Tag Archives: Tony Atkinson

tales from the seven seas

Taut tomes
And vociferous volumes;
Tall tales
And magnificent epistles.
Each story unfolds
Both to the teller
And the recipient
In so many differing ways
And often,
That which may appear the same
Is so manifold in its manifestations
We would wonder
We were even on the same page…
Yet somehow, undercurrents of sense
And meaning and theme and denouements
Crash from turbulent and tepid tides
At once!
And all along myriad and multiple shores
The message comes in…
Just as it will go out again…
And these various waves
Of size and sound and writhing around
Envelope and succumb sense
And all the senses
To the point where
Losing each self
Means all’s not lost
As the swell will subside…
…Just as the void will rise
Once more.

© Tony Atkinson

MIND

Mind

You don’t hurt it

By doing in your brain

Lessed you should stress

Over

 

Slow-ing

Flowing flowing

S-low-ing

Flowingflowingflowing

Sl…

 

Owing

For all your life

Someone, something, summing

Up whole selves till

(nothing)

 

Gro-Wing

Showing sHOWing

GRRRR-Owing!

SHOWING! SHOWING! SHOWING!

(Shh)…

 

Over

And above duty

When ALL has become STILL

(Must be out of your)

Mind.

 

© Tony Atkinson, 2010

TWILIGHT ZONE

These are the lyrics to the song “Twilight Zone” which we played at the Gorsedh Final night. It is about how, as children, we think we can communicate telepathically with our closest friends and/or loved ones. Do we unlearn this sort of ability or did we never really have it in the first place? I have seen enough in my life to believe that children are psychic and receptive to extraordinary stimuli in ways that most adults never are…:

 

Even as I sit here

Yes, I hear, I hear you call

And even though I wonder why

It feels so wonderful;

Even though it sounds strange

I almost see the invisible

And even though we’re far apart

It’s not so impossible…

 

 

Chorus

SCREAM AND SHOUT –

JUST LET IT OUT –

I WANT THE WORLD TO KNOW!

SHOUT AND SCREAM

AND I WILL SEE YOU

IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE;

WE TOUCHED WHERE NO-ONE EVER TOUCHED BEFORE

AND NOW I KNOW

NO MATTER WHERE WE ARE,

WE’LL TOUCH THE STARS,

I’LL MEET YOU

IN THE TWILIGHT ZONE…

 

 

Even as we tumble

No-one else can hear us fall

And even though we’re screaming

We’re still barely audible;

Even if we’re dreaming

It’s still unexplainable

And even as we breathe

We share the unbelievable…

 

© Tony Atkinson

The Wheel of the Year

In response to Tim’s request, i am posting this in the correct place!

My piece on this year’s theme, ”12 Giants: The Glastonbury Zodiac”. The first half is poetry, the second half (beginning ”The Babe in the Boat…”) is a song.

The whole thing is called:

“The Wheel of the Year”

I stand before you as a Poet, first,
A Bard deform-ed through an eversion, not aversion, to verse,
I’m not the world’s worst!
And I’m bursting with discursive inner-healing for the hurts –
I have a feeling that it works…

It’s starting to dawn on me
What I’ve achieved
And even though part of me’s fairly relieved
The Fifth Bard of Glasstonb’ry’s
To be believed

The Western Star of Hesperus
Glows Golden Apples in Eve of Venus
The Fisher King’s Salmon Wisdom
Sprung forth from Ceridwen’s Cauldron

Sunlight on a Winter’s day
Crisply foretells that we’re well on the way
Starlight o’er a Blue Moon Tor
Lights up the night till it’s May once more
The Holly Queen and the Green Man
See Wheels turning, still, they stand
And the next revolution counts
Each to their own in equal amounts

The Bardic year of Ynys Witrin
Spanning two St. Dunstan’s Days
Harmonising Ancient Rhythms
In both new invention and paraphrase

Then my own personal journey
From the Isle of Death to the Isle of the Dead
Seascaped Thanet to Glastonbury’s Promontory
Finding Heartfelt Harmony and Healing for the Head

Am now become an Elder Bard!
And today – JUST TODAY! – am only half
Of the Current Chair
Am aware that there (somewhere!)
Is the next incumbent
Waiting to be chosen
But for now this moment
In time is frozen

So here at the end
Which is also the start
Both Silver and Gold
We are Bards of the Year of the Hallmark!
And whichever way we look, we know
That the Wheel of the Year is on show…

The Babe in the Boat
Holds the Key to the Temple
And Augurs the Return
Of the Once and Future King
Sail across the Moat
To the land of the Templar
Lessons can be learned
So drink it in

WHEN THE TIDE’S IN
THE STARS ARE REFLECTED
AS ABOVE, SO BELOW
WHEN THE TIDE’S OUT
THE MAP CAN BE INSPECTED
THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR IS ON SHOW

The Lady of the Lake
Reflects the constellations
Mapping out the stars
On the earth for all to see
Arthur on the wake
Well-read in incantations
Taliesin’s Words
In Company

Arianrhod’s Maze
Which contains the pilgrim’s Path
Hides the Silver Thread
So the Seeker finds they’re lost
Lapping are the Waves
Round the Measure of Math
The Isle of the Dead
Is starcrossed.

© Tony Atkinson 2011

around the zodiac with my shapeshifting spirit guide

again, just posting this in the correct place now…my winning piece from last year – (back when i was GlastoBard MMX)  !!!

<< around the zodiac with my shapeshifting spirit guide >>

 

I saw a noble Holy man

Through Michael’s tower, atop the Tor…

This Hopi showed me such Shamanic plans

Translucently, from way beyond the door –

“Just as a True Brave is a Chief

The Light have their own motif”

(He sang), “Course, what’s truly beyond belief

Is despite their many and varied Beliefs

Not one of them really Believes they believe…

If one wishes to learn how to fly

They should first be grounded.”

As we landed at Wick Hollow

His lesson was how language can fly

Both off the page and to the ear:

 

Well heard, then, The Word is infernally blurred

It’s internally skewed

Yet, in turn, is ETERNALLY LOUD!

 

And, floating, (above, beyond, across)

Is something sadly lost

(Not a freefall drop in the ocean of plop!)

 

Only cosense can ‘co-pilot’ quiet compliance

To coping, collective, co-operative, conscious –

Not the con science of conscience but the Up Wards of upwards.

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

 

Appearing, once again, my Guide

Invoked in me Mindchemistry

Such as to summon up

The Silver Tongue and the Blarney Stone.

He stood by me now as a Leprechaun

But forthwith… Shapeshifted… into a Pixie…

“To see from above with detachment

Means first to sight from below.

What’s directly around you should astound you

Outside your insides”, he Piped, anext the Holy Thorn:

 

I’ve drunk Willy Wonka’s lifting drink in dreams

I sat up in my body, half-grounded, half ‘midst the astral plains

But i’ll fly at prescription and outrageous discrimination.

 

I’ve seen his outrage lift, as clouds disseminate with bluesky thinking

I’ve felt her tiniest footfall brush, flicked, windswept, such flyaway hair!

I’ve known our love to elevate such that it emanates around and between.

 

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

 

I turned to the Mahatma

(As he now showed himself)

– My Aether Guru smiled

Without moving his face.

“Take me to the next Level?” I inquired,

But realised here we were

And from between the Abbey Columns

We Stargated into the Portal

To Receive the Lore of Language

Elevated by subtlety:

 

The Cwn Annwn curs

(Those most Hellish hounds)

Appear, at first, to fly Valkyrie-like

 

In stealth and ravaging lurch

They savage and scavenge for wounds

Each on opposite battlefields, purest unalikes

 

But both Gwyn Ap Nudd’s sanguinest pack at work

And Odin’s noble soldier slakers, ‘twixt otherhoods,

Soar and swoop, detect, select, glide, quite alike.

 

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

 

Now Black Hawk stood before me,

Imploring me under his wing;

Perched, we were, on Gog and Magog in turn.

Up with the Lark, Lucid Dreaming,

Vision came upon me,

Projected on-the-wing from my Flight Attendant,

It was Suggested:

 

There’ll be Bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover,

There be Dragons and ‘Ell ’Ounds o’er Glaznbry Tor!

Where a man can emerge, Phoenixlike, at Winter Solstice –

A Somerian becoming a Phoenician!

Eaches’ flight, both from and to the Holy Apple Isle

Landed them HERE!

Where Bards trade and perform before

The finest fellow Bards,

Artists, Musicians, Magicians,

Healers, Actors and Dancers.

 

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

 

Just then, as I Scried, I Espied

My Companion and Muse

Was no man at all and Revealed

The True I.D. of this Paraglider

Was none other than Bridie, who sighed:

“The Sylph, at once Sylvan and Silver and Sylfaen,

Like Modron and Morgan and Magdelene;

The Maiden, the Woman, the Crone

Are the Daughter, Lover and Mother.”

And here, on her Mound,

I felt at one with the Earth and the World –

Rose again from her Womb

To hear Her Symphonise:

 

 

A Bard must take Wing,

They must Thrust with sheer Guts

And Lift through selfless soliloquy…

Float over hopeless with hopeful mot-justes…

Soar with inspired integrity…

And beat their metaphorical wings with Flapful Intensity…

Casting their words to the Heavens to Boost

The Air of their carefully pared-down panache…

Forsooth, seeking proof of what Appears to Hover over us

(Not Clouded or Blurred)

Till what’s onerous is feathered to (no more than) alas.

 

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

 

We Circled now, between the White and Red Springs

And came to rest at Chalice Well.

My Guardian Angel, though nowhere to be seen,

Was right beside me all the while!

Her presence felt, her voice in my head simply said:

 

There are many Flightpaths to the same Knowledge;

Flight is merely a Launch without a Path.

In order to achieve Flight

The Bard must Consider

The Properties of their Words –

Levels of Thrust and Application…

The Balance of Lift and Drag…

Their Planform, both Aspect Ratio and Wing Loading…

That they may Ascend to Descend…

Sideslip and Whiffle…

Till all their Apparel

Is Knitted together like the Barbules of a Feather.

 

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

 

Fleeting in a Fly-past, over the Levels,

Rushing across Airways and riding Airwaves.

We saw Wells and Cheddar, Pilton and Ebbor,

Cadbury, Dundon and Burrowbridge.

“What does MAN want from Flight

But to See and Be Above?

COARSENING Nature’s plight

Devolves and Disenvolves us

– The Forceful Might

Wills His Will”,

Said the Goddess Sprite.

“This has always been Felt around Glastonbury –

Since Ynys Witrin and the Fair Avalon of Albion”.

Then, to our great delight,

We saw something more:

 

In Days of Yore ALL Bards would look to Birds

For Portents, signs from High Above this earth,

So what (ON Earth) have present Bards to Learn?

 

 

Look to the Skies!

A Murmuration of Starlings fell out of the Sky

At Coxley and murmur no MORE…

Volcanic Ash Clouds

Prevented the take-off of all flights

By a BloodRed Sunset, threatening something MORE…

Don’t tell the Bees!

Their number is in serious decline

Workers and Drones Swarm to the Queen till MORE…becomes less.

 

Jenny Wren, the King of Birds,

Perched on Golden Eagle’s Wings,

Once above the highest clouds,

Flew Higher than the weary one.

 

Will We, as Onenation, TAKE flight

To emerge, Phoenix-like, again, on the Other Side

Of what the Mayans described and Prophecised?

 

I check the Pilot Light –

Still Burns, But Shines in Our Eyes…

Yet, yes, we can still be

Ski Jumpers, Freefallers, Street Surfers,

Base Jumpers, Free Runners, High Divers,

Trapeze Artists, Wirewalkers and Glider Pilots.

 

 

 

But MAN has gone beyond the sky,

Infiltrated the atmosphere

And Wished upon a Star to be as Earth…

So I looked again to the Birds

For some Words which would Inspire Insight…

 

Herons clutch a stone in their claw

To prevent them, when dropping-off, from plummeting…

Hummingbirds hang, half-hiding magnificent industry

Through seemingly effortless stillness…

Hawks pierce with their allseeing eyes

But only strike when the time is right…

 

Alone, atop the Tor again,

I realise now I have always known

That when a Bard lets fly

We can either take flight

Or get in Formation!

 

 

© Tony Atkinson,  2010,  Fifth Chaired Bard of Ynys Witrin or Glastonbury or Avalon

9° = 2° Magus

one of eleven pieces from my entry for the 2009 gorsedh (deputy bard year!) double acrostic in golden triads of olde english bang-bang-bang-crash style

9° = 2° Magus

THE CATACLYSMIC CROW’S ORIGINS
OUTLAST OLDER, OUTMODED NONPAREIL
NATURAL NESTLINGS’ NECROMANTIC TREMBLE

YAWNINGLY YOUTHFUL, THEY YEARN FOR AMORE
AS SYMMETRICAL SWAN SWEETHEARTS TRIP
THE LIGHT LAMPTASTIC, LUMINATING, YELLOW

KINGFISHER, KITSCH KIPPERTIE, IGUANA
INTIMATE INCANDESCENCE, ILLUMINATORY NAVEL
NOW PEACOCKS’ PATTERN PUZZLE’S GIVEN A KICK

SINCE UNIONS, AS UNICORNS, ARE UNIQUE IN EACH OUTCOME
OR CO-ADEPTS CAN CRYSTALLISE NONGENDER
NEEDLINGS, THOUGH, MUST NURTURE THE NUANCES OF THE SCARAB

CRIMSONLY, THE CONCUBUS CLIMBS DOWN FROM HIS REGALIA
REAUDITING THE AURICLE, THE AUGURAL ”HE ART” AND ”E AR”
AS PELICANS PLUNDER THEIR OWN PLUMAGE FOR THEIR CHILD

BE A PHAROS TO THE PHAOROAH OF REPHOENIXED EGO
EMBRYO ENHALOES THE ERSTWHILE ALOOF
AS SHAPESHIFTERS SHUN RETRIBU-SHUN! BEAMINGLY

RECALCITRANT CERRIDWEN’S CAULDRON FOR TALIESIN
TWINNED TEMERITY TO THE TWICEBORN’S HUMILITY
HOW THE SHININGBROW SHIMMERS AS SHOWTIME RESOUNDS

MY OWN MONKEY MISCHIEF IN ITS OVERFLOW
OUTWHEELS THE OUROBORUS, AS ONENESS TO ALL NUCLEI –
NON-SEQUITURS’ NONSENSICAL NON-ENTITY IS MISS-MAINTENANT

KEY TO THE KINGDOM OF KINDOM IS THE ELIXIR
EACH GOLDHAWK IS GOADING HOW GOLDEN’S THEIR YOGI
YIELDING FROM THE YOKING OF YINYANG, BECAME! (KNOWN)

© Tony Atkinson