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1. |
The North Wind
03:33
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The North Wind
I lay waiting
a static torpor
buried
beneath
coastal moors
whipping peaty blankets
with thousands of days folded
into my squalls’
kept pockets
and ledges of that body
The jutting-hip hillside
of her a shelter
stray flurries run up the sheer-drop
sternum moraines as I approach the ascent
I was drawn in the empty atmosphere
before the lands’ beginning
now I begin with watching an end.
I follow anyone innocently walking the fault lines
see where
Joy kneels, arms wide
at my lover’s foot by night.
A threadbare
full-body channel
climbing heather’d rows
shoes worn through
gripped in the ruins
conjuring against a crown of constellations asking for instruction.
With her hopes and her wants
her eyes - other-worldly thresholds
pearly masses of secrets colliding
collapsing in on themselves.
The stars silence in the world
a monarchy of opinion held in coded transmissions
summoning streams of solar systems.
The ancients trails thrumming in caves
and forests of creation: gone, nobody’s listening.
Cuz all roads that I lead are beaten edges
the fire in my belly quickly cold as ether stones
I am winds I am the beginning say my first name
and
I’ll change your direction
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2. |
No Clocks No Mirrors
04:44
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No Clocks. No Mirrors.
Their luck was out when the last ricochet from the bullet
spelt the nail for their coffin and blindly tore through it
no trigger warning only the glint of the gun
out-shined only by the sharp of the sun
Reading the notes of her body the instrument
been kept in a jar, low, safe in a ship's hull
watched closely by packs on the rocks edge
th’flamed arrow diving hard lit up the branches
And every step marked by the clock tower chimes what might be right if it weren’t for everything
Iron framed lag and in him lay thunder
ringing out like buoy bell a high seas conductor
she was a hair pin with the wooden chair over
retracing steps endlessly, constantly questioning
but then every Monday is a dark day and one you don’t care for
a walking sacrifice screaming their names
like the island of the sirens singing warnings
Her heart was destruction
Her heart was the rope
her heart was the horizon
her heart was the tall buildings casting long shadows
her heart held distant galaxies and infinite black holes
her heart was the mountains her heart was the wilds
her heart was the jungle and benevolent tides
her heart was a flaming longboat facing the worlds edge
pulling towards and raging against
Pull you down I told you I cannot just please don’t I don’t believe
I cannot just please don’t no safe bet
yet still yet still yet still
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3. |
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Caught on a heel, a flash crossing grey lines.
The winds take their chances
hammering at the stained glass,
which is how you exist
in an outland empire
of Old Town painted waters and forgotten boarding houses
like nowhere, like no-one.
Inland at my feet
God’s house looming sees
a thousand years march by
marked by floods, invasions,
indifferent to change enduring the many visits of Kings and Queens.
One stark afternoon the dust rising
in the boatyards a heavy spring-jacket
clung to us. Leaning against everything sacred -
like a kid listening to shells only to hear
his own blood racing - our eyes fixed.
Breathing slowly, heads swimming in the dull light
and there not so secretly you said there was nothing you wouldn’t do.
I listened.
And what need. Travelling any arterial roads
undiluted gathering at the most northerly point.
No distance too great. What are those odds.
And still. And still.
Weeks later gripped by the plane reaching its zenith,
clawing at your teenage tattoos, soothing, you breathed in my fear.
And then there are the saints dozens of effigies
blurring. Headless, stone eyed, worn out.
Holding books, pointing at carved air where
there’s none to take.
Their perching birds are the same. Sick and maimed, studied with some disdain or awe.
And when in Copenhagen, London and against your harbour’s
low moon, we, running through abandoned rooms, breathless
when your hand cupped my face. Smoothing
away sorrows and confirming our beliefs there’s
only one thing that will rid all this grief.
Then happiness’ guarantee;
a death knell. The gaslight of change.
Threads unravelling in a shifting of shapes
and bones, the widows peak not widowed,
a stranger to the world. And just like that, nothing more. A quiet defeat.
Now in the late dark, tethered invisibly,
down they sit neatly. Over my raincoat,
a cloak of the saints drapes,
shrouding latent doubts pale.
Until when, unhanded,
jolted
into action crossing the street, breathing returns.
And still.
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4. |
Salt Rituals
02:54
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Salt Rituals
The lakes evaporate
what a legacy
of the salt flats
the end being
four thousand square miles of nothing
except for fifty billion tonnes of salt
The salt flats are the most
hostile in the world
nothing grows here
the salt is five meters thick
formed of countless polygons
Seasons bleed
flash points
dim at dawn
peaking trails spiralling
The pylons transmission
shipping hours of quiet hums
shield escaping wishes from erosion
You with your hands of fire
with your hands of fire
impressed an indelible outline
scorch marks blazing
abandoned any possibilities
Yet sometimes in late summer
a miracle
takes place
where, from ash clouds
white doves appear
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Helvella UK
Helvella is the performance name for Eliza Gregory; a UK songwriter, musician and writer. For all news and updates: Insta/Twitter @helvellanoise
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