Posts Tagged ‘“Poetry”,’
The Pass – By Paul Holland (Again)
Posted in Poetry, Writing, tagged "Poetry",, Belfast, Belfast Poetry, Bird Watching, Espana, Great Britain, Ireland, La Rioja, Nature, Northern Ireland, Poems, Spain, Twitchers, Twitching, USA, Writing on September 30, 2014| 6 Comments »
How Do You Write The Sound Of A Bell? – By Paul Holland (Again)
Posted in Art, Poetry, tagged "Poetry",, Bells, English, Loss, Love, Love Poem, Noise, Northern Ireland, Poem, Poems, Rambling, Spain, Walking, Writing on August 29, 2014| Leave a Comment »
There are deep words that sound
Sound throughout the doings of a day
Working, Running, Cooking
Hillwalking
Can cover them for a spell.
But as a bell clanging
The tension of the sound carries.
So there are words there
From behind trees
Around buildings
Along byways
And main roads.
In places where people gather
And are alone
There
On waking
And at the pause before sleep
For me now the deep sound
And the words
Merge into
The sound of your name
And the answering echo
Calling in my heart’s space
Your name before me.
The Ginger Scrolls – Part 6 (Of Many)
Posted in Art, Canada, Funny, History, Humor, Humour, News, Random Thoughts, Satire, Scotland, Short Stories, Writing, tagged "Poetry",, #wordpresslongform, Denmark, England, Fairy Tales, Fantasy Writing, Funny, Game of Thrones, Ginger, Ginger Hair, Humor, Humour, Iceland, Ireland, Nature, Norse Legend, norse sagas, Norway, Poems, Red Hair, Satire, Scotland, Short Stories, Simon Cowell, Stories, Sweden, The Earth, The X Factor, Writing on August 25, 2014| 3 Comments »
We posted a week or two ago about the great scrolls found in a Canister in Norway by Robert Hamstrangler, Norway’s greatest anthropologist and hot water blower upper that told the story of Ginger Volk.
You can read Part 1 Here; Part 2 Here; Part 3 Here, Part 4 Here and Part 5 Here
Now ’tis time for Part 5……..
THE GINGER SCROLLS – THE DEPARTURE continued……
One of our number, Strik, bade us farewell and leapt to his death, honoured to be with his kin in after world favouring their affections to those of us still alive. His choice his Way.
Upon the prow of our ships, Narwhals guided us through the disdainful water, their tusks like beacons of light in the grey murk, guiding our navigators to sail with some knowledge of where our desolate future lay.
To each side of our vessels dolphins swam as outriders, to inform and protect the flame haired of any advancing danger or destitute Huplanders who dared to do battle still.
Great birds, sent by their brother Exeretheon the Night Flyer squalled above the vessels, eyeing the clouds, wind and future light and the greatest of them the size of a small motorway service station (this may be an error in translation), would defecate on Kerkhof the Pilot of the lead vessel, with messages of the course to be taken.
Man, woman and child, in lard hair boats were carried by desolate winds of despair and the surly tides of bondage. For 173 days we ventured south towards unknown worlds and peoples we had so studiously sought to avoid these previous eons.
We made our peace with the green eyed sea for safe passage. And still mother Sun refused to appear to help or woes lighten and our misery.
Silver gilded Gryphon’s spied upon our desperate journey and their spectral presence haunted even the youngest amongst us. Only Exeretheon’s brothers prevented attacks. For evil’s granite claw has dug its black heart into our people and is determined to make us suffer with every cruel twist of the fates.
From each vessel our volk peeled low murmurs to reason with our Gods for safe passage and sanctuary and to cry for the loss of homes, kith, kin and kilns. Oh Tragedy! Oh despair from whence we came, to where we go, we know not save for the lone Pilots of our own destiny, guiding the last of our volk to a future unwritten and unknown.
Sing for the dead
Sing for the living
Sing for the forgotten
Sing for the weary, the tired and the vanquished
Sing of mirth and good nature
Sing to life
Sing my song my love when I am far away
For I shall sing for you
Our incantations, as tradition dictated would continue for the time between day and night, when the winds turned against us. On we would sing, bitter salted tears stinging our eyes and grazing our sallow, dirtied cheeks, but we would not stop as the words gave us comfort and hope as if our past was with us in the present and so we could see a future.
Our flame coloured hair billowed like sparks of fire in the mocking sea breeze, assailing our features and licking our faces like tongues of spitting flame and the people of the lands we traveled past considered our vessels aflame. Even the tawdry gulls afeared, squawking their desultory announcements.
Where we venture from, our land cruelly taken from us by famine and the curse of the fear and famine forged into evil intent by Overath and his minions, was unknown to many who saw us float past them, nor could they fathom or dared ask as we sailed along the coast of Hupland.
Shoreliners, peasants and warriors alike, eager to see us on our way from their barren coastal lands forged a peace with each other in doing so. As we approached night would fall, the Sun abandoning these places also. Even mother Sun was abandoning us to our fate in near Southern lands. The Shoreliners and their protectors invoked the voices of their Gods for wrath to be visited upon our wretched band of kin to move us from their lands and allow precious light to restore its benevolence upon their lands. For famine too had wreaked great suffering along these lands.
As the Hup Chronicles say “There these carriers of doom, these harbingers of evil, and these soulless beasts moved along the coast murmuring and chanting to our gods for evil mercy to fall upon us for the passage of sin conducted by the drowned Overath and his blooduse minions. Had they been abandoned by our deities for foul deeds done foully or had they failed to pay homage to our Gods for protection?
Across the land the people begged for Valhalla’s curse to be lifted and mighty Odin to protect them from the reek of evil these red haired people came imbued with. Curse upon them and their kin we would cry and we would launch stones, rocks and leather leggings out to the cold, green swell in an attempt to ward the flame hairs from landing on our land. But the flame hairs never looked towards land. Instead they maintained a regal pose aboard their proud ships made of lard and hair and steadily floated toward the place the great sea creatures and sea birds were leading them to. For some of us it became a beautiful sight to behold – a broken people together in life and death.” (The Hup chronicles are available in hard back from any good bookshop).
Our tears do fall into the sea
Our hearts are broken wrenched as we are from home
Our hopes are battered upon the brooding swell
But we shall meet again of that I am sure my friend
In a land of peace and Sun
We trusted our senses and we paid fealty to our guides and no amount of leather leggings would dispel us from this aim.
On the vessels sailed, beyond the fear and callous overtures of the mortal Shoreliners – our phalanx of sea creature’s guiding us to our unknown destination. Our people’s thoughts finally turning to warmer kinder thoughts, of dance and merriment of love and laughter. Perhaps the great tragedy that lay in the recesses of the far North could be laid to rest.
Some swore they saw mother Sun beyond the horizon, at last revealing her to us after wait so long and tragic. Hope built once more.
But it was not to be.
To be continued………
The Ginger Scrolls – Part 5 (Of Many)
Posted in Art, Canada, Funny, History, Humor, Humour, News, Random Thoughts, Satire, Scotland, Short Stories, Writing, tagged "Poetry",, #wordpresslongform, Denmark, England, Fairy Tales, Fantasy Writing, Funny, Game of Thrones, Ginger, Ginger Hair, Humor, Humour, Iceland, Ireland, Nature, Norse Legend, norse sagas, Norway, Poems, Red Hair, Satire, Scotland, Short Stories, Simon Cowell, Stories, Sweden, The Earth, The X Factor, Writing on August 23, 2014| 3 Comments »
We posted a week or two ago about the great scrolls found in a Canister in Norway by Robert Hamstrangler, Norway’s greatest anthropologist and hot water blower upper that told the story of Ginger Volk.
You can read Part 1 Here; Part 2 Here; Part 3 Here and Part 4 Here
Now ’tis time for Part 5……..
THE GINGER SCROLLS – THE DEPARTURE continued……
“The lard hair boats, be our saviour!” he cried. Many hand mocked his father’s insistence on lashing lard and spare hair together into vessels three sun cycles previously, a mad eyed Karibou they called him, but now his foresight was praised for we, the remnants of the Ghingar Empire could finally set about our future with renewed vim and vigour.
“For when we sail
To far off shores
What shall we see?
What will our children say?
What will be their final word on us?
That we fled our lands, their future home
That we banished them from their destiny?
That we stole their souls?
That we gave them life?
That we gave them destiny?
That we could in our darkest hours afford them hope?
What will they say?
I hope it is kind”
And so friend, we sailed with deep tears in our hearts to witness farewell to our time and our peace. Leaving the lee of the mighty river Sallopian, for so long our source of protection we floated into the gloating Northern seas.
As we set south, the God of Ice, Rijsbergen, sent forth his messengers to guard and guide us through these a dark desolate places populated only by the ghoulish memory of drowned adventurers from time immemorial, their frozen faces etched into the ice that gaoled them.
(Oh Archangel Galleofron where are you to protect your soul keepers? We need you more than ever. Not since the time of the arrival of the Shoelace People have we sought your protective cloak and twig of justice.)(Note; Twig may in fact be sword but the lettering is unclear)
We sail in peace to new found lands
To find our loves who have left before us
We hope that we shall meet again
But even if we do not
Know that you sail with us!
Our Ice Guardians, Neeskens and Jongbloed, great slabs of ice, hewn from their Kingdom’s lands at the earliest memory, their faces etched with age and shaped by the sear of the sun and the freeze of the cold, moved south with us and slowly saw our homeland diminished. A deep, still sadness fell upon us as the distance formed between us and our home of memories and kin.
One of our number, Strik, bade us farewell and leapt to his death, honoured to be with his kin in the after world favouring their affections to those of us still alive. His choice his Way.
Upon the prow of our ships, Narwhals guided us through the disdainful water, their tusks like beacons of light in the grey murk, guiding our navigators to sail with some knowledge of where our desolate future lay.
To each side of our vessels dolphins swam as outriders, to inform and protect the flame haired of any advancing danger or destitute Huplanders who dared to do battle still.
Of which there were many.
To be continued………
The Ginger Scrolls – Part 4 (Of Many)
Posted in Art, Canada, Funny, History, Humor, Humour, News, Random Thoughts, Satire, Scotland, Short Stories, Writing, tagged "Poetry",, #wordpresslongform, David Beckham, England, Fairy Tales, Fantasy Writing, Funny, Game of Thrones, Ginger, Ginger Hair, Humor, Humour, Ireland, Norse Legend, norse sagas, Poems, Red Hair, Satire, Scotland, Short Stories, Simon Cowell, Stories, The Sun, the winter, The X Factor, Writing on August 22, 2014| 6 Comments »
We posted a week or two ago about the great scrolls found in a Canister in Norway by Robert Hamstrangler, Norway’s greatest anthropologist and hot water blower upper that told the story of Ginger Volk.
You can read Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here and Part 3 Here
Now ’tis time for Part 4……..
THE GINGER SCROLLS – THE DEPARTURE continued……
They sailed for evil intent.
We still huddled in our homes, yearning for lost sun and warmth and food did not see, hear or sense their approach. Three hundred or so ships melting from the east, slicing through our frozen waters in their stone clad vessels like a snore through dreams.
They visited terrible vengeance, slaying our weary Out Guards, pulling down the great beloved Ice Buttock and entering our lands. They slew our King, Michelsrinus, pillaged his family and boiled his potatoes in a cauldron lined with the skins of his children. “Tasty, very tasty.” Overath murmured. “Kill them all!” was his final order to his squadrons.
“Avenge these flame hairs from our lands – sweep them out to the seas beyond our sight and nets. We besiege the Gods. There is nothing we ask of them. Woe, woe, woe upon us that we must sight such evil.”
Fires were kindled and lit along our shores to guide more avengers toward us. Swords sharpened, arrows tipped, axe heads forged and shields buffed to shiny niceness. Men of war and men of peace cojoined to attack the evil they saw in these Northern lands. They coated themselves in grease and roasted chestnuts to pass the time. Some played tag, others knitted and the greatest warrior amongst them known as Bloodlust, the height of two adult sheep, learned the basics of tap dancing.
Why did you come?
Men from the South
Why utter such hatred
From your pustulant mouth
We sheltered in the lee of the Hidden halls, deep beneath Holy Mountain Westerneye, sheltered from the slaughter but not from the pitying screams of our Volk as they sought false sanctuary, from the bloodied axe and the striking sword, pitiful cries for clemency ignored. We cried, deep sorrowful cries of primal intent for them and yet amongst us few, guilt sodden relief that life still flowed through our piteous bodies.
Three nights of slaughter. No invader did venture towards the Hidden Halls, our brave blood refusing to betray us. Until the men from the South, sated in their need for ignorant vengeance finally set down their swords, axes and clubs and slept among the bodies of our dead.
Trebor the North wind came to our aid, forcing the invaders to leave our desolate lands and pushing the sighs of our dead and grieving South, away from our ears and memory.
(Translator’s note – Here the Scrolls fall silent. The in depth description and desecration of the Ghingar’s capital city of Rasmouldjensoningbirdemdeleanto, has never been recorded. If they were recorded in the Scrolls, for whatever reason the author has removed them and there is no trace of them anywhere else. Having said that it must have been pretty bad and so we can only guess at the sadness that these poor people endured. We know that the destruction of Rasmouldjensoningbirdemdeleanto, led to the first ever sponsored walk on behalf of someone or something. This is the stem of the modern day Ginger people’s love of a sponsored walk.)
…………One warrior amongst us stood still. Krol, the son of Rep the carpenter, bound us with fortitude. While we weak, afeared to leave the icy shell of the Hidden Halls for fear their protection would be rent from us, Krol parried our weakness and filled us with strength previously unknown in our hearts.
“The lard hair boats, be our saviour!” he cried. Many had mocked his father, Malcolm The Prepared, keeness to lash lard and spare hair together into vessels three sun cycles previously, “A mad eyed Karibou” they had called him, but now his foresight was praised for we, the remnants of the Ghingar Empire could finally set about our future with renewed vim and vigour.
For when we sail
To far off shores
What shall we see?
What will our children say?
What will be their final word on us?
That we fled our lands, their future home
That we banished them from their destiny?
That we stole their souls?
That we gave them life?
That we gave them destiny?
That we could in our darkest hours afford them hope?
What will they say?
I hope it is kind
To be continued………
The Ginger Scrolls – Part 3 (Of Many)
Posted in Art, Canada, Funny, History, Humor, Humour, News, Random Thoughts, Satire, Scotland, Short Stories, Writing, tagged "Poetry",, #wordpresslongform, bad poems, David Beckham, England, Fairy Tales, Fantasy Writing, Funny, Game of Thrones, Germany, Ginger, Ginger Hair, History of Norway, Humor, Humour, Ireland, Murder of Innocents, Norse Legend, norse sagas, Poems, Red Hair, Satire, Scotland, Short Stories, Stories, The Dead Sea Scroll, The Sun, the winter, Vogts, Writing on August 21, 2014| 5 Comments »
We posted a week or two ago about the great scrolls found in a Canister in Norway by Robert Hamstrangler, Norway’s greatest anthropologist and hot water blower upper that told the story of Ginger Volk.
You can read Part 1 Here and Part 2 Here
Now ’tis time for Part 3……..
THE GINGER SCROLLS – THE DEPARTURE continued……
As we say “In the darkest times night follows night”. The wisest knew that such darkness and cold meant that other tribes suffered from similar tribulation. We lived with our way and them with theirs. We hope it would stay that way. It was, alas not to be.
The King of the Hup, a mighty warrior ennobled as Overath, bade blood and fury to reek vengeance upon nature itself and tear the gentle Earth apart to teach her a lesson that never more would she treat the Hup with such disdain. His rage a madness that could only be lessened by death.
He crushed the skulls of thirteen House Carls with his double headed axe and bade for the blood of others. “Tis our tithe to kill, Tis our right to life, Tis our right to blame,” he cried. The people of Hup agreed and foamed with false anger and blazed with sham rage. Strangers. To blame. To find. To punish.
“To the North, to the North. The Ghingars have wrought this upon us with their devilry and odourless magic. It is they who must be stopped. For they are seeking to capture our souls for their own evil intent. They seek to starve us and steal the sun from us – we must destroy them. Summon the other Kings from Lup, Jup, Cup and Wup – I declare Council must be opened!”
It was as if they had become a single terrible beast spoken of in our own fables but never seen, whiffed or heard. A beast of ignorant rage and no more. “To the toll booth then –who has change?” cried mighty warrior Overath. With the Lups, Cups, Jups and Wups now in unison with the Hups, they sailed in mighty force in stone clad ships, captained by the black hearted sailor birds of the Vogts tribe, half man half puffin who sought no more reward than fish for their black hearted deeds.
They sailed for evil intent.
We still huddled in our homes, yearning for lost sun and warmth and food did not see, hear or sense their approach. Three hundred or so ships melting from the east, slicing through our frozen waters in their stone clad vessels like a snore through dreams.
The Ginger Scrolls – Part 2 (Of Many)
Posted in Art, Canada, Funny, History, Humor, Humour, News, Random Thoughts, Satire, Scotland, Short Stories, Writing, tagged "Poetry",, #wordpresslongform, bad poems, England, Fairy Tales, Funny, Game of Thrones, Germany, Ginger, Ginger Hair, History of Norway, Humor, Humour, Ireland, Narvik, Norse Legend, norse sagas, Norway, Poems, Red Hair, Satire, Scotland, Short Stories, Skiing, Stories, The Dead Sea Scroll, The Sun, the winter, Writing on August 19, 2014| 10 Comments »
We posted a week or two ago about the great scrolls found in a Canister in Norway by Robert Hamstrangler, Norway’s greatest anthropologist and hot water blower upper that told the story of Ginger Volk.
Now ’tis time for Part 2
THE GINGER SCROLLS – THE DEPARTURE continued……
Ours was a simple world, made good by kindness, potatoes and a lack of foot disorders.
Kindness would be shown to strangers who ventured to our Homestead. The stranger would find life so satisfying that he would stay in perpetuity. On these rare times we would learn of the times in other worlds, the rise and fall of empires far to the South, East and West – of men of different creeds and living their lives with many more laws, too many I would wager for peace to be allowed to roam over their lands and their people.
For the outsiders, where contentment was a threat rather than a treat, the non-return of strangers, or Nonomers as they were titled, from our lands only saw a further sense of mystery wrap itself around our people.
Tales of devilry and witchery amongst we Ginghars came common to these ignorant tongues. Tales were told by their story men and women of how we would eat our own, raw flesh torn limb from limb. How we savage hearts would allow our women to lay with wolves to produce offspring half man half wolf and how these desperate creatures were used by us to mortify the souls of neighbouring peoples.
Such tales are nonsensical in construct and meaning. Our great thinkers communed closely with the Wolf King, Haan for we bordered each other’s land and it was in each other’s interest to understand each other’s lives. But as we learned, efforts to understand anothers nature were oft seen by other men as an opportunity to curse our namewith their peoples in the name of greed and ignorance.
We lived on vegetables with animal flesh barely passing our lips – only then when the wolves left us offerings at the beginning and end of the dark season to mark their return to the forests that neighboured our lands. Again this was taken as signs of sorcery and witchcraft from our eventual foes.
For we ever understood their ways. We had no good or evil only what we termed Way (author’s note – the Ghingar term used here is actually Veluxmindacimentorroulatersnttfghping – literally translated as “direction of life within our snowy lands – we consider Way to be an appropriate translation).
Way of life, Way of death, Way of things, Way of meaning, Way of loving – we had many Ways.
(Note; there is now a lengthy passage in the Scrolls on agricultural techniques employed by the Ghingar. The main topic is how they managed to grow so many root vegetable in such Northern climes and only having snow and ice to grow them in. Whilst this may be considered an agricultural miracle, it is not considered relevant for gingerfightback’s purposes to include these pages. For an in depth assessment of Ghingar growing techniques the reader may like to obtain a copy of “In Ice and Snow We Made Things Grow – Ghingar farming practices and rituals – by Douglas Sandwell – OUP – 956 Pages and includes pop up lettuce).
The Dark Stayed…….
……………………………………………..Why the Sun decreed to stay in that year nobody will ever reason. Why the famine took hold, why the fish left the sea waters and why the reindeer moved deeper into the forest, man will look askance at man and never find an answer.
When Mother Sun departed, we bade her farewell and sought her return with due speed. But she did not return at the known time, leaving us and other men to speak with hoar frost breath.
No plant or animal would grow that season. Haan led his tribe further into the Taiga for sustenance, their howling farewells bidding us safe return to summer warmth. Our left flank was exposed. We huddled in our homes for warmth and boiled snow and ice for miserly sustenance, only our stories and madrigals keeping us from mind loss and starvation.
The dark is upon us
But your beauty lights my soul
A bright arc fills mine eyes
You are near to me
That I know
Dance with me
Sing with me
Laugh with me
Lie with me
My love
Be among my dreams
And dart among the stars
As we say “In the darkest times night follows night”, so the wisest of us knew that darkness and the cold in our lands could only mean that other man tribes suffered from similar tribulation.
We lived with our way and they with theirs and this it should stay.
It was, alas not to be.
Part 3 to follow……….
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