________________________________________
1 – BIOGRAPHY: Jon Killip
Norwegian. Retired. Started writing long ago, to empty my head. New stuff met a
hard rubber wall until writing evacuated space. Had to repeat the success twice
more. Nowadays I do not squeeze so much in, and write less.
______________________________________________________________
2 - POETRY
Caught awake
the museum gallery in Rhodes is hot
an open window
an old man
small beard
lifts his arms
warm smells
takes a small step
starts a slow dance
and draws a wary stream of women
the old man grows goatlegs
his hands move
aromatic music
the air
humid
in a spreading haze
a shadow moves.
.
ancient god speak up say ’listen’,
ancient god he beat drum
ancient god he shout ’dance !’
heaven shakes and earth
grips both my feet trees dance with me
heart wild
mind gone
.
.
I dance the
sun I dance the night
I dance the green of trees
that dance with me
ancient god show teeth and grin
.
the dance is
quiet now the drums are dying
I’m old as
age my soul lost
In tearfog
the shapes the unseen shapes
that slide
in moonlit
shimmer
lost
around me the moon he laughs
spreads his canvas
eggs me on
.
I draw with thought
I draw with fear
I draw my mind
caves in and rests
*
metamorphosis in concert
as between
cords man
jumps
his nostrils
spit a burning heat
the grand
bursts into flames
a floating
snout
a dragon's singing scales
a dragon's eyes that burn
a stumbling
dance on claws
furrows in the great man's bust
furrows in the heavy floor
furrows in the stoneset wall
.
bars open
rising waves of sound crash through
searing heat
blows strong
glass panes melt
phoenix rises out of heat
dragons into double focus
slowly -
further out
great claws form – rip the clouds -
rain starts
furrows the mountainside rolls boulders
.
walk under
a growing shadow along quiet summer roads towards home
lick the singing saltburn crystals that circulate deeper than men mine my
Earth
fill fissures in the restless rock swallow the welling sources of sound
transforms scales to sliding tectonic bars
.
my ancient
hoard dissolves as the music
walks me
translucent
memory lost – a minor man
elbows space
in the damp duster of evening air
dances
throat drums
magma beats
*
do ut des
set out
‘do ut des’[1]
.
born in stillness kept outside
bent to silent service
sometimes almost seen
floating by on whispers
felt as coolness in the draught
tendrils in the anger
nest these threads invisible
leave unseen to float
wander ways that end dispersed in haze
.
as changeling seen
you were placed
hidden in the woods on a bed of moss
laid to rest as wereform sunk impressed in mull
.
those who twist to walk around beyond death’s corner
disappear in otherness
greeted you
you dance in haze and mist
certain of your step,
mirage of your other self
lives on within you changeling
.
nightsong raises an autumn wind voices in fear of what were were done
worry and hope fenwolves will find you do what people could not
voices run in your blood
voices burn
.
scorched woods in a sage-grey land
brown seep off bogland mires
sparse copses blackened scrub
raise signs on the dim sky
dark written upon the dark
the walk into riddles was long
‘
your sack-full of anger has chafed all day
ruts worn in shoulders feet sunk in clay
details lost
the waiting shadow silent
the river-banks this land’s horizon
grief-seep lost in soot-laid sump
‘
in clinging ooze
dark reflexes
black-eyed sorrow wraps itself in mist fury’s tendrils stretch from your sack
were-roots strained by moonlight washed by fog as day breaks out
.
ancient riverland crossing paths dug-out oaks the boat-man shadow
broken straws oil on swirling eddies
a sigh in stagnant air her dying
waiting shadow moves sorrow raises high its banner
wants not wreaths and hate-filled peace
this sorrow wants to kill
.
oath sworn on the boast-beaker hot heart leaves slag behind
killcraze sweeps all cover off your will castoff reason cinder at its foot
killspell blackens your face scorched graves open
evil rides red roads rides drifting ice
skinned men drag their gaping wounds
onto the heap of dead
a rampart of offal slippery sodden.
spiracles
sucking mouths
deep in blood-dew
holes in the lanceshuttled[2]
weave of fates –
*
siluric rock
slide my calm into siluric rock
feel its painfilled restlessness
leaning waiting to topple crush cripple fast life running feet
under the outcrop a grave
stripped skeleton
not it’s doing
strange knowledge seeps
impressions of another world
a faster time
distress
drips off wriggling stalactites
trickles as I walk under roots
.
have always walked
asleep or awake I walk
under ground I walk the dark
I know to look
straight ahead
mists cover sand clay rock
roots twist above
voices whisper
I walk straight
.
summer
it warms me
hideaway from flows of ice
I look up where layers are thin
.
I hear winter speak above
I see two-legs vague in shape
in refuge with frost giants
I yearn
far behind white mountains
eyes wet I walk
snow-covered cyborgs lumbering
perhaps an opening ahead
blocks of ice retreating
once found a tiny one
mermaid-shaped in the cave where I dance
ice maiden melted
.
when hated heat raises
a stream of air
off a small blue pond
curtains
.
deep in the earth through rock
and soil
I walk
tap roots hang from a cave
roof
I jump
not within reach no way out no
sun no wind
I walk
small roots twist and turn and
grow
I must be old
sun moon waves and wind all
change above
I would walk
hope to walk through rock into
water
I could swim
upwards towards the light
I might beach
.
still down here
I breathe
*
a supersolid
phantasy
.
in a cool
cool glass of best champagne she and i
supersolid
vortexes
make waves
leaving
excitons in
our wakes
attracted to
each other
we seek to fuse
contract on
contact
implode
and make a
little bigbang:
voila !
bosom bosons
into fermions –
shut away in
our selves again.
.
at the lip
of the glass promises
die
nemesis a
two-pronged fork
eases out
the cork
all the
bubbles flow
at once
life winks
out
.
love runs -
flame
blackens its trail
firefront
leaps
ashes behind
.
eyes that
search
voice that
breaks
the mirror
*
threat of mate
on the wall a pathologist has hung an unlost piece of art
no face body cut at the neck
voice from above the picture frame
distant
uninterested curves caught by camera
cut at neck cut at knees
privacy exposed –
above the frame her voice
her very distant voice
ladened vapours rising
from her past
oh so few years
.
on the off white slab a young one
– quite the most attractive corpse
glorious skin
one black-speckled wart just
above the left elbow
.
saw cuts breastbone knife slices
belly -
that little wart – her insides
full of chessboards
every organ black and white –
life mated –
some deadly cosmic player stacked
the game of dreams
recruited her to hollow halls.
.
longing and loss recruit us all
wanting her losing her
I fled took a dive
free Fall - on my way
.
sharp and choppy this sea
this pain
this drink of gargling acids corrosive
rinse for my bones
this pain
this bath due a devil
.
an ill garden nods and curtsies
a rose bows deeply and thorns make gashes
a colour drives a nail through my eye
a broken twig oozes lye
.
a storm of seething rhythms
a voice in shatters
a kind little tune forces wounds
and the pulse
and the pulse scores pain
waves wash my lungs empty out my head
pains drive (even) ghosts away
*
amantes amentes
pitch on the ground
moondust on leaves
hesitant foot
.
a curl in your hair
playing the wind
.
a glance out of the dark
of your eyes
.
young lives weave
rhythms
movements inter-weave
is she ripe
he riddles restive luck
counterrhythms ripple
her steps incremen
tally tap a
greement
.
monkey’s laugh takes
off
tumbles into
tigerdance
.
big cat reads her
steady smile
they dance she bleeds
she laughs
eyes
alight windmills
twirl
tigers dance
.
when age has bitten deeply and helping hands wither
a sprattle-man remains
spastic movements
shifting thoughts fleet by
strings of memories release a help-me cry
*
Conceit.
Searching through the small
amount of seasoned hardwood
in his shop he settles on a piece
of laurel,
sets it down to clean the edges.
He notes the grain, planes it,
all six sides,
and sands it down into a thing of
beauty. His hands slide,
slowly, his fingertips caress the
slight lines, just raised
above the silken skin.
.
The knife is old, sharp, he tests
it on his hair.
It travels well along the thought
incisions, his mind closes,
he sharpens his awareness of the
cut.
Three days; late into night, when
he works
by touch alone, he knows this
face so well.
.
Two eyes look out from deep in
the wood.
True and good, she says. Now
shower, shave,
dress in the blue suit, go place
me on my grave.
*
beck and call
blind search
gnarled and twisted aspen in a thicket by the tarn
red leaves
and yellows
illume the hungry rootrich soil
.
I am here to seek what once i
found
water spirits
joyful venus-glade
.
westrun winds
belting rain
all is beck and river
step by
step in sludge
feet slip
sight is shut seeing folds
shades swish past
divides the land
seasaws washes
the puzzle to see
*
Sea triptych.
.
draug
raised by storm
half a rotting face wrack streaming
under a brown sou’wester
it rows
half a boat splitting the waters
oars bending double it wails
sings a hatefilled tune of loss
an age of anger shrieks
trumbling of
stones
grinding of sand
ice-sludge dampens threats
violet
shadows chase as cormorants fly out
fleeting reflections in the eye
shades well
sorrow
.
drowned men
in dervish-dance
harmonies of grief and hunger
their
whirlpool draws the ship
sighs deep
a choir of
bloodlines enters the splinters
of cormorant cries
in the eye
of the storm gentle waves wash
the freshest of corpses
.
birdsong
grieve for men caught
in fate’s patterns on the sunken sands
gaping
shadows walk and dance
birdtalk
speak of fate and fate’s dark sucking draught
sing deep the sorrow that wells
as songs
dance with frostmist swirls along the river
raise your choir
weave
madrigals that hold the velvet curtain back
.
ocean draws froth around its mouth
collects its bulk throws itself on rocks
flips away a body
alive
*
drag
grey sea
storm drives
crested waves
sea towers
crests crash
boat crushed
lost
him in the sands
the eternal quern
.
anger
these years
the sea and i
one purpose
find him
I sit
by the beach
watch
wait
.
white sands wide bay low cliffs
catch the sun
slowly the sea conquers the beach
one floating grain at a time.
gentle shallow waves
warm as skin.
.
dark sky growing wind heavy
drops hit the cliffs pattern the sea.
waves grow big
crash water on sand
abrasive force.
water- deeps spray cold chills the
marrow
of bones lost.
.
storm flattens
the ocean pushes
the land
sea raises
breaks rocks
off cliffs.
sea carries
stones
breaks bones
.
the giant mill querns
transforms
rock’s memories,
grains of amorphous sand scatters
letters of land’s annals
.
night’s dark tent
moonbeams
silver sea
silence
sea drag moves sand
pulls on oilcloth.
*
drown
a bore runs ahead as the boat turns
to circle the swirl-eye
strives to
sink what is afloat
ice-sludge dampens the threats
violet
shadows chase as cormorants fly out
shades in this well of sorrows
reflections
in the eye
.
drowned men
in dervish-dance
harmonies of grief and hunger
their
whirlpool draws the ship
sighs deep
a choir of
bloodlines enters the splinters
of cormorant cries
in the eye
of the storm gentle waves wash
the freshest of corpses
.
birdsong
grieve for men caught
in fate’s patterns on the sunken sands
gaping
shadows walk and dance
birdtalk
speak of fate and fate’s dark sucking draught
sing deep the sorrow that wells
as songs
dance with frostmist swirls along the river
raise your choir
weave
madrigals that hold the velvet curtain back
.
ocean draws froth around its mouth
collects its bulk throws itself on rocks
flips away a body
alive
*
[1]
a
commutative contract whereby something is given so that something
may be received in return
[2]From
Darrader-ljod - ‘the Darrader-song, the Darrader-weave’. Darrader –
shuddering trembling of the shafts of arrows and spears as they hit
a body. The norns or the Valkyries weave the future battle, the
weave itself designed with skulls as weights, intestines as woof,
spears as shuttles.
3 - Publishing history
‘conceit’ was published in Message-in-a-Bottle
__________________________________________
4 - Afterword
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