note: Cwm Silyn translates as spawning lake valley
I.
Whilst Climbing Outside Edge, The Great Slab, Craig yr Ogof
addressed to a reader
Cwm Silyn's three llyns below
– smooth blues slight
ly rippled and spat
tered with the day
-star's sparks
my ropes pale
orange & blue
stripe down
wards across grey tuff
ropes as tugged
map-marks on
actual rockscape
simple linear legends rubbing
their passing over
the complex-crinkled
surface of a
solidified aeon
the day-star's force bounces
off the tuff my skin
seeps salt-wet as
black flies like
letters fallen
from a bible twirl
two ravens throw
soft slow kron-n-n-n-nks from
one
to the o
ther across
the simmering cwm
I climb on up
the stone's star-heated
rippled hardness drag
ging my smooth map
-line rope-colours
pitch finished I
anchor to the crag
to bring
up my companion tied
in to the lines' ends out
of sight below
and beyond the crag-horizon I've
just cli
mbed o
ver
my mouth gummy
with thick spit
I gaze
-guzzle at the sleek
sky-silent llyns reclined
in the level of
spirits
I almost
believe
I could reach
down and lift and tip
up
a big blue sheet to
pour
a deep bubble of water down
my throat and g guh guh
glug a llyn dry
swallowing whole its
light & sil
very fish-glinters
a sudden high sli
ding speckle of dark
-spark swallows lets
loose gli
stening
chips of song across
the cwm's blue
shivering sky-lid
II.
At Summit above Craig Pennant, 734 m
un-addressed
pick
ing steps across light-grey clitter
lovely hollow
glug-clun
ks of
stones rocked
a geo
logical music folding
an animal's now
ness move
ments in
to
deep-timed
stone-gong
sou
nd
III.
During Return Walk to Road-Head, Lower Slopes of Garnedd-goch
addressed to my climbing partner & a moor's gone gods
moorland wide-writhing under
sky buzzing white with
the spikes of the day-star
windless air bend
s into warp
ing walls
of greased rippling glare
distraught ice-bergs of over
-heated full-fleeced sheep bounce
through black-green reeds away
from us ab
surd fire
-faced spectres we
are heat's terror
and it's our
visions that play
on the mind of the June moor
bog-cotton puffs copy
gauzily the flock are
little sheep stuck
on straws
and heat's fuzz-shine is
a tremor at at
om magnified
to this
pressed
smudge of
lenticular space this
material of contorted
moor & spook-forms our
extra-real
faces pull all
this moor's molecular
vibrations its forms
into our skulls a craze
of temperature-rise crystallises
behind our eyes
suddenly I hear a gliggle now
ribbon-glisten in a narrow channel
the pebble-bottom pristine through
limpid prophecy
we kneel to this
transparent angel reclining
amongst the reeds
we plunge our hands and pull
up cupfuls and tip
splashes upon us and
laugh a relief-rapture as a clarity
cold-&-smooth as a home
coming until now un
known re
skins our faces with
flow
's lo
ve
Acknowledgements:
Photos: Nikki Clayton
June Emanations was first published by Shearsman Magazine. The poem is included in Mark's next full-length collection – At – forthcoming from Shearsman Books. His author page with Shearsman is here: https://www.shearsman.com/store/Goodwin-Mark-c28271739
Mark's latest chapbook collection, a highly compressed mountain travelogue called Erodes On Air, has just been published in America by Middle Creek: https://www.middlecreekpublishing.com/erodes-on-air
Comments
Didn't check the author, got about two verses in and knew it was Mark! Sublime as ever. I'm still dipping in and out of Rock as Gloss when the mood takes :-)
Thank you! What a lovely compliment! :)
I love these poems. They draw you in to another world surprising you at every turn of the line with vivid images and metaphors. I particularly like
bog-cotton puffs copy gauzily the flock are little sheep stuck on straws
Thank you! :)
I rather like the way you have laid out your comment -
particularly like your 't
urn' on the word 'tur
n'.