Giles Watson's poetry and prose
Owl poems
Among my first experiments in watercolour illustrations for poems...
THE OWL
Y Dylluan
Fie! The handsome owl’s
Incessant speech, sick of soul
Stifles thought, prevents prayer
For every hour stars appear.
All last night I heard her weep
A sore lament to banish sleep.
A roost of bats her shelter
From rain and snow. I shudder
Each night, to hear her charm –
A chink of pennies – meaning harm.
Chieftains my eyelids: to obey
And close them, defeats me until day.
I lie awake, with fluttering heart
And wait for her to screech or hoot ,
Laugh or cry. My heart is wrung.
A pittance from false poet’s tongue.
Wretched zeal till break of day
Bids her groan till dawn grows grey.
I writhe tormented, wretched song –
‘Hw-ddy-hw’ – the whole night long.
She winds her horn to harry, haunt
And taunt the hounds of the Wild Hunt .
Dirty, shitten, with raucous throat,
Sharp as shards her baleful shout,
Berry-bellied, broad of brow,
Mouse devourer, ogling, brown,
Scheming, slatternly, dun and dull,
A shrivelled shriek from a domed skull
Throughout ten forests spilling fright,
Roebuck’s fetter, voice of night.
To ape a man’s, her flattened face,
Fiend of fowls, her form a farce .
No unclean bird would venture nigh
If once it heard her harping cry.
Philomel speaks less by day
Than she, who gossips night away.
When daylight comes, warmth to follow,
She sticks her head into a hollow.
The bird of Gwyn ap Nudd, her shriek
Bids hounds of Annwn not to shirk.
Lunatic owl! To robbers sing!
A curse upon your tongue and wing!
This song and spell I make, to scare
The owl who lurks within her lair.
Though frost is falling, I conspire
To fill each ivied hole with fire.
- Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson.
ASCALAPHUS
I see well by day, with my sulphured eyes.
I watched all as I loitered in the orchard,
Gazing over my shoulder. She would not touch
A crust of bread, yet stole my pomegranate,
Split its blushed and yellowed skin. Seven seeds,
Jellied in red flesh, passed her pursed lips.
Master was gratified, when I told him.
“My good gardener, perch on the rail
Of Hermes’ chariot, ride wind-ruffled to Eleusis.
Tell Demeter her daughter has feasted
On the food of the dead.” This I testified.
I am Hades’ servant, lurking underground,
Waiting for this stone to roll away.
I will burst out, on dark-wristed wings,
Wheeling in sunlight; I see well by day.
Poem by Giles Watson, 2004.
ANDRASTE
You flee in bulge-eyed terror, your underfur
Matted by the mess of human handling.
You are the sigil of the hunted, the glyph
Of the Roman woman skewered on a spear,
And the hounds’ feet beat the thrum
Of retribution. The spilling of your bowel
Prefigures revenge: the severed breasts
Stuffed in the mouths of the oppressor’s wife.
The knife slice is the same, the blood-spray
Just as red as woman’s blood, the death
Accompanied by the same unholy screams.
Or perhaps there were no hounds, and no knife
Either, but only Boudica’s trembling hand
And a wide swathe of darkness which was
Terror, and future, and the hope of escape.
Source material: Miranda Green, Celtic Goddesses, London, 1995, pp. 32-33. Andraste was the British goddess of war, venerated by Boudica. Before her attack on the Romans in London, Boudica performed a rite in honour of Andraste, releasing a wild hare, which may have been a symbol of the Romans themselves, hunted down by Boudica’s warriors. Green theorises that “it could also have represented darkness and therefore death and destruction”. When Boudica did reach London, she subjected the Roman women to the tortures described above, apparently offering them as sacrifices to Andraste, but it is also evident that these were also revenge-killings in response to the rape of British women by Roman soldiers.
Poem by Giles Watson, 2004.
Owl poems
Among my first experiments in watercolour illustrations for poems...
THE OWL
Y Dylluan
Fie! The handsome owl’s
Incessant speech, sick of soul
Stifles thought, prevents prayer
For every hour stars appear.
All last night I heard her weep
A sore lament to banish sleep.
A roost of bats her shelter
From rain and snow. I shudder
Each night, to hear her charm –
A chink of pennies – meaning harm.
Chieftains my eyelids: to obey
And close them, defeats me until day.
I lie awake, with fluttering heart
And wait for her to screech or hoot ,
Laugh or cry. My heart is wrung.
A pittance from false poet’s tongue.
Wretched zeal till break of day
Bids her groan till dawn grows grey.
I writhe tormented, wretched song –
‘Hw-ddy-hw’ – the whole night long.
She winds her horn to harry, haunt
And taunt the hounds of the Wild Hunt .
Dirty, shitten, with raucous throat,
Sharp as shards her baleful shout,
Berry-bellied, broad of brow,
Mouse devourer, ogling, brown,
Scheming, slatternly, dun and dull,
A shrivelled shriek from a domed skull
Throughout ten forests spilling fright,
Roebuck’s fetter, voice of night.
To ape a man’s, her flattened face,
Fiend of fowls, her form a farce .
No unclean bird would venture nigh
If once it heard her harping cry.
Philomel speaks less by day
Than she, who gossips night away.
When daylight comes, warmth to follow,
She sticks her head into a hollow.
The bird of Gwyn ap Nudd, her shriek
Bids hounds of Annwn not to shirk.
Lunatic owl! To robbers sing!
A curse upon your tongue and wing!
This song and spell I make, to scare
The owl who lurks within her lair.
Though frost is falling, I conspire
To fill each ivied hole with fire.
- Dafydd ap Gwilym, paraphrased by Giles Watson.
ASCALAPHUS
I see well by day, with my sulphured eyes.
I watched all as I loitered in the orchard,
Gazing over my shoulder. She would not touch
A crust of bread, yet stole my pomegranate,
Split its blushed and yellowed skin. Seven seeds,
Jellied in red flesh, passed her pursed lips.
Master was gratified, when I told him.
“My good gardener, perch on the rail
Of Hermes’ chariot, ride wind-ruffled to Eleusis.
Tell Demeter her daughter has feasted
On the food of the dead.” This I testified.
I am Hades’ servant, lurking underground,
Waiting for this stone to roll away.
I will burst out, on dark-wristed wings,
Wheeling in sunlight; I see well by day.
Poem by Giles Watson, 2004.
ANDRASTE
You flee in bulge-eyed terror, your underfur
Matted by the mess of human handling.
You are the sigil of the hunted, the glyph
Of the Roman woman skewered on a spear,
And the hounds’ feet beat the thrum
Of retribution. The spilling of your bowel
Prefigures revenge: the severed breasts
Stuffed in the mouths of the oppressor’s wife.
The knife slice is the same, the blood-spray
Just as red as woman’s blood, the death
Accompanied by the same unholy screams.
Or perhaps there were no hounds, and no knife
Either, but only Boudica’s trembling hand
And a wide swathe of darkness which was
Terror, and future, and the hope of escape.
Source material: Miranda Green, Celtic Goddesses, London, 1995, pp. 32-33. Andraste was the British goddess of war, venerated by Boudica. Before her attack on the Romans in London, Boudica performed a rite in honour of Andraste, releasing a wild hare, which may have been a symbol of the Romans themselves, hunted down by Boudica’s warriors. Green theorises that “it could also have represented darkness and therefore death and destruction”. When Boudica did reach London, she subjected the Roman women to the tortures described above, apparently offering them as sacrifices to Andraste, but it is also evident that these were also revenge-killings in response to the rape of British women by Roman soldiers.
Poem by Giles Watson, 2004.