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The North Wind

by Helvella

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1.
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
2.
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


3.
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.
4.
Salt Rituals 02:54
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

about

LP Two

credits

released April 9, 2020

Vocals and lyrics: Eliza Gregory

The players:
Guitars: Will
Drums: Dan
Bass: Chris

Instrumentation written and mixed by Will Turner-Duffin
recorded and engineered by Joe Garcia at Joe's Garage, Bristol, UK
Image by Andrew Gale

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about

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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