Feather Poem by Emmanuel George Cefai

Feather
Feather that flutters
Flutters from the skies
The heavens immense
The Place wherefrom the Voice
The Voice that inspires
The Voice
That when it speaks
Not the hand of the Poet Seer
Trembles
Not the brain of the Poet Seer
Lights
But the hand of the heavens
Trembles
The brain of the Poet Seer
Lights


Soul
That so persecuted be
Soul
However deep
However noble
Your roots
Your genealogy
Cut off
The chains that tie
You to the rocks of pain
Of order imperative
No, no, the Individual Sovereign Will
No, no,
Let the Deep Inner Soul be sovereign
Not else
Not else


Butterfly
That flutters
Though
The night is still
Only just past
Midnight
The night still
Has deep roots
The night
Still reigns
But
A lonely butterfly
Hovers merrily
And flies swiftly:
Ah! butterfly
The darkness yields at last
The heavens open
The gray begins
And whitens
And walking comes the Dawn.


Let the night fly
Let the night fire
Light
The flames of the dream
The Poet-Seer is sleeping on the rocks
The hard rocks
Outside
The cold, the frost, the winds
That neigh
The night
Is become servant of the Muse
Temporarily:
And through the night
Dreams in the Sub-Conscious
The Poet Seer
And
With the waking of the Dawn
Sings with open eyes
His songs,
His verses.


Day of the night
Where
The night held sway
Sway
From the Dawn
That rose bleak
And dreary:
And
In the day
Till the day
The whole day
Remained
Dreary
And thus
The night held sway
Even in the day.


Museum under the skies
The heavens
Open
Dilapidated stones
Columns
Glories ancient
Yet
Inspiration to the bold
The brain that works
Hammer
hammers
The tongue
The Voice
Of the Poet Seer who sings.


Muse
That travels lands
Whole lands in
Just one single night
And then
Sweet tiptoeing
Into an eastern cave
Wakes the Dawn.


Psyche slept
Dreaming
Her Sub-Conscious
Divine
Moved her in the heavens
And spoke
Thundering
Yet sweet
The voice of Jupiter:
Then woke
All startled
The sweet goddess
But
Around her the gray
The first whitening
Of a new day
By her side
Gently tapping her awake
The Dawn.


I heard the chains
Drawn
One after one
The chains
The night
The chill
The frost
The muteness of drear:
I heard the chains
Drawn
One after one
And now and then
A groan and then
Another groan
And
Then
The chains moving
Moving
Again
Again
Again and again
And midnight
Is long
Long in coming
And
Yet
The chains
Move and move
And move
Not stop
Not yield
Nor the groans.


When the song is done
Let it be done
Not even a verse
Increase
No, no even a word
In that monument
Of marble verse and song
New Michelangelo.


Not much
Not much
No, not too many words
But verse
Verse and song,
Just verse and song.


Tree
That this Winter
Has
For so many nights
Withstood so much
Frost
chill
and neighing winds
and
whose horrid suffering
fortified
with the fortitude of
suffering
the roots
the very roots
the nobility
that ancient earth
of the genesis and
growth
evolution of the Inner Soul.


Ivory towers
That this rare night
Rose in the upper heavens
High
Distant
From our rotating earth
Where so many sleep
Somewhere
Where so many wake
And toil
Somewhere
And yet
The ivory towers in the night
Rare
Rising
Rising in the upper heavens


Throbbing night
Why speak I so much of the night?
Why speak of feeling
Trembling?
Kierkegaard spoke of Trembling.
I speak of the night.
Ah! for thinking I realize
That better is the night
Than day for us.


Rise humans
Cast
The chains that still
Remain
Like squids around
Your Individual Sovereign Will:
That will be
More
More than the Revolution 1688
The French Revolution
1917


Sleep, sleep, sweet child
For
Today the heavens are of clouds
And startling hawks around
Circle
That I saw not before:
Sleep, sleep, sweet child.


The lines speak
And loud
Their utterance
As it the heaven’s utterance
As be
The Voice
Of the deep Inner Soul
Ancient arcane nobility.


Around
Around
The bees of verse and song
Humming
Humming verse and song
Sucking
Sucking flowers wide and
Wide-eyed
Murmuring
Whispering as the fairy waves
Awoken by the Dawn
Around
Around
The bees of verse of song.


My wish, the child
Born
With blue-green eyes:
Not beauty in extreme
But health wise,
Yes:
And when you grow
My little child
With beauty of the body
A body that growing be
Join my little child
Join your intelligence
And cultivate
That magic tree:
It will give you sufferings
It not yield too much
Of power, wealth and
The like:
If you go by me:
But
It will make you great
And it will make you wise
You only have to suffer
You only have to toil
And then you have to will:
My wish,
The child.


Come, come, fairy cloud
The heavens thunder loud
Crestfallen is earth’s shroud

See, see how hawks abound
And eagles too in skies
Where beauty in dusk lies.

And the power of song
And verse I feel along
And thoughts too start to throng.


When my hand types
On the keyboard
Trembling with each
Word
Each line
My heart is open
As with a knife
That even if it know
There’s no dissembling
But just
Bare, open, red, and
Blood
And no,
No dissembling.


In to a long tunnel of night
The vessel of thoughts alights
And on and on and on delights

Into these golden realms
Shoot rare yet sudden beams
Flashes, thoughts, screams.

And then the red dusk pines
And then night start to dine
With napkin and red wine.


In the long, long, night to come
Help me, my Muse, watch
Over me.

Long is the night for a sad
Heart – more so for such a
Solitude.

And in this lowness and in
This misery, my Muse
Donate your Fortitude.


A fairy tiny a large harp
Was holding
Singing.


Nimble her fairy fingers
Sweet her mouth
Her verse noble.


And saw the night
And loved and danced
The night-stars in delight


In the long annals of verse and song
So many a Poet-Seer
And I among.

Together heavy breathing throng
So many a Poet-Seer
And I among.


And in this world of suffering
Cluster so many in the throng
And I among.


Bring me the temperature
For like fever rises,
Rises verse and song.


At times low somewhat
Then in proportion parched
And slow.


But then arising as the Dawn,
The Sun, the drunken magic
Revels in its magic own.


Blue were the skies this morn
And yellow gold the mane of the drunken sun
And in gray rainbows Dawn was born.


So many colors, yet in man
In us humans there be more
So more of wonder to think and pen.


Yet blue were the skies this morn
And yellow gold the mane of the drunken sun
And in gray rainbows Dawn was born.


Ah! verse and song
The more you drink
The more addicted:
One potion drunk
Will other potions
Bring
One after one
And
For that drunkenness
The better are we all,
We,
The inhabitants of Earth
The better are,
And rise en masse,
Without our willing much,
Listless
Yet relentless
Of Evolution the march.


Bent the flower
For touched with chill
From the drunkenness of midday
Silent it lay and still.


Mute the petals fell.
And turned inside.
And in the distance
Rang a vesper bell.


Bent the flower
For touched with chill
From the drunkenness of midday
Silent it lay and still.


Like to the flower after
Sunset, after dusk
Bend we.


Like to the autumn cool
Before the fierce frost of Winter
Bend we.


Like to a fallen sun
That swelled with midday’s pride
Bend we.


Ah! frozen the face of the lake
And ruffled in its feathers the owl
For it be Winter.


You heard before mid-night and
After too the rains the thunder
For it be Winter


And though the Dawns arise
Day after day, most drear be they
For it be Winter.


Fog arising, fog falling,
Mists trembling,
Twinkling.


Rain gushing, hear
How on the roof
It is falling.


And it is night!
From bed
There’s warm delight


But ah! the thunder
Sparks lights and roars
Outside.


So much I sing,
Of such weather
So much.


For in such weather
My brain breeds more
Song and better.


The chimney high
Affronts the sky
And night-storms.


Alight the thunder
Lightning
The chimney’s trembling!


And then the end: goes
The wild tempest, exhausted
before Dawn flees silent.


Magic church, chapel
Small in the wide
Countryside.


How many a vesper
How many a sad day
You witnessed.


Few the happy days
And rare:
So we, we humans.


Verse speaks
As the great heavens
Speak.


Their voice
Is as the Voice
Of the great heavens.


Of verse the sounds
As the great Ocean waves
Noble rebound.


How rose the night
And the star light
To-night!


Too quick, too still
Amidst the chill
To-night!


Seeds of beauty
In the Dawn strewn flourish
To-night!


Remember you?
In the garden you were
That by Floriana’s bastions
Descends.


Remember the walk
Amidst the flower aisles
The trees, the fountain,
The stairs, the looking
From the bastions?


Remember the heavy thoughts
Calculations, worries,
Though shone the sun
For nigh to mid-day was
Yet low,
Low my spirit mourned and
Lay.


Amorous beach, but not
With humans amorous,
But birds of love
And song
In the red dusk.