Bards'
Corner
Poems & Poets
at Ffwrwm
Poems By Ray Turley:
(From his book: In Search of Camelot)
Ffwrwm, In
Search of Camelot, Song of Songs
(for Guinevere)
FFWRWM
Come wide-eyed through the gate,
and let the sleeping street race by.
For here's a magic place,
a spell to catch the eye;
a haunting theme where only wide awake,
are you allowed to dream.What would you dream?
A willow coverlet to share with friends;
to make a world of dappled green,
where nature blends
her heart with who you really are?
.....or might have been.Will you dream a vixen's night-call
while a princess sleeps alone.
Will you dream a warrior's footfall,
just below the courtyard stone;
Will you dream a dragon's teardrop,
carved upon a waiting throne.
.....will you dream a circled cross,
a Celtic knot,
Will you dream Merlin,
golden rooftops, burnished, burning sunlight, star-bright,
even Camelot.....?.....Hush poet, let it be.
These are your dreams; and there is room
beneath this tulip tree
to spin a thousand different dreams,
Now, share instead the dreams which others make;
the souls who come into the Ffwrwm;
and come awake.- Ray Turley
Poems: In Search of Camelot, Song of Songs (for Guinevere) [Bards Corner]
Here in a nest of staring eyes,
unerring in the hollow ring of unlove's love;
a broken grail drips wine
and blood.
beneath the crush of tarmac fields.
Tyre treading and unheeding, rush the speeding nowhere,
bleeding grimaces locked in a jaw,
where smiles belong.
And who, inside a noisy head,
may hear the subriety of nature's song '?Who spares a thought for this man-magic lost ?
Lost to a time which tears apart.
the heart of beauty time once made.
Who sheds a tear for Camelot ?Did we once believe, between these running hills ?
Conceive a Citadel, where river tides spell out,
an ocean's longing to return and bring,
his touch again upon Caerleon's bridge,
- the longing of a King.
And, if we watched, who were we then,
urging not gain or loss ?
But merging with the music of a feasting hall,
feeling the unknowable and knowing all,
beneath the Celtic cross.I hose hearts who lived what isness calls to test,
loved only what is love;
rode out upon a wildflower path,
to watch the golden turrets set a sleepy sun to rest,
could I have nestled there, upon the thigh of twilights lap,
with whispered stories of a sword which heals,
amid the swords which cut?Dare I feel it here again?
beneath the sooted urban clouds,
the rain which stings the eye;
and be devoid of pain.
Shall I release the breath of Merlin from the bits and bytes,
which spin him on a floppy disc of endless days and nights.
in treasuries where blades of grass,
are sentenced for their loss,
of cost effectiveness?Can I shut out this stony-faced insensitivity
which so ungraced the worldly poise,
in IBM compatibility,
and need's unheeding noise?Oh yes;
I will not wail the stranger's dirge!The ancient magic still wells up beneath my feet,
where blood-wine lives on earth
and calls upon the stars
to mend it's broken cup;
and looking up, and reaching out to share,
I find a gathering of friends among the knights,
and hear the minstrel's song upon the air.A flowing lady comes, spun out of white-fleeced clouds,
inviting me to fly a mystic space where time forgot;
A space where earth and heaven truly touch;
and here, for me,
is Camelot.- Ray Turley
Poems: Ffwrwm, Song of Songs (for Guinevere) [Bards Corner]
May I come now to Camalot?
Now while your feet are soft and bare;
no jeweled crown to wear upon your head.
Your body clothed in nothing but an untied gown,
untried by questions on the scented air
which folds away for you.
And will your hair be free to light my cheek;
the only heart upon your breast,
the heart I give again to keep
to claim an instant of your fragile name;
and heal the pain of kings and queens
and courtly marriages,
where slept those unkept promises
- and truth, lost in a golden glory, wept.Will you wait ungarlanded.
An ageless loveliness to fate my ageless soul.
And will there be no sound inside your room,
or music caught upon your resting thought,
except the music which I bring to sing you with
from every woodland glade and mist enchanted lake;
and in the music take your hand awhile.
For where else may such music be and how,
unless with me in your enchantment now.And shall we privately accept,
beneath those guilded turrets where we kept
our distanced innocence;
that times and places in our outer worlds may sleep,
while we un-noticed in my song of songs, must keep
an hour or so of harmony to flow - to be believed - Iet go,
then in the pain of memory, retrieved
to grace whatever time we make it so.Shall I steal Merlin's potion for a body balm,
to feel and touch and calm
and heal the knotted regal bond
from every part of you.
And will you bring no food for me,
except the feeding of my soul upon your borrowed flesh:
the pulsing, living from which gives itself afresh;
and in it's giving, so lives on for me.And will you call us back into belief
of such brief burnings out of time - and out of care,
with only bright white wine to share.
And will my rain-soft kiss upon your breasts,
make sweet red berries grow;
and will you meet the flow which tests my fingertips,
arrests the dancing butterflies who pause
and feel for nectar where the flower's cause is spun.
And will you be a flower for me,
which opens to an unforgetful sun.Will there be no light except the candles which I bring;
no place beyond the hearth, no bells to ring
across the town.
No quissing eye or frown to take to task
and not one promise raised to give or ask.
Nor yet one red-bitch tongue upon a village street,
where names of you and names of me may meet.
No sword to take from saddened kings
and not one tear to cry out of a dragon's eye.But only where our shadows twine and dance upon the wall;
only in my song of songs to raise and fall
this tight-wound pendulum where ticks
an endless hour or two.
A time beyond your world where magic touches you
and nowhere else exists.- Ray Turley
Poems: Ffwrwm,
In Search of Camelot
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