When Grandad died, on 22nd December 2012, I felt a very strong urge to write. In poetry, I visited all the places we'd visited together. This one is about a striking rock formation in Shropshire.
Performance notes: sinister tones, rising to a shriek where required.
Ode on the Devil's Chair
Bleak rocks, for sure no man seeks respite here
0nor loiters gladly at such seething heights,
where brimstone burns its paths through jagged air
0that howls its pain through piercing cries of kites.
Geologist may fix a neat account:
0pale quartzite ridging over glacial sheets,
00tors rising sharp in freeze and thaw extremes;
were he to venture darkling by this mount,
0fresh trails might turn his tracks from worn conceit
00and newfound fractures cleave his test regimes.
Proud throne, illumined by no earthly light,
0but collecting spirit flares and witching fire
that cluster yearly come the shortest night
0above the misty swirls upon the mire.
See! Lucifer surveys his summoned throng,
0presides election of their leading force,
00rejoices cruelly in their gruesome games;
the Stiperstones resound in ancient song
0and chants run streaming over bloodied gorse
00till dawn engulfs in shrouds of scarlet flames.
Blisco,
The Devil's Chair on the Stiperstones, Shropshire, England
F-image: fire, blood, Lucifer. 'Yikesy' :>)