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    Artwork by Blue-John Benjamin

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lyrics

The Burning

Taliesin: that is what they called me
long ago, for I have died many times—
taken many shapes beneath flick-books of
moons—since then. Again and again, breaking,
womb-snug, into the bright white of the world,
kindly pummelled, my tiny lungs snatching,
my tabula rasa whispered at by

ink-stained, bramble-thorned ghosts, I have endured.
I have clung to Her; to fractal Knowledge;
to the Unresolved, a questing reborn.
I, who met with Arthur’s stare—who, in the
Battle of the Trees, fought alongside their
enchanter, Gwydion—did not find on
Cader Idris, alone and mumbling through

snow-tipped whiskers, that which my soul desired.
An intricacy in the palm of my hand,
caught by the dawn’s silvery sliver, the
lapwing’s sought-after secret provided
no solace. None at all. There was, instead,
the troubadoric yearning, the sorrow,
The Burning. I felt it at Agincourt,

knee-deep in the blood-blackened mud, my face
spattered and appalled. I felt it on the
Field of the Cloth of Gold, blazing unseen,
almost unbearably vermillion.
I felt it against the hilt of my blade
when a cruel witch-pricker was brought to heel
(there is no beast more monstrous than a man).

I felt it crouched quietly in a trench,
Lucifer the architect. I felt it
huddled in a café, in the tilt of
a poem, in another day’s first blush,
in fingers of imagination pushed,
exploring the edge of the Universe.
I felt it weep from ley lines, which led me

back to a town hemmed in by sea and moors,
where the Barghest begat Bram’s Dracula.
Taliesin: that is what they called me
long ago, for I have died many times.
Now, only a trace element remains,
diminished beyond recognition, but
I have found Her. At last, at last, at last.

credits

from The Burning EP (Derelict Roller Disco Records, 2018), released June 1, 2018

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Blue-John Benjamin Whitby, UK

"We put the boot in - flew the freak-flag;
We stood resolute like Morrissey’s quiff."

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