Much of this material was originally intended for inclusion in the section entitled Odes and Orisons, the intent of which was to hold most of the quatrains and other rhyming forms in which I had one time been quite prolific (or - as one sage elder poet commented - profligate). As Odes and Orisons was compiled, it grew in size to the point where it was obvious a second volume of my rhyming material would be necessary for convenience of readers, more particularly of web browsers. Those works gathered here are generally of a lighter vein than those still in their original volume, but there is a mutual continuity of melodies and meanings that interlinks these groups to the point where it was difficult to separate them. As throughout these volumes, links to connected or contemporaneous works are provided for reference, as well to help re-establish the thread of sequence and meaning that were the collection's rough order before separation into volumes became necessary. These links also help trace connected themes and images that I have been in the habit of using and speaking through over the years, and emphasize the common context of my darker writings and these (seemingly) much lighter ones.

Rhymes and Sundry Poems by Mike Cleven

The Axe

Incantation to the Muse

The Gates of Faerie

(Oberon)

   I

Other stars in endless night
Other streams of dusty light,
Sparkled clouds of Galaxies, nebula'd or bright
Other years' longer light, starried dim in dark starlight.

What ship sails to the other seas?
What mountains rise to face the dawn,
rosy-fingered, and what chariot
                       fires the sky?
What last star
lingers, dangled in the glowing light,
that deeper shade of black-hued blue
          and rainbow cloud
that escapes into the falling west,
     stars a-shimmer where dawn's finger prints
     exhorting the bright horses to charge thence on
     to chase the glory glowing of far-glimmered star
to flower black night with the blue-blossomed hours
that wake the song-forest, sound the horns of morning's light.

What sweet-scented breeze, cool-stirring
swirls those hollows and those glades?
What idyl is that fabled garden
of the evershining sun, the ever-reachless stars?

And when the hour of birdsong begins,
what song will be sung?
What birds will sing?

   II

Where can I find true singers, strong song
to journey over long distance long
to bring to the trees of Fairyland
news of woe in the world of men?

World of woes, world of wrath
what splendour another far world yet hath;
a mere twisting leads there from this realm
to green hills, pale mornings, and silvered elms.

And from that other world there sings
the advent of the elfin kings -
In those mountains green and fair
a fountain sings clear in crystal air.

In those ranges there is a throne
its pavilion laid out all high, alone
and thence sits one who turns grey eye
and rules the chording of the spheres, and sky.

Who dares climb unto that lofty place
to look upon that star-eyed face
and hear the heart-hewn harmonies
and look upon lands far from these?

That lay beyond the mountains green
that twist and led to dreams unseen
and bend the wends of ending age
and soothes rhymer down from rhythm's rage.

I sleep, anon, with opened eye
and roam the roads to paradise
in that other, older world
around which this one's ruin is curled

So where are warriors bright and bold
To march out through dark and night and cold
and make companye on that perilous quest
where the sea twists mountainous in the darkening west?

P> And when are come warriors bold and bright
a ship will launch with sails of light
to rove out past the sunset sea
where forgotten lands are said to be.

(Summer 1981)

   III

Then heed the singing of our earth;
Heed the call from waste and dearth;
Away from war and gluttony cast
thine eyes away from a mortal past.

I sing in light, for so light I sing
- the loss of weight is a simple thing.
Gravity is neither law nor force
- only where matter's hard rivers course.

But when no matter is of anything
Easy finds this tongue to sing
of not the olden, but the ancient, land
that lies around, beyond, the urb of Man.

Come look on Faerie's mountains fair
Come taste the wine of that sweeter's world's air
and dance to tunes in a greenwood's twilight
betwixt the hot sun and the cold starry night.
 

(Summer 1981)

At Hvergelmir (In Memento Homine)

(The Well of Sorrows)

The earth rumbles, heaves, and rolls like a drum
the thunder of heaven's bold rhythms a-stun
Our worlds fold, the night blacks and fiery voice sings
the earth groans, unyields, and devours all things.

Old are the stones that stand in the sun
Where roads built by giants still straight-laying run
They gave birth to the hand and the mill and the sword
to tear on the land and the will and make hoarde.

The power of time shall yet conquer our lives
Oceans arise 'neath the opening skies
But still Earth's mighty shoulders can thunder a tune
that will ring out the age at the coming of Doom.

Dead are as dead - a thousand ken back
But we have new skill our forebearers were lack;
we have poisoned the sea and need shield from the sun
but we cannot tame the lay of the land when it drums.

The sun rages hot, high hills dance a hard tune,
the shores rising o'er cities amid their bright fiery doom
Storm rages a-mountain, Earth yields to its sea;
Taste our life sweetly, and behold our time's lea.

Rede

Who first among the tides of men'd dare
to pay out the secret of God's jewels rare?
He who'd - and could - that high price pay
would makes lack-lustre all further days....

All wonder is crack'd, all mystery spent
and man's will deems fire's fabric bent -
What reason is, when all is Known?
What being is there when Being's flown?

All the splendours wrought by human pride
(that serve excuse by which'ts evil hides)
are naught before the doom of Time:
and Truth evades the grasp of Rhyme.

O Lord, give me words that all men know
to coax thy fruit-seed yet to grow;
give me skill to point the road
that our race may ride, 'thout death's goad.

Even as the spray of shattered atom-shards
names their fate, and casts entropy's cards,
are we but released into life's cruel spin
to mark the world thy Will's course lies in?

Then eternity's our spout and not our halt,
our deeds are thoughts, not wanton default
if we strive to ply, by these, our course
the Command, the Word, the holy Force.

And when all spiralled error's done
and our thoughts are by the world outrun
And our mortal fate exhausts our will:
from that maw, shall newer souls unspill.

What brighter star wilt yet thou hew
to outshine the galaxies of thy due?
What light wilt thou forge to fill the Void
when all Man's works are long-gone, destroyed?

All our tales and crafts are vain,
frenzies built by our idyll's brain
that has naught yet true permanence enwrought
and Naught, still, thy Immanence yet slain, or caught.

Splendor Sine Occasu

    Shining mountains ring in green and gold,
    Bright ice, steep rock, round valleys old;
    Through the canyons deep swift rivers flow
    Down to the sea, down from the snow.

But here let Beauty's Loyals hold
An enclave against Life's cruel rape,
Humanity and Earth unsold,
A Jewel amidst an evil Jape.

    Shining mountains ring in green and gold,
    Bright ice, steep rock, round valleys old;
    Through the canyons deep swift rivers flow
    Down to the sea, down from the snow.

Let Splendour rule the heart of Man,
Let the high Wilderness reflourish,
Let Fortune favour this errant Hand,
Nature's Eyes and Hearts to nourish.

    Shining mountains ring in green and gold,
    Bright ice, steep rock, round valleys old;
    Through the canyons deep swift rivers flow
    Down to the sea, down from the snow.

Beauty cannot rest in Song;
Go look upon the fair green Earth!
Tell me if you see no Wrong -
Dare behold the Truth, how great its girth!

    Shining mountains ring in green and gold,
    Bright ice, steep rock, round valleys old;
    Through the canyons deep swift rivers flow
    Down to the sea, down from the snow.

__________

Splendor Sine Occasu - Splendour without Diminishment, Splenour Unequalled; the provincial motto of British Columbia

Shining mountains - the first "whiteman's name" for the Rocky Mountains, given by the explorer Pere La Verendrye

Green and gold - green refers to the natural world, gold to the economic, but this is also a reference to an anthology of early Canadian prose describing the first European attempts at recounting the New World As-It-Was, As-It-Is.

The Tower

Hither, world, and hear me tongue -
Hear me speak in arcane cast;
Hear me sing of things unsung
Hear me chant of deeds unpassed.

There is no mighty tune for me
To set over with my clumsy words
There is no stirring meter's beat
To sustain new meanings long-deferred.

There is only one undying Muse
that drives the force of human heart -
I call it now, my words en-fused
with light against the growing dark.

Some great tale is yet untold!
Some deep rhythm is yet undrummed!
I have heard of heroes bold,
I have heard lays the harpers strummed.

With great-voiced rhyme I'll carve my Time:
As thunder may my meter roll and break
with no tune but fine-hewn spoken line;
pray its course mine heart might molten make.

Now I have set forth my task;
I have laid out crude rules of style.
And so I must undoff my mask
and put the harper's aulden craft to trial.

The Lore

On all the roaming ways of mind
is laid the weight of humankind
that marches, lives, by an ancient urge
which is the counterpoint to the demiurge -
the world of flesh, and need, and life
which is the cause of mortal strife,
given heed to noises of a gruesome age
the grinding surge, stone's depths rage, outraged.

The earth's hardened blood is breaking up,
a crust erupts, broken, with more vital fires;
Is a rough beast yet born to fulfill finality's desires,
a horn heralding hard and loud, to cleave, destruct?
Is a fool yet a-dance upon the ledge
that is the yearning for worldsend's edge?
The lava of Time chills and sloths
turns to stone and green-forested cloth
that became the fairness of the earth
that embrace the sea, the sky, engirthed.....

An Old Wive's Tale

Woe betide the rich man's house-
all safely silked a-bed -
When the mass is hooved by the horsemen's bout
and the gold is all run red.

Fare hard, all hardy heroes bold,
Fair hand wreak warmth on hearts grown cold

Woe betide the rich man's wife-
all jewelled and decked with fine-wrought rings -
When furies' screams decree the strife
of all the ages, of all that sings

Harper, who struck a once-might tune -
Prepare the rock for other runes!

Foemen of the starving earth!
Your wealth is talled by your gross-grown girth.
Wretched of this ailing world!
Around your fate a dragon's curled.

Here's to the king, his most royal grace -
May his sceptre blossom from war-bloodied mace!
Here's to the tribes of the wild pristine -
May his orb maintain their green-wrought demesne!
Here's to the bane of history's book -
For all that was wrote, and all that was took.

Sing me no more...

Sing to me of live being's flesh,
the warp and the woof of hard destiny's mesh.
Sing aloud of the unknowing cloud
that is the folly of souls made proud
by the living of lives that are the lusting for death.

Mind! Mind!! Thought, foul curse!!! -
Why must you sorrow these sorrows worse?
Why must you cast dull'd pain into verse
and lead the heart from the body astray
into the trap of bygone days,
into a lapse of mystical lays?

Malgacabeithna the Mad

An Incantation of Spite

Eater of babies, son of darkness,
Before you I stand, in my cold sable starkness!
Brewer of poisons, I'll deaden your life
and sow 'mongst your beauties, the apple of strife.
Exhumer of cadavers, I'll restore old tales
as lies and distortions wherein all vain Truth fails.
Malgacabeithna I am, brother of Maleficent,
possessors of minds deep wherein is bent
all secrets required to become mage from sprite
and in my evil virility is more than feminine might!
Bringer of plagues and herald of storms
Walker of blackenss and changer of forms
I am the evil that you sought to see
- within an innocent I dwelled,
         'til now, as he, free -
as a hero of demons in a nether olympiad
before you I now stand, Malgacabeithna the Mad.

So, I hear, you would have dunked me a-pond
and therein to die, redeemed, breached from mortal bond
or else to float aloft and swim, to prove I was from lands beyond
where the infernal powers cavort and dance
           where Apollo's rays have ne'er shone.
Alas for you, for it is rarely known
that those that swim have also flown
and in escape, I choose to prove
those that carry fire
            can wield it, too.
Foolish are you, who dare to presume
that noble rank protects from hell's dire fume -
A child of night may blast the day
for in the vastness of space, 'tis not darkness holds sway?

Reader of stars, diviner of planets,
It is my role, not yours, to banish
By right of augury and the spread of entrails,
I have from Fortune loosened her veils;
To mine is the power to lie or forhold
or thicken your humours with lies greatly bold.
I am your creation, your curse, your spawn.
Are you distressed at your feet I'll not fawn
for mercy, forgiveness, or clemency for deeds
I did not, but strong from seeds
in a courtesan's mouth, sweet-tongued, foul-fanged,
who from bliid hatred, basely's determined I'd be hanged.
For my evils and blackness are not half others so bad
A Devil's Advocate am I, Malgacabeithna the Mad.
 

(Fall 1977)