St. Teilio's Skull: Poems for Celtic Advent, Day One
(During Holy Week of 2024, I took a pilgrimage to St. David’s and two days after I got back, my sister suddenly passed away. That’s made it difficult to write about, so I switched to poetry. I thought Celtic Advent (which is really Orthodox Advent, starting today November 15) would be a good way to share some of these rough sketches)
(All Photos in this post are by the author)
Self Harm Pilgrim
Behold the pilgrim.
Cutting himself,
with shards of
St. Paul’s dark looking glass.
Know him.
Trusting nothing,
No song of
peace opening his mouth.
Only the dark.
Dark is the only,
home he knows.
He chose,
big things, large things,
things that would make
him a spoiled name,
the fame,
of rotting corpses,
smelling fresh.
He cuts;
deep into secret wounds,
the ones that never heal,
Like a hack of
a third rate medical school.
Shards of the dark glass,
dug deep
into bone and spirit.
He hates,
the one who gave him poison,
a boy-man, a raiding Sea Wolf of old,
with poisoned knife and axe
Infecting the pilgrim with a slow
vitally slow,
painful toxin that
only kills later.
his infection,
A toxin erupting fury,
Opening up Molten shame,
oozing into
knitted chambers
of a volcanic heart,
erupting stress-cracks
bubbling, puckering, burning
villages; burn villages;
Making Pompeii shadows
of old friends,
lovers too.
He mourns,
Ashes and ghosts,
ones he made
ones he was given.
A pilgrim,
he must be.
Not Sick.
but shadowed
broken, shattered,
shipwrecked wanderer
almost dead.
A pilgrim,
treading the land of dragons;
Red and White and green,
The ones Myrrdin Wylt foretold.
A pilgrim;
muttering words and songs
of Saints and sinners,
of King’s and queens,
to Dewi Sant,
The Water saint.
A pilgrim
to sit at Broken feet of
saints huddled in;
stone hives, solitary
social bees,
buzzing in and out
crawling spiders,
rain drops,
bone-brittle cold.
A pilgrim
flagellating with,
blazing and burning,
ribbons of light,
sizzling flesh,
smelling of honey and vanilla,
Daffodil’s life.
A self harm pilgrim,
walking into
End and beginning of worlds.