The Green Man Poem by Andrew David Dalby

Stave the first


You stretch with so much sensual strain,

While your terrible and titanic capillaries,

Lunge forth, in vast mighty skew arches,

That in wind roars, sending your seed leaf

To then quiver and fall, in a slow spiral rain;

Thus then reveal, in green and tan bas relief,

Those secret pockets, of near hidden places,

Where sprout your splinter-cracked feet remain.

And along the rafters, amid those gnarled struts,

There still shouts a resounding bestial clamour

Of nature’s call: that, in this slow time stilled hour,

Contains the thought of this our ouroboric world;

Once violently brought to life by your spectral bowers,

Is to tremble; then fall, into chaos amid crumbing towers.



Stave the second


Your real name is lost to time and space,

Yet your face is seen on almost every screen;

Scraped on arches and carved into thin ribs

Which are vaulted high within our sacred scenes.

And how you glare with menace and madness

Heavily down upon us: mere mortal beings.

Your mouth gripped or ripped right open,

Giving those who dare to fully behold you

-And the wild woods that you represent-

A leaf reminder of our cold and cruel hearts,

Of how far we have slipped without a care.

Oh you wealthy deity! You God among us!

You Wild man of the woods! How you glare,

While with sheer hypocrisy we -above us- stare.



Stave the third


Yet, as we gaze up -or out- to polish off our souls,

So restlessly stands the shifty, sliced eyed, Pan;

Together with his pretty sweet skinned nymphs.

How they cavort in sacred spirit woodland groves,

While gazing deep, into the minds of mere mortal man.

And what thoughts rest in Silvanus in his wooded clothes,

As he goes, coyly flirting, with his beloved Pomona,

As bare foot, on Ter, she blows a kiss to her betrothed.

And why is that horned Fanus consulting his shade Fattus?

Is it to hide from us a sacred secret that only they know?

And so onward we go, to yet another place where sour

Smells rest, and people simply stare, tease mock or jest,

Because our civilisation, is just so bloody great to behold!

Oh how sad! How bad! How mad we are! How old!



Stave the fourth


And as we stare amid any sacred woodland vale,

Is Herne the Hunter’s Horn triumphantly heard?

Are his ragged antlers clacking so subtly cracking

In the winter moonlight around your ancient frame?

Do we grasp at the Lore, that we seem to surround

With Ignorance derision, distaste or at times, disdain?

Or do we ignorantly laugh at Jack the Greens sneer.

Is the Green knight’s smile lost to our right hand,

As we seek to rule that which we cannot command?

Or have we lost something real, a secret so sacred

Is this why the green man’s oak leafed face does shine,

While we in our vain precious yet precocious knowledge,

Feed our almost open minds, it is our souls that are dry,

For nothing ever really stops the Herne the hunters cry.



Stave the fifth


No, for in our woods the wild man never really rests.

His symbol hidden is spirally cavorting amid the trees,

Flying with the birds, buzzing with the bees, he’s in the face

On every single tree, his smile is there for us to freely see,

If we took time from our constant mental chaotic unrest:

The wild messenger -at our man made world- would truly jest.

His laughter would resound from every tree and every wound

Path that darts about each forest vale and each woodland glade,

For as the wild hunt is in full cry the wilderness would sigh

It would turn a leaf into a brook and kiss this wondrous sky.

While his gladiators: Oak Ash elm and birch fight for his rights;

“This war is upon us! The wild hunt is on! ” Screams Sweeney.

See how his ragged saw tooth mouth his wide with sheer delight,

While is feathered hair is so raven, his eyes are blinding white!



Stave the sixth


And from the huge bleeding boughs the black dogs are freed

To charge onward with pumping limbs upon such sacred seed,

That then turns upon this world of arrogance and sheer greed.

With fury they charge towards us through the long cold night

And surround the mounds proud made from our fathers blight,

Leaving the world we know turning still in our mad god’s blind sight.

While the machines we make: this world’s pain we truly create

Change nothing but our wild hidden deity’s feelings of hate,

But The Wild Hunt is here! So there is nothing to fear: just dissipate.

And as the Black dogs in huge wild tribes march so ferociously on

We simply stare and linger vainly on why we chose this human don,

Oh god help us oh how our words are nothing but an empty song.

And as the world now slowly turns and here begins to dissipate

So does the bitterness the rage, the greed and the burning hate,

Leaving the wild man and his voice to linger and to finally resonate!



Stave the seventh


And so at last the prophesy is now told,

To the very wee and the oh so very old,

The world we know is turning, revolving

In ways that we seldom so very clearly see,

For the cycle really resonates within us all

In spheres, that fall into a slow dissolving.

It’s up, to us to change then break the toll;

And make a path clear and make us free

From the monsters whom loath revolting.

We must make a stand, both woman and man

To make a case for this so terrible a plight,

For the land and we are truly bound as one,

So it’s up to us to sing our honest heartfelt honest song

Or waste off into the dim haze: a truly useless throng.

© adh 2013