Jubal's poems

[Jubal]

A song of musical problems...

Where is My Capo?

There’s a wind in the wood blows no-one no good,
 G                                D                G                D
I tried to play bassoon but got lost in the reeds,
G                        C                                      G
I tried for brass but I got only muck,
  G                                            D
Pulled out all the stops but still my organ’s stuck
                G                                      D
Where is my capo? I had it a minute ago,
G            C      G                                   D
I’d take my shot at other strings but I can’t string a bow.
    Em                 D             Em                D                 G

Where is my capo? I had it a minute ago,
This question unending that every guitarist must know.

There’s a wind in the wood blows no-one no good,
I tried to play bassoon but got lost in the reeds,
I tried for brass but I got only muck,
Pulled out all the stops but still my organ’s stuck
Where is my capo? I had it a minute ago,
I’d take my shot at other strings but I can’t string a bow.

My attempts at conducting made the bus late home,
My timpani was far from a thumping success,
A double bass-ically drove me to gin,
And tubas hate the soil in my garden,
And where is my capo? I had it a minute ago,
But feel too quiet to ask the chap with the grand piano.

My gurdy doesn’t want to join the herd,
I’ve not got the spoons to play in another folk session,
There’s someone fiddling with my ideas each night,
And a trad repertoire that a child could write,
And where is my capo? I had it a minute ago,
I can’t switch to bagpipes fear that I can’t take the blow,

And my tries at rock trapped me in a hard place,
I’m a techno-phobe and pop has just gone to the weasels,
I’ve seen the violins inherent in the system,
I’ve tried for hits but I’ve always missed them,
But where is my capo? I had it a minute ago,
This search like its object attunes me to seek high and low,
Yes, where is my capo? I had it a minute ago,
It’s simply the case that to get back in business I need it in time for the show,
In this storm in a do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti cup that’s made me sick stringing out musical woe.

[Jubal]

Ozymandias' Icebox

I once met a traveller in an antique land,
Who said: two cold and icy plums with stones,
Sat in the icebox:
Then sat in my hand,
Then sunk into my visage, then I frowned,
My fruit-stained lip, I licked, to understand
That to the icebox lid my passions led,
In which I dived, reached for those lifeless things,
My hand that grasped them and my maw that fed;
And in my consciousness these words appear:
"I'm saving those for breakfast," your voice rings,
I look at the icebox, and rightly, I despair.
Nothing else remains: around the decay,
Of that emptied box of ice, barren and bare,
The level kitchen floor stretched far away.


(For anyone wanting the joke explained: it's a riff on rewriting this oft-memed poem in a different style)

[Jubal]

Architectural reflections

The tower of the farmhouse, octagonal,
The weathervane, cockerel,
Upon blue and curled-white lines
Its head thrown back against the sky

The boar, black-on-green,
Faced the dog, white-on-red;
The boar held a staff,
And beneath him - them -
The bull stood.
And that was where Stone welcomed the Wise
And the Wise welcomed Stone in turn

The column of the tollkeeper's house,
The leaves are broad and wreathed around the base,
But below
Did the tollkeeper know?
There were flames.


Each of these is closely based on a note I took whilst wandering around the Stein district of Krems an der Donau - a quick reflection on some architectural feature or other.

[Jubal]

Bring Me Down

Bring me down -
The eagle sky-clad soaring to the sodden ground
When the loneliness of empty air
Too much to bear   
Becomes weight on shattered wings
That turn and fall
Featherless

Bring me down -
Last scion of the mammoth, pierced by flint spears all around,
Seeing slow loves cut before ponderous eyes,
And in its wind-caught sighs,
A longing to be buried bones,
Brought to loss-mingled,
Stone-pressed home

Bring me down -
The rotting carcass of the lion, filled with roaring, rolling sound,
Where bees and flies make busy turning sweet rot
And community
Pity kings, by gold and steel caressed:
Freed in peasants' earth
At last to rest

Bring me down -
Where the fingers of devils and the dead clutch all around,
The soft petrichor of morning,
Weeps on fragile skin’s shivering,
Where rhizomorphous hair-knots spread
Tangled, dreamed decay

So bring me down -
The angel falling featherless, burning up its choral gown,
Rotting, feeding fruit-trees to feed the rising apes
That learned to dream
So, love, bring me down, for I have made the human’s choice:
To rather a self broken upon your earth
Than that which you call seraphim or elohim
And is
Nothing
Else.

[Jubal]

Jack O'Deer

The winter comes, the winter’s cold,
The time comes to make free and bold,
When tales of my deeds are sung,
For misrule I did bring -
But they won’t come and find me here,
For I’m dancing a jig with little Jack deer!

Twas I who robbed the miller’s son,
Of coin he took from those with none,
He’ll have to sell his horse and stones,
His hat and signet ring,
But they won’t come and find me here,
For I’m dancing a jig with little Jack deer!

Twas I nailed to the parson’s door,
The skirts he’d chased from ladies poor,
The only choir he’ll hear’s the one,
That of his deeds will sing,
But they won’t come and find me here,
For I’m dancing a jig with little Jack deer!

Twas I who saw the lord demand,
A cost for fuel I could not stand,
I set his hall to fuel a blaze,
For to him light to bring,
But they won’t come and find me here,
For I’m dancing a jig with little Jack deer!

And so before I’m held to blame,
With he who wears horns with no shame,
I’ll soon away to wood and fen,
And I’ll be on the wing,
And they won’t come and find me here,
For I’m dancing a jig with little Jack deer!


Notes:
The muntjac is an unusual animal to be made central to a folk song/ballad, they were only introduced to the UK in the C19th, but they have this rather satyr-like quality and that plus their very not-quite-local-but-local-ness seemed to make them an interesting candidate for a sort of lord of misrule, satyr-like figure. This led to the chorus forming in my head, and the verses and theme of taking down corrupt figures of village society was back-formed from the "they won't come and find me here" line.

[Jubal]

Blackberry Wine

When Circe’s dark wings they are faded and worn,
       G                                                    D
And the last of the meadow-browns tattered and torn,
            G                                            D
Their struggles are done and there’s warmth in the morn,
            G                                            C                      G
And I sing to the leaves that fall,
         D                                  G  D

And we’ll open a storehouse of blackberry wine,
                   G                                C                G
When the harvest is in and the weather is fine,
                 D                                                 G
And the herbs that are grown shall be tarkhun and thyme,
                   G                                C                G
And we’ll sing from the eve ‘til the morning.
                D                                         Em

When Circe’s dark wings they are faded and worn,
And the last of the meadow-browns tattered at torn,
Their struggles are done and there’s warmth in the morn,
And I sing to the leaves that fall,

And we’ll open a storehouse of blackberry wine,
When the harvest is in and the weather is fine,
And the herbs that are grown shall be tarkhun and thyme,
And we’ll sing from the eve ‘til the morning.

Each leaf shall be different that grows green and high,
And this truth no stone and no law shall deny,
For they touch not the rainbow or sun-setting sky,
While I sing to the leaves that fall,

And we’ll open a storehouse of blackberry wine,
When the harvest is in and the weather is fine,
And the herbs that are grown shall be tarkhun and thyme,
And we’ll sing from the eve ‘til the morning.

And not every song shall survive winter’s chill,
And not every bird lands on that far misted hill,
But we’ll fly, singing skeins, so that some of us will,
While I sing to the leaves that fall,

And we’ll open a storehouse of blackberry wine,
When the harvest is in and the weather is fine,
And the herbs that are grown shall be tarkhun and thyme,
And we’ll sing from the eve ‘til the morning.

The autumn is calling, your labours are done,
And though your leaf’s a record of dreams yet unwon,
We’ll drink blackberry wine in the last of the sun,
And I’ll sing to the leaves that fall,
And I’ll sing to the memories that call,
How I wish I could remember them all -

And we’ll open a storehouse of blackberry wine,
When the harvest is in and the weather is fine,
And the herbs that are grown shall be tarkhun and thyme,
And we’ll sing from the eve ‘til the morning.


Notes:
This was put together rather slowly - I had the chorus in summer and it took half a year to put together - and ended up being largely a reflection on activism and especially LGBT rights activism through a folk song framing. In particular, the tensions between the need to keep fighting, the need to grieve and mourn those who didn't make it, and the need to rest are quite core to what I was thinking about through the verse lyrics.

The Circe in verse one is really the butterfly more than the witch (hence going along with the meadow-browns), but the double meaning is intentional.

[Jubal]

Cathedral

We built this
We did not let it build itself,
There are too many of us for that.

The pillars of a basilica, stern, straight-standing,
And all the tiles a maze of autumn-brown,
Pocked with primrose,
Which makes it all the more a cathedral, to me,
The echo of roses as power in time,
Is familiar to my foreign eyes
The plain pillars above which woodpeckers screech
Holding up the fan-vault canopy

But I wonder if we
(the other we, if I make myself part of here and not part of there)
truly recognise what we have built
Imagining anything that is not bound in cold stone and twined with gold
To be nature
To be separable

When people gather,
They turn the world into cathedrals:
There are too many of us not to.
One day, such a basilica may take my bones:
And so here, godless man on unconsecrated ground,
Among the pillars of a cathedral,
I pray.

[Jubal]

Overcast

The cave-grey shadows come
Wearing the face of a day
And the raiment of a raincloud
And boots of muffled whisper

A box of colours flickers, pinks and golds,
Insufficient to light the room
A campfire for one
That sits songless
Only to highlight the ghosted imaginary
Of those shadows that might have been people
In a different world
With more light

The shadows fade into shadows,
The shadows close into cave-walls
And the day closes into a day
That was:
A placeholder for Time
Who, imperceptible, slipped through shadows on cave walls
To pass forever by

[Jubal]

A Banner, Rolled Up Again

I understand the need to curl
And like a tattered banner furl
Whose sign shall then, no more in view,
Be safe within that curling too,
And thus to its own self be freed:
And thus, encurled, fulfils a need.

[Jubal]

Clutter

I pass another set of tables cacophonising
On the street that yawns, rolled out in the sun
And my ears twitch at the sound of sounds foreignplaced
(To the city, at least, if not to me, foreignplaced alike)
And were I to twist the ghost of a smile across my lips for each
I would show to the yawning street a crocotta's monstrous grin

And I catch myself, wondering if for some architect, ages past,
This street was concieved in naive elegant artistry,
The paradise of the single mind,
To be spoken to by those who spoke it into being,
To be lived in by those who imagined it into life
And if that is the case,
Well,
Then we are the clutter that mars the face of paradise
(Love that for us)
Then we are the rattling shards of reality strewn across the pavements
(And we sound different? Damn well we do, sir)
The graffiti that, unasked for and unplanned,
Scatters like rice across the soundscapes of perfection,
(And f*ck you too, if that's a problem)
And amid these caterwauls and castanets and canticles,
I catch myself doing half a dance-step to the sound of the beauty of monstrosity,
And I slip into the kaleidoscope of broken-glass humanity
And whisper down the road, some forgotten solar god upon my heels,
But as I pass another set of tables cacophonising,
I hum into the half-dead wind,
And as part, myself, of the sound of cluttered streets,
I sing my way home.

[Jubal]

Celandine

There was a child whose town was decked
With flowers like the sun,
All gold upon the balconies,
The streets like saffron shone;
And of that girl born in that place,
A strange thing it was said:
That when she pricked her finger,
Like the yellow flowers she bled

And so they called her Celandine,
Because her blood ran gold
They dressed her up in silks so fine,
Before she’d yet grown old

An old man in another land,
Called forth his troops to war,
They burned the town of Celandine,
And a hundred others more,
Among them was a captain bold,
Brash, youthful, and unwise,
He spied the lovely Celandine,
And he wooed her as his prize,

They called her Celandine,
Because her blood ran gold,
She gave to him three cups of wine,
And this to him she told:

“There might have been another life
Where I would have married you,
But for my town that ruined lies,
And a hundred others too:
But for my father who lies dead,
My mother gripped with fear,
My brother lost, my sister fled,
Who once I held so dear.”

They called her Celandine,
Because her blood ran gold,
And she sang to him as the moon did shine,
And a different war-drum rolled:

Oh, here’s your arms and battle plans,
You boasted of to me,
And here’s a band of partisans
So prisoner you shall be.
To him a cell: to her the king,
Who offered just reward,
But Celandine declined the gifts,
She’d walk with men no more,

They called her Celandine,
Because her blood ran gold,
She walked away into the spring,
And watched the flowers unfold,

She went down to a woodland glade,
Which yellow blooms did fill,
She disappeared at last from sight,
It’s said she roams there still.
She sees with eyes of doe and dove,
Of squirrel, and moth and bear,
So fear the flowers, you unjust men,
For she will find you there.

They called her Celandine,
Because her blood ran gold,
When men send youths to unjust war,
To her their lives are sold;
They call her Celandine,
Because her blood ran gold,
So fear the flowers, you unjust men,
Until you lie there cold.

Author's Note: This was inspired by an odd mix of things: celandine flowers, I guess, and stories of Ukrainian women catfishing Russian soldiers on Tinder, and also there's bits of folk song in there, Peggy-o also has the "I would have married you but for my brothers that you slew" but that ends less badly for the soldier in question.

[Jubal]

The Overgrown Railway

There was a ripple in the air and the leaves,
And out of the long-entangled vines
That wrapped a broken world,
The Overgrown Railway tumbled into the station
In a mass of twigs and ancientness and birdsong.

Alighting on the platform came a breath,
Or a creature that breath might have been if it could learn to feel,
Eddying and caressing with a dancer’s flow,
So that it might, once upon a time that happened and did not happen,
Have been sighed into the carriage by the lovers or the lost,
And having completed its journeying,
Wrapped itself into branches and moss and the shrilling of a woodpecker’s chicks
And was gone.

The Overgrown Railway’s timetable board
Was a broken mosaic with wallflowers to hide its secrets,
The ticket office was open
To the warm rain and half-shadowed sunlight
And the cat which still lingered leonine upon the bench,
As it had somehow done forever

There were no passengers on the train
Because passage suggests a destination
And the low, whistling call of the Overgrown Railway
Beckons to places you cannot yet name,
As it slowly wends its way through the forests of root-bound time,
And carries the secrets in my suitcase,
To someone who might need forgotten things,
On a station just as broken,
Amid as many songs and whispers,
In place and time and circumstance
Unknown.

[Jubal]

Parabola

To see the reflection of the world,
You must understand that the heart of the mirror
Is a place;
A point, mathematically perfected,
Where light and heat writhe
Into a tiny reflected sun
That you could light a torch upon
Cook and warm and hope upon,
Send a tiny world around
In the vastness of that fraction of space
That, curved and walled within,
Has become universal,
A bromeliad flower of light:
A promise untouchably small,
That yes, there can be such a thing:
Held within mirrorglass,
A parabolic world.

[Jubal]

A Song of Books and Bone
Inspired by and dedicated to Veo Corva's Tombtown novels.

For some there’s never been
       G                   D
A place where you were wholly you but
        C                             G
Places kept unseen,
   G                D
And places from another time, from
     G                         D
Songs and words in books and in your dreams.
Em                             D                   G or Em

But whether you come to believe in
           C                         G
Books or bone
Em            G
This town’s your home:
          G                    D
And if ever the road to the tomb brings
           C                         G
Pains or sighs
Em            G
Here the crow still flies
          D                Em

For some there’s never been
A place where you were wholly you but
Places kept unseen,
And places from another time, from
Songs and words in books and in your dreams.

But whether you come to believe in
Books or bone
This town’s your home:
And if ever the road to the tomb brings
Pains or sighs
Here the crow still flies

The tales of a town,
Are not unearthed by power or blood but
Love that binds you down,
With strings that guide through labyrinths of
Hopes and secrets kept beneath the ground

But whether you come to believe in
Books or bone
This town’s your home:
And if ever the road to the tomb brings
Pains or sighs
Here the crow still flies

A whisper in the air,
Will carry what you thought was you,
To places not yet there,
To sing and write the things you knew
Until they can become the things you share

But whether you come to believe in
Books or bone
This town’s your home:
And if ever the road to the tomb brings
Pains or sighs
Here the crow still flies

For some there’s never been,
A place where you were wholly you,
But night and time have seen,
That care reshapes the town you knew
And gathers hope surrounding you
In books and bones and people who
Will share the endless river of your dreams

But whether you come to believe in
Books or bone
This town’s your home:
And if ever the road to the tomb brings
Pains or sighs
Here the crow still flies
Yes, here the crow still flies

[Jubal]

An 11pm Drink at the Bookstore Bar

Off-beats march to nowhere
Dry as salt air and slow-drunk gin
Quiet, dessicated after the gulls fall silent:
Shielded by its personless desert
And glass that was once sand
From the night-cats' prowl,
The lone bar gives no service
For none has been requested

A rounded circle of wood and bottles
Fortifies the keep, the tower and donjon
And recalling some old-time man of lore,
I hesitate, hearing an echo of myself,
And I speak no magic words
But still, unfurling the levied scroll,
I let the drawbridge swing
Down
Opening my notebook
To the night