Bound to Eden's Land

I wear upon myself today 

Immanuel's Feet to bear and lead 

His Eye to watch 

His Arm to lift 

His Ear to hearken to my need 

The Head of my Godhead to teach 

His Hand to heal 

His Heel to ward 

The Mouth of God to give me speech 

His Gloryflesh my life to hoard 

Christ on all tongues telling of me 

Christ on all minds pondering me 

Christ on all hearts wond'ring at me 

Christ my Maker, Christ co-Heir 

Christ Adopter, co-family 

Christ behind, Christ before 

Christ above, Christ below 

Christ encircling, 

Christ pervading, 

Christ the Chasm super-spanning 

Goodwill earthward from Him landing 

I bind unto myself this hour 

His bursting from the spicéd tomb 

His riding up, His hurtling down, 

His feet upon the Heaven-way 

His soothing eyes and Day of Days 

His comfort at the Day of Doom 

I bind unto myself today 

Heaven's Home in heaven's heaven 

Gleam of sunsheen 

Beam of moon 

Blazing heat of flaming Noon 

Burning light of lightning flash 

Crashing sea of surging stacks 

Stony heights of gravity 

Whirling wind, sublimity 

Trembling fruits on lustrous limbs 

Eden's Land revived in Him 

Blood of my blood 

Heart of my heart 

Flesh of my flesh 

Bone of my bone 

Soul of my soul 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

I've been working on this rewriting of the 𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎 𝑜𝑓 𝑆𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑡 𝑃𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑘, which is part-preserved in the 9th-century 𝑉𝑖𝑡𝑎 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑎 𝑆𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑡𝑖 𝑃𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑖, and more completely passed down from the 11th-century 𝐹𝑎́𝑒𝑡ℎ 𝐹𝑖𝑎𝑑𝑎 ('Hidingspell') in the 𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟 𝐻𝑦𝑚𝑛𝑜𝑟𝑢𝑚. The prayer and its imagery go back to Patrick himself and the early 400s. In my rewriting, I've tried to echo the energy, piercing movement, submission, tranquility, intimacy, courage and imagery of the original.

Bloodlight

Tenderly overflowed

banks flood-rent

by love-rivers,

tear-riven.

Silt trickled, swollen-shoaled,

stone splitting.


Earth-soaking, overflowed,

undulating under temple stone,

crack-writhen.


Red-dying dye bled

down rock-faces,

the vein-stained glass

of window-ages

scintillating under lowest heights

of Heaven.

~N.A.D., 8 January 2017

I sang
I sang
of Mango Pie
of sanguine tango Mango Pie
of tangy Peach of Paradise
of Banging Fruit and Punching Slice
In its flesh I bit my fang
My fang
My fang
My Adam mouth it did entice
Hamdy skinned and Hamdy scooped
Hamdy baked it orange and yellow
the Torta of Mango
- this Kassem fellow -
in Ovens of Eden
on tongues to hang O!
Bells rang
Bells rang
The chimes all sang in Heaven highest
for Mango baked with Kassem's bias!
[A poem written in memory of Hamdy Kassem's creation.]

I pulped the pomegranates
seeded the juice
popped the palates
like pomegrenades

Needy knees need kneading

Box Fetish Kent

A poem written by a Welsh friend in honour of my buddy, K.C., stuck with an Amazon seller charging him shipping *six times* for six separate items shipped in *one box.* K.C. said he'd have seller send future items in separate boxes to addresses all over town just to make a point. After being asked whether he had a box fetish, he adopted the amazon handle, boxfetish.

Box Fetish Kent found his money all went
on one cardboard secure for
The things he had sent.
So he had them boxed single
Upped his game on the cost
Now he's never looked back at the money he lost,
For he's earned well a name he now uses with pride -
But is it for the box or what jingles inside?
What jingles inside?
What jingles inside?
Well, some things are private (I'll let you decide).
No matter, no worries
True fetish for sure
No matter, no worries
True fetish...
No cure!
~V.P-C., Ceredigion, Wales

Apple Turnover

Ambling on two-hours sleep in amplified head
Unshied
Bow of day has twanged, twinging two bull's-eyes
Now slumb'ry, like arrow-slain apple, I ably and appley topple over.
A wish accomp-lished!
De-lish

Lemonsnort Your Mansniffle

Hamdy Kassem,   أنت المنقذ



The Bedouin lemon-snort

is curing my mancold

while boiling under hot beams, sun-melting my mansniffle,

burning off the achy icky summerflu,

mansummer-summerman-flu.

Cheers, you unsnotting noggin on my neck,

you brainsoothing mucilage smooth,

with windy weather blowing my cup

steaming up

my pine-cone tea, spruce-cone fir-cone

resin-sticky in ginger-lemon-yarrow

in my binger-Bedouin marrow,

my rising man-might,

slaking my lemon-stung nostril.

Hoverslumber

Diving bats
like boomerangs
over sun-swooning water
and wake of gnats
unslaggingly slake
with bites over the ladle
of the lake
their hunger
as my hover-cradle
wingslings aloft
on the nightfalling wind

~NpH~

Better than Sunmade

The sun came raiding,
sweating for bliss and blister,
sweltering even under shade.
Rain fell hard and flaying down,
steaming brisk and stoking,
like the Amazon poking,
melting my milk and marrow!
Before I'm de-manned,
what I demand, for cold and frisky,
is a sarsen tub, marbly made,
its hollow filled with hoary frost
under billows of stout
where the beerbarrows wave
frosted on the swell

There I'll come, foam-riding,
I'll stoutly ripple.
Inside I'll slip,
and slake,
and tipple

~NpH

Ropes of Sky

Thunder and Blitz
fill with wonder this Longest Day
before the Supermoon

The Rain ripples down
in netted silver,
wets me in river-beams
purer than Sungleam's
Plunder and Ritz

-Nathan Paul Hillman,
 south Wisconsin, 21 June 2013

Valentia

Wolfings and She-wolfings,
on the Ides of February,
flip on your goat-skins, the *februa* of the Faun,
flail a blushing Spring,
or, fearing that bloody sap,
marry off the marriage-banned,
mollify the 'eunuchs' of war
before your execution and farewell
to fair Asterius' daughter,
her heart now wholly healed

14 February 2013, Nathan Paul Hillman

Lurgy-bug Clergy

On my birthday (needing to purge me?)
I came down with the dreaded lurgy,
cooties and wine too far from surgery

Don't just cry dirge, get jolly and hoot
a surge of laughs merged with tears,
a splurge of grog, hot grub, free loot,
lob platters and tankards, flesh on spears

Be my doctor, my priest, my spouse, my holy urge

Come to me, lurgy-bug clergy

-Paleonate, 7 February 2013

Light-Singed

Under winter thunder
sinters sky in splinters
Earthlings blow like tinder
New-age baby birthlings

Eclipse at Ugarit

Eclipse at Ugarit

May ninth anniversary

of the blackening sun

over Ugarit in 1012 BC

Sun not yet risen.

I heat me from winter-weather

                   with warm mead, Weisswurst, leeks, eggs,

                   log-grown shrooms,

                    soft insides of cattails

                             newly swampy suckaliscious

May ninth anniversary

of the blackening sun

over Ugarit in 1012 BC

Sun not yet set.

On the sunlit grass

O’Murchadh and I give one another

          songs and stories, whinnies and whimsies

She laughs patient as booby-me bursts a bottle

          of fermented milk in my leather satchel

          and squishes the milk goo on the green

We roll and writhe and cuddle kiss

May ninth anniversary

of the blackening sun

over Ugarit in 1012 BC

Sunday not gone,

Moonday not come

          Pease soup, superb, with just firm carrots

          A Just So Story at midnight

We dived on her divan,

          snuggle-oafs on sofa

Apes in Eden’s bleeding twilight

          bounded past her bower eaves

                   over the borders of bedwed folds

                   milking the womb of blushing age

Midnight gone and Moonday come,

Dark moon nearly new.

Monday ground turned milky cream,

                   bound in frost

                   in the sunrise gleam of 2010.

                                      My red cheeks,

                                      Ugaritic and Greek,

                                                hot in the morning,

                                                eclipsed the cold

Pushmower

Pushmower

Blades are rushing, raiding,
goring mower’s roaring
Rotating cuts turn fatefully
beneath me turning lethally

Fallow petals falling,
fazed by death the daisies.
Iron knife is rifling
newest grasses blooming

Can I hear their man-fears
Under me limbs sunder

Pausing now then kneeling
with knees upon the grasses,
I lie down low and peer down
with love inside the cuttings

Red ribbons of amphibians
I find torn on the shorn field,
lost to life short-lasted.
I lift alive a frisking gift,
a frog upon the soggy swathe –
In swamp I free him romping

The haulms have fallen calmly
Cut down, fluttering critters,
some giving life, yet living.

Stopped is ripper’s stripping,
Bees aloft hum softly,
Toads are burping, goading
lovemates for a sating

Slowly, quit, the mower
quakes above earth’s shaking

College Health, II & III

 I. Nutrition on the Bus (dern blog won't allow lay-out - columns)

II. Infernal Recess

Vernal Recess from infernal pit-cess
of all-night pizzafaces
Student debauchville, studless,
won’t neigh for two weeks
with loudmouths gone
Donut kids won’t steal my bus
on caffeine-kinked mornings

I pedal in peace on my icy cycle
gliding through the silent town,
the quiet glee of March snow,
as work-days come and mirk-nights go

Skunk hash scents the sidewalks
next to Knuckleheads
where the leisure poor make space for talk
and lift each other’s loads

Credit kids have flown to Cali
Knuckleheads are gone – Scram
Student screams are caged
in Florida folly

Baby rashes are scratched
with counterfeit rations on beerhead beaches

III. Schooled Blight

The noisy brats have blown town
Their dustcloud lingers low
down the emberdraft of wind

University manfactory
manufactures malaise

Springbreak, supposéd repose,
breaks springbuds
like an elephant’s hose

I throw a party for myself
Cook sardines in coconut, garlic, basil, salt and lime
with pablano peppers
Rocket and kale rock with tomat O, avocad O, onion O,
          axed flax, sage
Vampire, entrancing Transylvanian wine,
volubly envelops my throttle

The fake health of youth
is manufactured by malefactors

Outside whines the winds
fallen by sixty degrees,
a blight to the buds
Foodmakers yield less, yearly,
while plenty plummets
Piles of money buy less
as capital’s decapitated,
headless in the ashes
     Dollars to squalor
             Members to embers
                    Nickels to pickles
                             Quarters to Morte ore
                                     Dimes dust of time
                                            Bills paper pills

Dixie Rhine Dialogue

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=136e5054b7434de6&mt=application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document&url=https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui%3D2%26ik%3Db115abb3cf%26view%3Datt%26th%3D136e5054b7434de6%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dsafe%26realattid%3Df_h1f4fpwo0%26zw&sig=AHIEtbTE-tajDe2afBndTO0Tlzin8XvhFw&pli=1

Slacktrack

Slacktrack

Slowly

stalling,

neigh calling,

horse-sighing

nay.

Stallion heaving

breast-swollen breath.

Hot throat, clammy neck,

hoarse.

Sinews welter,

withers twitch

with weather sweat

on lather neck.

Dimlight dawn fondles

his fetlocks,

wet-clung with frost,

wreathed in white dew,

snowhair damp on hazel-locks.

Muzzle heat,

Nostril mist,

he missed the pounding herd

on horse-mate steppe.

Now footcuffed,

he coughs.

Sacked,

he bows,

sag-eared.

I prick my ears, pry my eyes,

feel stung

on tip of tongue

stuck to my roof

of horse-mouth,

wracked by words

wrought on wind,

spell-written,

twisted from bit,

wrung from bridle.

I trace his pace

with racing step,

with sudden fall,

braked.

Sigh-bitten,

known in his nose,

he passes by my sky-window -

my fleeting car riding by.

I stare out

at star-lit mane,

hushed

by his faltered rush.

Stagger foot.

Slow from fold,

slow bridle gate.

Bridal gait sloth,

now life-cut.

No mate.

He knew by their walk it led away,
He knew by their stealth, they stole him.

Stolen from stall, slackened slow,
His hoof-fall fell quiet.
He smelt on their hands the sweat of a fall,
He felt on the wind the breath of a stop,
He heard the train down a life-long rail,
on the tracks of unknown days,
the way he wondered why clop.

He nosed the rime-sighs of night
under heft of heavy riders.

He reared at their whispers,

at tones unknown.

Their hush-mumbles rang

in his marrow and bone.

Firesky smouldered

on eaves of wood

in the beams of dawn,

on edges drawn

in the margins of night.
He tracked the chart of days

on the footprint folds

where he danced
a horse trance,

stepped a last trot,
as lovers in Llanfihangel

careered and pranced

in red-fire hall

in the late dew

of a late Fall.                                

–Nathan Paul Hillman, 24/25 October 2011

Claustrogyny

Claustrogyny


In Two-thousand-three,
early in Spring,
I had a dream.
I guested at the house
of a hoary woman.
My closest friends followed me there.
She lodged us in a loft,
high-vaulted, windowless.
In the dark above, the rafters ranged unseen;
the floor planks ran under cover of dark.
It smelt of hay and musty dust.
Dry as a bone, but wet on the ends.
Wide wooden columns reached up to the vault, lost in shadow.
Surroundng each pillar, and piled in each corner,
lay half discernable urns and bins,
wooden chests, stacks of hair,
matted and manged.

Thick stuck under heavy covers, she bedded us down on the floor.
Quick as a spider, the spindly crone snuffed out the lights.
She spun her threads.
Wire-wool blankets she spread on the walls. The air hung stuck on the pricks of stubble.
Her silkworm body slipped away in a crack; her white withers sank away in the black.
Gone, O Yes.
Instead of sleep, I began to snoop, what fun.
I ransacked the boxes and bins, cramming fat sacks with handfuls of grime.
With my hands I sliced the viscous air, squeezing the flesh of dust.
I stuffed the sacks as fast as I could, bulging with bird-bones and clodded dung.

With a twist of anger, she reeled around.
Her hands fell like flails, gripping the sacks, dumping the dust and thrashing the chaff.
She vanished with a whish and vampish whisk.
Then sudden return.
Four steps she took, four deadfalling notes descending.
Dank dour power.
With one fast push, she packed a pillow flush in the door.

I crouched and creeped, slunk over friends asleep in the dark.
I heard long pauses between their heaves, their slow lungs lifting their coma chests.
I fingered and felt the flow of the walls, their nooks and nicks, the ungrovelled grooves.
I groped onto hinges, long-line creases, the unseen frame of a door.
In a fit of defiance, I pushed on the wood.
The wall swung open,
the swinging doors of a mammoth mow.
I yanked at the bins, the boxes and bones.
I hurled in haste, heaving in handfuls.
Lifted tables and dressers, desks and chairs - crashed them on tarmac below.
They smacked and splintered far down hard. The wind blew eddies in the sunlit grit.

With troll-steps of wroth, she strode straight back.
My friends rubbed their eyes in the blinding light.
Get out! I bellowed like a billow of wind.
Whirring, a helicopter hovered at the doors. Ropeladders fell for my wobbly friends.
I stayed back, stalking.
In all her height she stood still, hard by a pillar.
I walked behind her, wrapped her,
folded her flanks,
fondled her silken belly,
blew into her ear.
Her head sank back, her ice-eyes shut.
Her anger went out in a pang of pain,
her silkwarm skin turned to snow and stone.