If ever there was, is, or will be a candidate for my signature poem, one that I keep returning to, it is Avalon. Without a doubt. The origins of this poem are lost in my personal timeline. I made significant revisions to Avalon in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 (twice that year) but it began life much further back. It has featured on the blog before, although earlier versions are no longer publicly accessible.

Every version has ended up with different rhythms and the focus changes. It is an intense poem. People sometimes ask if I am the ‘I’ in the poem and the answer eventually decided upon is no. It isn’t me. It is a poet but not this one.

I’ve been asked time and again for some explanation of what is going on in the poem and prefer not to be drawn into that kind of discussion. What does the poem mean to you? What does it say to you? These are the questions that the reader should ask of her or himself.

I will say that one reader told me she believed the poem’s speaker to be Merlin attending his Bardic initiation. The fact is that the powerful mystical experience of the poem, its location being so vital to what takes place, can be associated with many druids and Christians down the ages but Merlin is, of course, arguably one of the most famous mystics in the history of the Western world, if not the most famous of all.

It’s a shamanic journey of some kind, most definitely. Enjoy and blessed be.

Avalon

You rise green dome in the distance
and my heart shines to see you again.

I am led, happily escorted,
by thirteen fragile faery ambassadors
in circle taking turns to hold my hand.
They squeeze it, tight, as cold moon
gives way to morning sunlight
on your singular and beautiful breast.

An invisible silver thread takes over
drawing me closer, connecting me
to peeled-back land by way of magic,
fixing me as if by darkened pin
to the ancestral seat of power,
for now is the menstrual time,
the blood-warm hour
bringing memories of lives gone by,
rich in bardic code,
bruised yet noble warrior-poets
whose earthy, skin-soft shadows
I see on the cusp of dawn
upon the broken surface
of this veiled and dewy saucer.

Of dreams and whispered promises,
I do not ever dare to speak in full
for fear of curse, of verse
that never rhymes again
and so then, in character deserted,
hard of flesh no more,
not hearing and deleted,
I would cry upon the wind,
the door closed
in payment of a folly’s debt.

That fate shall not be mine
if I can help it
because hearing
is the one thing I do well.

Between the worlds I sit,
enchanted by your siren singing,
enamoured of your coal-black eyes
and the lush, jade vulva
calling me home
with a harp’s resounding sigh
to a deeper place
where newborn stars
birth beauty as they grow,
fruiting diamonds uncut by ill-kept man
to adorn your milk-white throat.

Anticipating lips open wide,
revealing secrets I could not tell of if I tried
and why would I desire, if truth be told?

One can only speak so much, so many times,
until one is old and sick
of talking to the inwardly deaf,
the internally blind.

I am not yet old. I have my teeth,
my one good central eye,
an axe to grind, my heart to mend.

With your sweet grace,
dear Avalon,
I will see things new again.