The Conference of the Flies

 

There is no greater sight
Than spring sun reflected
Upon the all-conquering 
Wings, limbs & gleaming hides
Of the Great Fly Nation!

There is no greater sound
In all the Earth
Than the hum, buzz & flutter
Of our million-fold 
Assembly!

We are fierce
Proud & strong
Ravenous & potent
Ancient,
Indecipherable. 

 

 My new digital publication. The Conference of the Flies are discussing humanity. Do we exist? What are we? What should they do about us?

"The conference at the heart of this piece may be imaginary or fantastic, or it may be channelled and life-changing (not that these things are contradictory).  It is itself an ecology – an eco-telling, an eco-wording, a world-re-storing... We are also invited to contemplate our impact on those whose lives and lifeways are braided with ours."

From the foreword by Graham Harvey, a professor of religious studies at the Open University & author of Animism: Respecting the Living World, Hurst & Co. 2005.

For a short period you can download this text as a free ebook in pdf format here.

Delving into Mystic Warwickshire With John Watson

My friend John Watson is the host of Pure Good and Right Poetry in Kenilworth with his wife Kim. He has written a book of autobiographgical sketches, poetry & riddles entitled Delves into Mystic Warwickshire. The book contains clues to find seven tokens hidden around the county, after which, if you produce some art or writing that meets his approval, you win a bronze delve, which is like a cross between a trowel & a gardening knife.

At the time of writing five of them have now been found.

The artwork is by Andrea Mbarushimana.

I spent some days on the quest & then one Sunday afternoon Anne & I found the token for the delve named Columba on Castle Hill, Lower Brailes.

Here is my poem celebrating it all, entitled:  

Mystic Delving Beyond Sight & Sound
(Not a single hero’s deed was to be found)

Delving into the self-secret that is the ground the springtime labyrinth of the good green land 

Tree lined lanes all garlanded for birth the busy birds all sing their voices delight of light

A flowering of magical, virid sound which celebrates the living soil that is the shining song

The living soil that is the shining song secretes the sparkling fungal spiral’s girth

That leads us on the round of Brailes’ baileys our errant way that yet might prove our worth

To delve, to seek the icon yet unfound in the tree where the wren makes her tiny cup of nest

Where the wren makes her tiny cup of nest guarded by hedgerow power between & beyond 

Beyond the names of fields & the numbers on the gates from one portal to the next

Stations in the rhythm of the search, the track, the path, the copse that broods upon Castle Hill

In the copse that broods upon Castle Hill some of the hawthorns are twisted all around

In gargoyle gestures from millennia with gorsey joys all wound round the shining centre

Luminous paths  to lead us in May’s merry dance the golden spangle of celandines at our feet 

With the golden spangle of celandines at our feet we seek the secret way that might be found

Within old rings of memory, history, remembrance, repetition tumbling all around

Forgotten names & words as hidden as the tiny grey eggs in Mother Wren’s secret installation

Like Mother Wren’s secret installation we seek the secret hiding place unseen

Beyond the houses & roads of today’s wounded world up, back, round the ways of deep time

Here again & again & again. A sound! My voice wife crying out from within the tree

My voice wife crying out from within thorn gloom with delight & pride, what sound!

The talisman brought forth into our day from the self-secret shadows of the tree!

The tallest tree at top of hill yields the token that we sought: the mysterious icon finally found!