Patrick James

Prophecy of Celtic Ancients Revisited

Clarions sound out aloud
in the Hibernian far-off hills
calm brass voices melodiously sound
of a reborn past’s future will;
when tides turning around—
their crested pearls still
and steady wash back
onto the forgotten beach
of time’s gone-by sands—
the reign of women’s femininity.
Water-flow harmonies of harps
awaken ancient Celtic ideas;
Nature’s blood of Breton culture
flows and fills up every vein,
as musical flutes return
our beliefs to the ways
of woman’s empathy with nature—
a religion again feminine based.
Acclaiming once more her wise-soul
and gentle creativity of birth;
her Nature-imbued feminine soul
and its constant gift to the Earth.

Published in, The Green Dragon No 7, Summer 1998

This before when becomes.

All of me is still now,

when I have been waiting

for this moment as if it were

the onset of a magnificent

storm, that would change my

world in strangest ways?

and being born, your gentle

hands were moulding tiny

miracles out of the matter

of my heart… and really

what I felt, was calm….

Extract from:

Ultraviolet Roses & Carbon

© Copyright Patrick James 2001

thingummy  &  graffiti

Surrendered  to  oily-black,

stuttering,  remembering

what  I  wanted  to  say—

daytime  eclipse,  a  moon

wearing  orange  eyeliner.

You  were  flowing  over

once,  abundantly  filling

up  my  lungs  but  then  I

let  it  go—  some  inspired

adolescent  sprays  graffiti

on  a  testimonious  wall…

no  longer  silent  nor

oppressed  by  the  grey.

Extract from:

Ultraviolet Roses & Carbon

© Copyright  Patrick  James  2001

Stalingrad ‘42

You bound a book, carefully

affixing each page together

with bones and gave it a

cover of human flesh, the

ink was more vermilion than

the bloodshed of regiments

of women with their infants

still in their arms.

God, even now, still retains

a warring niche in the world

for himself — I knelt down

on one knee and cried.

Extract from:

Ultraviolet Roses & Carbon

© Copyright Patrick James 2001

smoking causes cancer…

Smoking causes cancer—

and no-one seems

to care,

as if cigarettes were trees…

a book

is made of wood like

the match… It

consumes

itself and dares to steal

a life—

the flame quenched,

its memory

lingers

on as smoke,

the Word

we write just turns to

ashes.

Extract from:

Ultraviolet Roses & Carbon

© Copyright Patrick James 2001

SOME WRITER’S ROOM.

Climbing fourteen steps

up to the writer’s room;

filled with ancient spirits

and memories of a bride

for a neogothic groom.

The letters he’d sent spent

forever in the empty hall

of some woman’s tenement.

Having lent his elderly mind

to forgotten antiquarian books,

now in dust and gathering webs;

they await the writer’s return

to his vacant room at the

top of the spiral stairs.

Extract from:

Ultraviolet Roses & Carbon

© Copyright Patrick James 2001