Odes and Orisons

Poems by Mike Cleven

The Nevernight

How safe I have been on this pale of men: When
I came hence I fell fourty leagues and ten souls.
But give me now a new mystery: history
is moot: my life is bored dull and waste.

I would rather be made than not: hot
are the flames of the puritan's hell.
I venture into the folds of change: strange
I would more risk that than a cage.
 

(1985)

The Bards of Babylon

The bards of Babylon, the harps of Ur,
Great-galleried Nineveh's lore -
Ten thousand years of human stir
lit many lights, extinguished more.

The fires that burned on Uruk's heights
were like the glory of its kingly throne:
The beast that burned the mountain nights
consumed the dark where Earth had dwelt alone.

Names and hearts, unwrit, uncarved,
are the grains on Fortune's grinding-wheel -
This grist-mill's flour baked a bread that starved,
yet made longing taste like sweet, rich meal.

Vanished is the green and fertile earth,
Vanished are Sumer's youthful lords,
Dwindled is the wide world's girth,
Dwindled are the nomad hordes.
 
 

(1980)

(Epilogue 1)

(late 1982)

(Epilogue 2)

To HRH Charles, Prince of Wales (Enconium I)

And in summer, when the Earth is green
give me a horse, a harp, a horn,
And the mountains of your realms shall ring
with musicks of a kingdom and a king, newborn.

Enconium

Let him have his pen and keep,
Give him draught to slake his thirst,
Let him drink so that his heart might leap,
Give him feast, lest should his hunger burst.

He wants no pillar, no marbled name,
He only wants sweet living's means.
His craft is faltered, his talent lamed,
but thicker sinew could he grow on lean.

He'll sing to you in splendid tale
and add honour to your house;
Although his words might sometimes fail
a few days of splendour he might rouse.

He loves the mountains, he loves the sea,
He loves the forest, the wild, of the north countrye.
He loves the stars, and the stormy skies,
He loves good hearts, and fair-flashing eyes.

Hard times he's known, as all men do -
From dark painful wells a fountain drew;
that well's now filled with wishing stones -
in the western wind, a man would roam.

Worry not, he makes only simple noise,
he has no deep eternities to sing,
for he is just a passing foice . . .
his silence would be another thing.

No magic can he weave to veil
the sadness of the human truth,
but at least the tings that need be said
need not be said uncouth

  It is not much I ask,
  so expect not much of me;
  Demand nothing of my art as task:
  It takes freedom to be free.

  Nor do seek to rule my style
  or criticize what my eyes see;
  If what I say offends thine "I"
  then pluck it out - not torture me.

  I see what is, and what should be,
  I cannot turn my gaze from these
  to twist the gist of reality,
  - for honesty is my private geas.

  Enconiums? No, I'll not play the hack!
  I would build up no edifice!
  My aim is to open wonder's crack
  not introvert vain artifice.

So let him wind fresh singing metres,
and polish a few spare rhymes,
Let him salvage fallen beauties
from latter-day soots and grimes.

He is only young, his tunes are raw,
His words are full of innocence,
But daily toil would sap his life, his awe,
His heart enslaved in mind's indolence.

Is there any would toss a coin this way,
Any unlock a quiet hut;
Is there any would feed a poet's lay,
Any give without a "but"?

Even Babylon had learnéd lords
who owned rich ears and knew a rhyme;
Even Venice, with its gilt-staired shores,
moored harmonies to seize the tides of time.

Glory, Rome, in your gleaming wealth,
Revel, Byzant, on your fames and thrones,
But let a poor man have his health,
Give him more to squeeze than bitter stones.

Is there no refined Medici
amidst yon glittering throng?
Is there any could stand an elegy
in the harper's fervent song?

  Why do I sing arcane, you say?
  Why dare rhyme and rhythm's beat? Why not??
  For doggerel's more than verbal play,
  and my scope, I'd say, matches modern rot!

Homer's horse is dead, the wise proclaim,
and Melody is sneered at as farce:
Such men burn temples for their own name's fame,
seek to drive all brightness from their greater dark.

If music is too grandiose,
if rhyme is too passe,
then man's heart is grown too otiose,
his life, poor fool, blase!

So if you know what gold is worth,
if you esteem a bard's board and fare,
then remember, for singers, these are days of dearth,
I humbly beseech, rich lords, please share.

In the villas on the northern shore,
or in palaces on the southern hills,
Is luxury, in truth, a heartless bore?
Then feed this man, for hunger kills!

Yet if indeed the heartless rich
still rule this sorry world,
then by right we poets have a bitch
and brighter banners we'll unfurl!!

Now I've ground out this foursquare tune,
This gallop can come to rest.
Despair of "work" drove me to beg this boon -
I only would that I'd sung my best.

*************

To HRH Charles, Prince of Wales (Enconium III)

O Lord, if ye are the Fairy King:
I would your sweet ear bend
To wisdom with high musics fine
until my days do end.
 

(Summer 1981)

Divers Quatrains

The cry went up around the earth
for a lord to take the reins
But none were found of mortal worth
and the gods were made mere brains

******

Enough, dull tribe, and cease thy rout
of the ages of eternal grace
For all good has long been cast without
and humanity has lost its human face

************

To western lands your Time's ship did go
Manitou the Huron called you
You are in and of the land
and my wandering ways hap'd follow you.

*************

Thunder struck a sunset's fall:
Lightning cracked, far mountains roared -
a wind blew calm, the haze's pall
bewitched the straits: earth's sky was moored.

*************

The hero's fate still was death
still nameless was his name
But pen and sword and failed his breath
and he had failed of fame. 

Lightning (Zeus)

The Dynamos

Thunderbolt: the smell of heaven's fire.

Man awakes, uncoils from fetal fream:
no childhood in this afterworld -
violence as life, hard muscle
the gift and curse of birth.

Sinews wrap and writhe
ether seethes with vibrant light
flesh on flesh, sinew as stone
centuries unknot the human grasp
on time and love and golden death

Bellerophon's Song

I never asked to be born into this age
   or saddled with this tongue;
I never asked for an avenger's rage,
   or lust, the glory of the urgent young;
I never made cunning song or rhyme
   that cast in other than mortal time;
I never made my flesh's weight
   or the burden of man's mystery;
I never chose a fatal fate
   or the terror of a history:
I have worn a hundred names,
   have lived too many foreign fames -
This, this, is just a passing face,
   a madness to drive the mortal day,
a rift-closed time, a gap-filled space,
   a rotten carcase to be thrown away -
I'd fain be unharnessed of this dreadful task,
   riding whipped by a muse without being asked;
but I shudder to see a cancer spread,
   my form is pounded by the angered dead
who ride my roads on high wingéd horse
   - would I beg this golden bridle, these spurs,
                           these furies' force??
 

   II

And Pegasus, fair Pegasus, is dead!
   That shining mane, flashing wings, and silver-bright head
struck asunder and smashed by great bolts of light
   hurled down, hurled down, by heaven's murderous might!
Pegasus, Pegasus, my proud-pinioned steed -
   Did I waste the last of your fabulous breed?
 
 

(February 1982)

The Music of Stones

Dunciad (Atlas)

Patience! These agents are not truth's masons
   but the harbingers of dream -
renascence of art's patents, awakening enhastens
   the mean dividing twain and made extreme.

A compunction for injunction made a function,
   a stream for unction, a conjunction cream
   of heady stars, the Milky Way,
        Andromeda,
           separated . . .
   Afar's the day when enervated
   Ideas will pass into the grass
   and the real that runs is only spun
   of the feel of tons undone . . .

Something quizzical:
An unthing; metaphysical.
Renounce and bounce,
   it mounts this trounce
      and founts . . .
 

(Spring 1982)

Witness

Original sin: a Word of light,
then Night to frame the Day.
Ocean that doth gird the land,
Skies that do Law's hand dismay.
Stars fill the void beyond the shores of Man
who doth His home betray.

This planet is a jewel and dream,
a splendid knot amid the fabric's weave
and faced with stone and sea and green:
the beauty for which my age doth grieve.

Man destroys to build again, and waste
is scoured from out the Shaping's stuff.
however fine or deep a Craft is hewn or built
never can the Absolute's entropic be surpassed.

The mystery of the Working's fit
is not short a quest for mortal ears;
There is better that must be done and writ
to suit the wonder of these latter years.
 

(c. 1985)

QUANTA ("Fourfold")

Mass elements as nature's Four
and foursome are the Earth's sweet winds
Fourframed are the rhymes of Lore
Fourfold divided lie mankind's Kin.

Fourfold flowed the Rivers first
Fourfold were the angeled Gates
Fourfold was the Earth first Cursed
Fourfold are the seals on Fate

Fourfold, aye, and four again
Are all that are left of the days of Men
Fourfold is the divine's greater mystery
Fourfold are the Ages, and all our History

(c.1990)

Canticle

But when that glory's gilt was doffed
   the days still burned on bright;
the rocks still laughed, the stones still scoffed:
   the desert sat hot with light.

Much was done, and much was said
   down all the roads of History
Of plague, of war, of the need for bread -
   the Reason still was Mystery.

Of pestilence I dare not speak:
   my own blood is of that scourge
whose legacy is cursed upon the meek
   whom the earth to fire shall forge.

In Worldbane Wood

   I

In worldbane wood, a small plant grew
    on oak, ash, thorn, and yew
In worldbane wood, a small plant grows
    on crumbled walls, grows mistletoe. 

II

The song of hearts sad-passioned   quickens pale
and grey veils   flow silk on grass
The fevered sweat of fairy frost
glazes elven eyes, greyed and lost

Flute and drum, and gold-throated harp
birded hands held   flutter hope faraway
- and there is a star-vaulted vein in towering sky:
The deep, out there, the darkness on high

On the darklit beach of sparkling sand
are strewn starsongs old and open
The oceans of time, the deeps of space
the waves of darkness lap with elven grace

Shadows tile and bend in the ending wind
The light-eyed dancers in high-clung wood
traipse glowing trails in deepdewed grass
to the tune of the elfsong,    sung with hearts
                         of glass.

Flute and drum,   goldthroated harp -
sing the song of the greater dark!
Bang loud drum, baned,    and blow fairy horns!
Nine worlds collide,    and the elves dance their scorn.

It has begun:    bring wine and feast
for the elves turn their eyes away
from the greater doom    to a tranquil end
in a sombre wood,    and a green grass bed. 

III

The goldmaned horse, with silver shanks
cavorts to thrill above the precipice
Heed not the steps, prance out the dance -
run ouu the dege and coltish cold frisk

From shining mane and flaxfrosted tail
spray morning and night, glistening in trail

The greymaned horse, with sable flanks
the goldmaned horse, with silver shanks

Unridden and loose, fair heads high-tossed
they ride in twilight, above the abyss of frost
In a highwooded cliff between shadow and shade
wend the heedless tracks, by so many long ages made
that yet feel the lighthammered hooves of the horses
running wild at the edge of the world
                     and around, spiralled in glee,
                     the frames of finality's forces

The greymaned horse, with sable flanks
the goldmaned horse, with silver shanks

Ride long this eve, on worldsend edge
for sweet fair dawns are long-off yet
The wind blows breath
from the worlds beyond Death's
and two horses ride hard
into the night, dark-starred
Ride long this even, on worldsend edge
for sweet, fair dawns, are long, long-off yet

The greymaned horse, with sable flanks
The goldmaned horse, with silver shanks 

IV

The rocks are chanting, the mountains dance
the wind whirls black and bright
on cool lost summer night
The loom of fate looms clouded crags
Far fire, burn bale and bold
Destiny forge, new hammers mold
to blast and bind the present past:
The cycle throes, at last, at last . . . . .

The rocks are chanting, the mountains dance
the wind whirls black and bright
on cool lost summer night
Worldgate wide, above worldsend gap,
rainbow ruins from olden world -
flex chaos cave and fluxing curl
crave to crush the present past:
The cycle throes, at last, at last . . . . .

The rocks are chanting, the mountains dance
the wind whirls black and bright
on cool, bleak, last, lost summer nights . . . . . 

V

Infinity, infinity,the end begins
the mountain child dances ending rims
Cauldron boil and bubble black
Nothing's fold, zeroed back to back

Drum, drum, dooming dance
Ships in nightsea steer entranced
to tryst at, to, with, the blue orbed curse
Water parts, all things immerse

Mattermount and timespace bend
Spear hard the heart, the ready's end
Sunset burn, and dark fires send
the testing flags, the ways to wend

Grey cold sun, grow ashen pale
fall down in sunset old, and fail
Bridge's horn, the hosts to hail
The rainbow cracks, darkness bloats, prevails, 

VI

VII   The Fortress

Each night fall deeps the roof of snow
that lays onto the high blue tiles
and mimes itself, to mock, beguiled
the witching white of face
that frost on mirror can only trace.

Love is a ram of gold . . .
 

(Late Winter, 1980)

The Wizard And The Beekeeper

For EHF, who didn't understand

A wizard strode upon the Road
     musing on enchantments.
He spied a shed by where the wide path led,
     and sought respite from self-entrancements.

'Neath the greenwood's shade was a bee-loud glade,
     in a flowered grove were great honey-hives.
The shed was made of wattle clayed -
     A gazing inward left the wizard's eyes.

Beneath his hat a beekeeper sat
     waiting in the death called Time.
The wizard laughed and spun his staff
     and chanted out a nonsense rhyme.

"Gazung, gazay, unseemly sullen man -
     why do you brood in shade?
Farin, faray, fair is the land -
     for merriment are there meadows made!"

"Alone I sit, and not a whit
     of any do I know but bees;
They sting a bit, but - please, stranger, sit,
     this sweet honey comes from flowered trees."

The wizard stood, fingered his hood
     and spelled away the bees.
He squatted down upon the ground
     and called a wind that stirred the greenwood's trees.

"Strange man...strange, I've roamed the range
     of all of Fairyland -
But not your skin-leathered kind, nor your sad-stung mind
     have I seen in any man."

"I tend my hive, I am alive;
     nothing more would I dare ask -
I like to sit alone, and hear bees drone
     I feel no sting: this is sweet task!"

Suspecting bile, the wizard sat awhile
     and mused upon a hidden heart.
Not intending guile, but fearing to rile
     he set out to pierce the hided smart.

The air was sweet, dry was the heat,
     heavy-laden was the beeloud glade.
The wizard mused on old spells used
     to unenchant enchantments made.

"Beekeeper, friend, this is no end
     for a heart as wise as yours.
Please let me lend a spell to mend
     what bewitchment's sealed your pores."

"My skin is tanned brown from my bees here 'round -
     I do not remember any magic's spell,"
He made a frown, and then looked sadly down,
     "but I do not remember when my childhood fell."

"Aha! Oho!" Thus, cried the wizard, "So! -
     There is our clue, our key -
Let us go to the mountains of snow,
     thence I can set you free!"

"But why should I rise? I know you're wise
     but happy enough I am right here.
See through my eyes - they tell no lies
     truth of self is not my inmost fear."

"Kaloo, kalam, you're a peculiar man
     your words, they sting with grief.
Huzzoo, huzzand, look how I stand -
all I've asked is your belief."

The beeman sighed. He could not deride
     the offered gift of the laughing mage.
For who can bide where mortals ride?
     Who can tell a fool from sage?

"Where shall we go? Do you really know?
     I know of nothing beyond my hives.
I'll only go with you if you are true,
     for I fear you risk both our lives."

"On worldsend edge there is a ledge
     beneath a mountain high.
A crack leads in through the cold rock's skin:
     I am honest - I do not lie."

"In Fairyland there are powers grand
     but a wizard's might is much.
The grimmest peril queer is just fear's fear
     and my staff it is not a cripple's crutch."

The beekeeper stretched his limbs to loosen long-leathered skin
     and prepared to go the Road;
It'd been a long while since he'd seen so silly a smile
     and adventure might ease his long-sat load.

"Wizard, please, then place my bees
     safe, under a magic charm;
And wizard, sing, of wondrous things -
     let my hear what dreams a wizard farms."

The mountain quest was out towards the west
     whence the wizard led with a dancing pace.
Faerie's magicks wove, on two hearts strove,
     the beekeeper still wearing his leathered face.

At last they spied a high mountain's side -
     beyond lay worldsend edge.
The wizard cried out, for he had grown a hide,
     he sank beside the roadway's hedge.

It was truly tragic, for too much magic
     had left his wizard's wand;
For on their close-walked hike, they had grown alike
     'twas the payment for their wanderer's bond.

Many cares and monstrous stares
     had plagued their road thus far;
The wizard was drained, his heart was strained,
     he sat and watched the evening star.

"Here let us lie beneath the sky;
     come morn we'll descend the mountain's deep.
Before we try to break life's lie
     let us try to catch one sweet night's sleep."

The wizard's magic was lost - the beekeeper tossed
     and turned his heart to its core.
He decided not to ask the wizard to task
     unspelling the leather he wore.

Yet on the long Road, as the two of them strode
     the wizard had told of things he had dreamed.
The beekeeper knew by this last, beyond their Road's turbulent past,
     the wizard was yet more than he seemed.

"Wizard, we strode upon your Road
     and now here we are at its end.
I'll go alone into the cold stone . . .
     But I'll hold you ever as friend.

"Nay, I must come, for I know the Sum
     of all the spells that there are.
In that primal rock, a secret is locked,
     and I'd see the light of your innermost star."

The air was cold at worldsend bold,
     stars filled a sea-less chasm;
Two companions slept, shared warming kept
     their dreams from wind-chilled spasm.

When morning broke, the wizard awoke
     his hand warm upon only a stone.
He looked around, saw naught but bare ground -
     the beekeeper'd gone in alone!

He spun his staff to light up the path
     where cold rock parted into its cold heart;
He descended quick, he felt a fear prick
     lest peril threaten a new infant's start.

And in that dark, he saw a spark
     that blazed the cavern's night.
That star then wailed, the wizard paled
     and knew then the name of new-born fright.

What secret charm had unfroze what harm
     the wizard could only guess;
But in that cave his love he gave
     and named that infant bless'd.

He gave the wellborn life to a goodly wife
     to raise it as her own;
But his newfound fear was enchantment drear;
     in Faerie, near powerless, he set forth to roam.

In all of wisdom's vanity, he'd lost the simple sanity
     that knew what a wizard was.
Every greenwood's leaf stung his great-grown grief;
     every day he dreamt a bee-glade's buzz.

And long indeed did the wizard bleed
     - he'd given up his foolish song -
But a few good deeds and no heed to greed
     redeemed his burden of self-wrought wrong.

He felt some guilt for what he may have built
     with the power of a deep dark cave.
He worried much that his magic touch
     had bewronged the beeman babe.

After long years and many a tear
     the wizard roamed in rhyme again.
He'd lost the fears of lives unqueer
     and wished to see his unenchanted friend.

Faerie's roads are wild, it's ways beguile
     but at last he found the way;
He sought out that child, after long leagues, one mile -
     hot and sweet, ahead, the bee-grove lay.

With some tense suspense, he sought a nonsense
     with which to greet the grown infant-man.
Forth he strode upon that Road
     to learn a secret of Fairyland.

He saw the shed by where the wide path led,
     he heard a humming in the bee-loud glade.
Beneath his hat, the beekeeper sat
     - thus ever true was this man made!

The beeman grinned, stuck out his chin
     said, "Wizard, please stay awhile,
For the honey is sweet, and I do entreat
     that you rest from your long travail."

"At least one hour stay, ere you go this day
     for I know you need to roam.
The day is hot, but this grove is not
     - though I do prefer to sit alone."

The wizard laughed and spun his staff -
     through all of Fairyland he'd ranged!
But the beeman he'd been that first skin he'd lived in
     - yet quietly he knew that his bee-friend was changed.

Bees love their kind, and men merry minds
     and life lasts only a while;
Though the wandering mage had doubled his age
     the beekeeper had learned to smile.

"Barree, barroff, I must be off
     though I'll take some of your sweetness for my trip;
Tashee, tashath, I've got a path and a staff . . . ."
     And he faltered, for from his eyes did tear-ings drip.

The beekeeper gave a fond friend's wave,
     The wizard spun farewell;
With a merry laugh, and a spinning staff,
     he let out a magic yell.

"Beekeeper, friend, 'tis thus we end,
     both better the same, and well:
As still you bee-tend, then sure I shall wend
     for a joke has broke my spell!!!"

The wind raised wild, as an eternal child
     looked out from ancient eyes.
A laugh rolled loud out of a magic cloud,
     - the beekeeper blinked, surprised.

For nothing was there but the summer air
     and a gentle breeze blown in from the west.
The day was fair, the sweetness rare . . . .
     the beekeeper hummed; he'd forgotten his magical guest.

So if you're roaming the wide world wide
     and you meet a man who's grown a hide -
     then don't waste yourself to bother.
Because if ever you try
     to undo a lived-out birth's life
     you'll burn out being another's father.

But in Fairyland a helping hand
     gave the wizard to the beekeeper.
One's prideful plan undid the other man:
     Neither's world proved ever deeper

Epilogue

Time Rhyme

The god of man is man newborn
fullchanged, abandoning
the worlds of Death.
By the sounding of one heart's old horn
the echoing of the world of earth,
the echo of the dying Death.

Arise, O Man, ye are the Will of God,
His heart, His glory,
His one body in one Flesh:
A tribe of souls
the hand, the tool,
the grasp of God!

Voices that are the tongues of God -
Sing forth! The Hour is come -
Let the song begin,
Let the drums resound!
Dance in oneness tenbillionfold,
destroying Death, and ending Time!

The Unity of the soul of Man,
the Dominion of human world and land,
the Divine the will of God in Man -
(Grace, rhyme, the collapsing of
Space, Time)
Man vessel, lyre, heart, and hand.

Call me by my only Name;
Preserve me from folly, and from fame.
 

(February 1982)

Testament

But of my own life, my intimate self -
the one that is not mage, nor god, nor giant, nor elf,
the one that was born and walks in earth's flesh -
what is its fate's web, its destiny's mesh?
For though it yet lives, to age, and to death,
it still wonders what urge drives the will to achieve,
what strings bind its heart and shatter calm breath,
wonders why the world was made to deceive.

Dizzy with dreams, drunk with desire,
made with fatigue, burned out by fire.
Rage falling stupid, tears blurring eyes -
Some days are different: deep are the skies,
silent are stones, strong are waves on the beach
but these hours, my own, are beyond my mind's speech.

Believe in a faith, stir up the young,
Raise my hand, open, and raise up my tongue?
I'm really beginning to feel it's absurd
to try and forge worlds with the weaving of words.
Down from my heights on rhyme's horse have I ridden
away from the peace that passes, private, unwritten.

Farewell, once-friend, for What's been said here
can never be said full when you are too near;
a special moment, a warm smile, a feverous touch -
these are the things that I can't let mean much
for they're nothing to the Art by which I to live;
they're nothing of the love that I did try to give.
 

(Spring 1982)

Good judges, attend, and heed my word -
criticism, really, is for the birds!

Why muse to sweeter, more precious note
if on it only stylists and critics dote?
If rivalry's the point, not Art,
then eyes were arrows, and prices darts.

Epitaph

Just is the retribution of the Lord

Index of Titles and First Lines