Preface To Sudanenka

SUDANENKA
BY
BARRY VAN-ASTEN



PREFACE

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

The full and true history of any Adept could only be
written by himself, and even then, if brought before

the eyes of the world at large, how many persons
would lend credence to it?

[The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin
the Mage. Introduction. pxxi ]

The story of Sudanenka came to me in the year nineteen-hundred-and-ninety-four e.v. following a magical working whereby I invoked Auramoth, the Goddess who presides over the element of water, in the South, (also representative of the Hanged Man in the Tarot). The story is that of a Baptism which is also a Death; the symbol of the Triangle surmounted by a Cross – the descent of Light into Darkness, to redeem it. And thus one aspect of Sudanenka is the Hanged Man, the Dying God of Self Sacrifice which is an image belonging firmly in the old aeon of Osiris, along with the notion of Chastity!
We find that ‘Man and Tree were One’, which we can assume to mean that Sudanenka is a representation of the Christ figure, crucified as a sacrifice for the redemption of sins. But water being the element of illusion, we find that all apparent truth is but a mirror of itself. Mem, the letter in the Hebrew alphabet which symbolises water, gives us a return to the eternal silence, (in accordance with this the student should read Crowley’s chapters on various magical formulas, i.e. his explanation of the word AUM . See Magick ).
Sudanenka is the centre of his own universe whereby he is a being of perfect and absolute equilibrium; there is no part of his nature that is in opposition to his will. He has attained, yet this is not to say that he has ceased to evolve in any way, for as a magician, he is part of a continual cycle which is perpetually in motion and is never static; he embraces change, as all those who accept the Law must do, for it is only by the understanding of this process that true Magick can flow, ‘the word of sin is restriction’. And is not the Ankh also known as an ankle strap? It is inertia that is the enemy of the Great Work! – Go! And be ye not Black Brothers!

Without going outside, you may know the world.
Without looking through the window, you may
see the ways of heaven. The farther you go, the
less you know. Thus the sage knows without
travelling; He sees without looking; He works
without doing.

- Tao Te Ching

Man must become the Cup to receive the higher spiritual forces which exist on more subtle realms than the lower world of matter. Once this is attained, the transcendental beauty and purity beyond the Abyss will be reflected in the Adept.
In Sudanenka we see the strength of Geburah which is a corrective force; a violent yet disciplined energy (Ra-Hoor-Khuit: Will) balanced with that of Chesed, which is protective and jovial (Hoor-Par-Krat: Love). This ‘union of duality’, of severity and mercy, is Horus, whose destructive force purges and cleanses elements which no longer have a use. And so in reference to the ‘sacrifice’ we see only ‘change’ and not ‘annihilation’. Sudanenka may give the impression of a typical ‘Christian’ whose small mind screams sin! and cowardly heart cries shame! when confronted by lust, but as in all things, in one’s animal urges and in all one’s sensorial experiences, it is not the act (for there is no sin but restriction), it is the feelings and emotions which accompany the act which cause the harm and imbalance to the adept when empowered by negative forces.

Wisdom says: be strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be not animal; refine thy rapture! If thou drink, drink by the eight and ninety rules of art: if thou love, exceed by delicacy; and if thou do aught joyous, let there be subtlety therein!

But exceed! exceed!

It was in the year two-thousand-and-four e.v. on the day of the moon, three days before the centenary of the writing of the Book (1) that I encountered a certain Adept. An Adeptus Major (2) who expounded certain truths to me in plain English, and each found their target, and I left his side as if I were poor bloody St Sebastian, filled by his wondrous arrows!

Every breath, every word, every thought, every deed is an act of love with Thee.
The beat of my heart is the pendulum of love.
The songs of me are the soft sighs:
The thoughts of me are very rapture:

He shall await the sword of the Beloved and bare his throat for the stroke.
Then shall his blood leap out and write me runes in the sky; yea, write me runes in the sky.
[Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli. Sub Figura VII. Part V]

Love is the law, love under will.

P.A.A.A.
An IVxii, Sol 6 Virgo, Luna 28 Aquarius.
Sunday 29th August 2004 e.v.
At the house of the Adept. London.

_____________________

1. Monday 5th April 2004 e.v.

2. 6 =5

SONGS OF LOVE AND INFINITY

SONGS OF LOVE AND INFINITY

BY

BARRY VAN-ASTEN

The Lilith Tree. Ink. 2006. by Barry Van-Asten.

This sequence of poems is written in the sonnet form and is a veiled invocation of the Love Goddess.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Could love but be here by my side
In fairest measure and motion, veiled
By the empty half-light, all aglow;
Where dark centuries come crashing from the void
Into the miracle of existence, like something hailed
By the extremity of love, though long ago,
And this is how my sad heart sailed
On music's broken wing - and died.
O if I could glimpse its light once more
And this movement lost in evening air
Were not some vision of youthful ways
Worn by the passing of time, before
Passion's resurrection sought it there,
Arranged in the splendour of my days.




And I would not be alone, with your heart and your hand,
Caressed into celestial surrender, joined
For an eternity of songs, sung from the heart,
To radiate love with naught to command.
But it's not in the tenderness that soothes, I find,
This perpetual resolve for a dying art;
or in the joy that's found in companioned mind
When heart and hand are one. To understand
Love's transference, drawn into naught,
Like embryos in amber, where two worlds hide -
Those planets unshaken by time and man
Are unaware of reason and finer thought;
Yet a simpler form of sorcery will decide
The magnitude of love and evolution.




For the rhythm of the heart cannot explain
What sick invention lies in man,
When love's momentum falls away
From the chain of possession it can't contain.
A silhouette of strange emotion
Tumbles upon truth that it cannot say;
To curl at a universe because it can,
With no fear of destiny, or mortal pain
To blind it by the growth of woman's beauty.
And we sigh as the songs of love within
Our beating breasts, gently unfold
Our smooth skins to this tragedy;
Afraid of our delicate passions that spin
Spells of love beneath a rose of gold.




And if my love with me now lay
As oft' in my dreams I saw her set,
Like some proud Venus with satyr stare:
What words could I conjure in me to say?
These tears from the avenues of regret
Where I fall from grace - but she is there,
All warmth and loving, and lips are met
By the dark afternoon and the perfumed day.
But still more is lost between her and me,
Within the green-shaded pause that led
To reflections of loneliness and time remaining.
Yet we could not embrace, for sadly we
Were like the interlude that left words dead,
Sunken and separated by everything.




And what will be is what will be,
With no sense of my sole sphere that shuns
The veiled root of beauty's bloom,
Unchecked, by nature's simplicity;
To flower in darkness, that subtly succumbs,
Unmasked, into the arms of sorrow's gloom.
And this wretched blood through dark veins, runs
Directionless, to unanswerable beauty.
But what love would seek this heart and stay
To find its fourfold chambers grim?
For these are the dreams of midnight's dread,
Where stars are born and turned away,
Away from the silence and the tragedy and the dim
Eternal echo of love's soft tread.




In seeking this divine light of love
There is sadness ripped from history,
Where the ghosts of words lie silent and curled.
And my body yearns, yet cannot move
Through time, and no nearer each are we
In perfecting the music of our world.
I grow different and ways once known to me
Are delicate in ordeals that seem to prove
That beyond these songs naught can compare...
As morning blossom begins to fall -
Fingers, caressing the silken flow
Of shoulder-shaken midnight hair,
Find love in sadness, after all,
And tears of glass are music's sorrow.




Should this veil between us ever part
To reveal love's course and astronomy,
Where the gentle ballad of womanhood
Sings soft and sweet within my heart;
Triumphant in strength, caressing me
With songs that soothe my every mood.
To pass through this memory of sleep, and see
Beyond nature's infinitesimal art,
Perfected by changes, still unknown;
To whisper solemnly, that beautiful name
That lives in the one light I adore,
Where childhood's blossom, first was sown
In that dread temple, like a flame
To flicker in darkness, for evermore.




Where wild in the heart and mad with love,
Cold of all thoughts which were not of you,
As the moon, in its darkling embrace, always slips
From my fiery mantle and my every move.
And thus I am shaped, and hopelessly drawn to
The curve and precision of your lips;
To cling to their ecstasy, and pursue
This vision of delicate creation, above
All passion. Where tombs of violet night,
See more than tears in this lyrical death
And surrenders to the silence of the dead.
To hear only whispers from the radiant light
With the aroma of roses upon your breath;
To touch only shadows at your fearless tread...




That love which I seek no stranger grows
Than that which is of the dark always,
Torn, to crawl down the centuries
And ache with the sound of man's sorrows.
The wild appetites, the cruel scent that strays
Through the long summer of her mysteries;
To breathe the music of nights and days,
Cursed to blow where the rough wind blows.
And in that expansive - love, there lies
Some rich echo, absorbed by darkness,
Filled with rage and terribly wronged,
Where the penetrating light destroys
And spoils those beautiful lips that kiss
In evening dreams, where everything's changed.




And there is a sadness in beauty beyond all things;
Its many petalled mystery remains unknown,
Like the midnight flower in fear of the night,
Startled, awaits the dawn and sings.
But that which is concealed and that which is shown:
Two ghosts grown separate that shun delight.
For below is the root and above is the crown:
Creation, destruction, their understanding brings
A marriage of opposites by enchantment;
A continual song like an echoing prayer
Of devotion, to release love's shadow
By seduction, from its element;
To flow from the heart that cannot bear
To wonder at its sensual might, and go...




Will sleep not take me far away
And fold me in its fiery wings;
To rest in the hollows of its sonorous sigh
Where midnight masks this world of clay?
And is there momentum in all things
That live upon the earth, and die?
The soul is stricken by strange sufferings
And has no will nor belief, to pray -
But this is blasphemy, you say - I know,
For the spirit in sick retreat of night
Finds no perfection to adore;
It is incomplete and compelled to go,
Soft in breath and tread, into the light:
Be it devil, be it god - it cares no more!




I know no tender ways, I know
Nothing of that strange delight
That the melody of the heart can bring.
And there is no feeling for words, and no
Complete devotion that can unite...
Lift up your joyous soul and sing,
Sing of love's madness and its might;
Of spring and creation, and unto them go,
When the gulf between our hearts, once wide,
Is no more so - and I will come;
Will come by satin moonlight cast,
To linger softly at your side
And part those pressed lips that lie dumb,
And wrench you from the varied past.




O adorable youth! - has your love fled;
Has that which filled the heart, now gone?
And is my world fallen where shadows lie long
Through remembered seasons of the dead;
Steered into silence by a serpent sun?
O heart, empty of ceremony and song,
Where the light divine once brightly shone.
And these are the last words of an old world, ended,
Lost to the unutterable shades of fate;
Fearful of what is to become
Without the glory of your radiant name
In this masquerade of tears and hate;
Crowned a fool by wisdom, dumb,
And born of sorrow, to die the same.




No peace of mind, nor spirit, pure,
Can show me love how it shall be,
And not these dull senses of desire,
That sink before her radiant nature
And dance by the pale moon-hungry sea.
The song is still, but the heart is fire
And will for evermore, adore thee,
By the sacred light of your timeless allure.
But I will not look on youth again,
For dreams are false, and this I know:
We sigh at nothingness, yet we sing
And tire and tremble to the strain
Of our awful selves, and go... and go...
Unto the end, and still sigh - nothing!




Three loves have I, one for the heart,
One for the living and one for the dead.
Love's threefold essence, strange and strong
And silent, in its praise, to part
The words of joy that won't be said;
The songs of love that won't be sung.
Time that the rose of youth ran red
And loneliness gave up its sick idol - art,
Where the night perfume of summers gone and to come
Have grown stranger by the brute of desire,
Where those songs of love and infinity
Still long for the pains of angeldom;
Governed by solitude, where three loves are
Silent of song in love's trinity.




But to sing of that splendour from afar
Is to lie with the anguish of the dead,
Where the continuity of sleep shall yield
The secret ardour of a star.
And when the momentum of the heart has fled,
A palace of song shall be revealed;
A resolve of longing, and of reason, that dread
The senseless conclusion of what we are.
But in search of your radiance, still I rove
From moments great that I too have known;
To the featureless changing of the land
And the terrible truth that's told by love:
Love in despair, love immemorial, blown
By a lyrical torment, too cruel to understand.

Love is the law, love under will.

James Turner and the Borley Ghost

James Turner and the Borley Ghost
by
Barry Van-Asten

'The record of a man's gardening is the autobiography

if not of his soul, certainly of his body'.

(James Turner)

We, children of death, acclaim the Spring,

unconsummated flowers, the livening seed

brother and benches, and stench

of work, boredom of long hours

is haloed by the single thrush;

primrose, violet and the plane tree

caracole even in the din.

Jonquil breathes into the air

and Lydian chords lift the soul

over death, over Jordan, over

Crucifixion.

We, children of death, acclaim life.

(Pastoral. James Turner. Seven Gardens For Catherine. p.181.)

James Ernest Turner 1909-1975

There is a wealth of non-existent material available, related to the green-fingered poet James Turner and his connection to the notorious Borley Rectory haunting, that I felt the need to collect some of the facts together for the purpose of some future reference.

James Ernest Turner was born on 16th January 1909 in the village of Foots Cray, at the bottom of Sidcup Hill. He was educated at Wykeham House School and after he left Lancing College in 1925, he went up to Oxford to read English at Queens College. His early aspiration to become a parson was quickly dashed when he felt the calling to become a writer. Following from Oxford, James found himself in search of some direction and felt himself being steered towards training as a nurseryman, in Sussex.

It would prove to be a disaster for Turner and the difficulties he faced while growing mushrooms eventually led him to bankruptcy!

He married Lucie Alice Porter (known as Catherine) on 4th March 1936 at Eltham and it was her sense of humour and support throughout their hardship and comic mishaps which was a great strength to James.

James filed his petition for bankruptcy on 7th November 1938 and was declared bankrupt on 8th February 1939. The period ended on 15th August 1940.

The Turners lived for a while in London when James became a chauffer/secretary to an eccentric woman who owned a magazine.

James found himself in a spiritual sense in East Anglia when the two themes of his life merged together - poetry and gardening.

At Borley

On Wednesday 22nd January 1947 the Turners went to Borley in Suffolk to view the remains of a property that had been known as 'the most haunted house in England'. James saw the potential of the garden which could be developed into his own nursery, where he could grow his mushrooms in sheds. They bought the site of the old Borley Rectory (which included four acres of orchard) from a Mr Russell, and on Tuesday 29th April they moved into the red-brick cottage that was attached to the stables in the grounds of the former Rectory.

The cottage consisted of a sitting room which in the past served as the coach-house. A brick wall turned it into two rooms: a small sitting room and a dining room. The kitchen used to be the saddle room and the first floor has three small bedrooms and a bathroom.

'The cottage itself has been the centre of reported inexplicable phenomena for almost sixty years - as early as the occupancy by Mr Edward Cooper and his wife which lasted from April 1916 until March 1920'. (The Ghosts Of Borley. p.184.)

The Rectory

The legend of Borley Rectory is well documented and therefore I find no reason to give an in depth explanation of events at the house. But I will mention briefly that the Rectory became known as 'the most haunted house in England' due to the various manifestations that were seen and heard there. The infamous 'ghost-hunter' Harry Price visited the Rectory in 1929 and returned on many subsequent investigations. His finding are recorded and published in his two books: 'The Most Haunted House In England' and 'The End Of Borley Rectory'.

Among the many phenomena experienced at the Rectory is the apparition of a nun which appeared to the Misses Bull in 1900 and seen on numerous occasions. Mysterious writing has also been seen on the inner walls of the house during the Price investigation which appealed for 'help'. And legend has it that a phantom coach and horses along with a headless driver tears down the road towards the Rectory from the direction of Rodbridge.

The Rev. A.C. Henning

On Whit Monday 26th May 1947, James Turner assisted the Rev. A.C. Henning along with Mrs Henning and Mr J. Durrant in removing some of the floor boards in the Sanctuary of Borley Church. Directly below, they found a marble slabbed tomb. The tomb, that of the Reverend Humphrey Burrough, Rector of Borley from 1722-1757, was in good condition and many bones were found and later re-buried in Borley churchyard.

'Mr. Turner suddenly broke through into a cavity which proved to be a brick-lined vault, presumably that of Humphrey Burrough. The strange thing about this vault was that the brickwork looked new and there was no foul air from it. Below, as we lowered a torch at the end of a pole, could be seen some three feet of water. In the water were clearly visible three skeletons. The hole was closed again and now, of course, the new floor covers the place, leaving the black tomb slab'. (Haunted Borley. A.C. Henning. p.29.)

The new floor was laid over the tomb the following day and Mr Turner took the old wooden altar in his car to Liston Church.

Here is Mr Turner's account taken from his diary entry for that day - Monday 26th May 1947:

'Whit Monday. Began to raise the boards in the sanctuary. Present, at first, were myself, Clifford Henning and a Mr Durrant. Began work at 10.45. Soon after we arrived pressmen from the Evening News and the Daily Telegraph. On the removal of the first board D and I were, at once, confronted by the black marble tomb slab of Humphrey Burroughs, Gainsborough's uncle, who was once rector here - a very good and exciting find. It was in perfect condition having been protected by the wooden floor. We had to rip up most of the boards (only deal and about twenty years old). Not important. Strangely no one knew that the tomb was under the altar, the usual place to bury a priest. Durrant began, then to dig in the earth, mortar, sand and lime, forming the bed of the church floor at this spot. Immediately he started to dig up leg bones and perfectly formed, very yellow, ankle and foot bones. Catherine came across and verified these as none of us could be certain. Broke off for coffee. Afterwards I began to dig with Eva Henning taking notes. Very many more bones came up, even down to a depth of three feet. As yet no clay.

In the afternoon I began to dig before the others came back. The church was cold and still. I began to find more bones and talked with an R.C. priest who arrived. When Durrant and the Hennings came back I had already begun to dig under the black marble stone of Humphrey Burrough's tomb. Quite quickly I found a skull and clavicle which, I suppose, went with the legs and ankles. (Note. No one explained these finds, was it another clergyman? Next morning I dug a hole in the churchyard for the Rector to re-bury them).

Durrant suggested breaking into the vault as it would be our only chance to do so. Tomorrow all this would be concreted over and the stone slabs laid. I drove the crowbar into the 'modern' brickwork of the top and within a quarter of an hour, the bar went through without any warning, bringing my arm down hard on the edge of the memorial stone. I enlarged the hole until we could dimly see the level of water in what we then thought was a tunnel from the old rectory. The rector's lamp was lowered on string which Cathy fetched and, before a crowd of people who arrived to see what we were doing, we discovered it to be the vault with the bones of two bodies, no traces of coffins, three feet of water and built, 7ft. x 5ft. of modern bricks and mortar, just as if it had been finished yesterday. One of the sets of bones was, of course, that of Humphrey Burroughs'. (Sometimes Into England. p.12.)

'Mr. Turner lived at the Rectory cottage from May 1947 to June 1950 and during this time carried out extensive explorations in the vicinity of the wells. Before he completely filled in the rubble-crammed cellars of the Rectory and laid out a sunken rose-garden, he and his friends spent considerable time in clearing the rubbish from the cellars and at length reached the round well where the cream jug had been discovered. As they uncovered the well, there was much escape of gas. Next day the well was broken into and dug out. There was nothing below but solid clay and though this, too, was excavated thoroughly, nothing interesting came to light'. (The Ghosts Of Borley. p.141.)

Some Accounts Of Mr Turner's Occurrences At Borley

On Saturday 17th May Peter Underwood met the Turners for the first time at Borley. The Turners had been living at the cottage for three weeks. And it should also be noted that this date (according to messages received by the planchette) is the 280th anniversary of the death of the Borley nun, whose name was given as Marie Lairre. Mr Underwood stayed over night investigating the church and the cottage.

On Tuesday 27th May the Turners were at breakfast in the cottage and they heard a loud noise from the rooms above, but on inspection the noises stopped and nothing seemed to be out of place.

Between May and June James worked hard at clearing the overgrown brambles from the area known as the 'nun's walk'. He mostly worked during the evenings using a sickle. But he found his attempts to clear the tangled growth, met with laughter; in fact throughout his hacking at the undergrowth he heard the sound of laughter and voices talking, but not distinct enough to make out the words. The sounds seemed to come from the location of the old Rectory. On stopping work to listen to the voices, they appeared silent and on picking up the sickle to begin again, the voices and laughter would start up again. His wife Cathy also witnessed this occurrence.

In June 1947 the BBC produced a broadcast on the Rectory and after it was aired numerous 'ghost-hunters' and 'sensation seekers' rushed upon the site of the old Rectory which was of the greatest annoyance to those who lived there, especially the Turners who were quite happy to have the odd ghost or two, but to be invaded by people in search of a thrill and not caring or being respectful of property was something they could do without!

'Mr Turner tells me he even arrived home one night to find two men in the garden with guns, though what they imagined their bullets could effect upon a ghost, they did not explain'. (Haunted Borley. p.31.)

On Saturday 2nd August 1947, James Turner walked to the church just after midnight and sat on the steps of the priest's door for around 45 minutes. He heard the Sudbury clock strike one when he suddenly became aware of a presence moving up the main path to the church. Nothing was visible but there were definite footsteps heard and the sound of a swishing skirt. It motioned towards the porch away from Mr Turner, to his relief. There was a full moon that night and the air was still. This phenomena has also been witnessed by others visiting the church. The Rev Henning writes about Mr Turner's occurrence in his Haunted Borley: 'Mr Turner had a strange experience. One beautiful night in August 1947, he thought he would cross to the church for a stroll. He sat down on the step - but I will tell the story in his own words.

The night of the full moon and my brother, Philip, and his wife are staying with us. Went to Long Melford to meet John and Elizabeth and home again about 10.30 Elizabeth wished to spend the night in the church, but this was not possible because both doors were locked. At 12.15 I went across alone to the church where I sat, in the light of the full moon, for three quarters of an hour or more, for I heard the clock in Sudbury strike one o'clock. All the time, out in the road, a young man was saying goodbye to his sweetheart. I could hear their voices dimly along the moonlit paths and between the great yew trees. There was absolutely no wind at all and I sat huddled up upon the step of the priest's door with a jacket over my shoulders. I stood up and looked out across the fields and realised, as one does sometimes, that I was utterly happy. In a few moments, I slumped back into my former position for I was quite tired after the day's work, tired but not in the least sleepy. It was then that it happened.

Something was going up the main path of the churchyard, something which had one footstep more marked than the other, and something in a gown or skirt which swished as it went. Perhaps the whole affair lasted no more than ten seconds, but my attention was held for, it seemed, much longer. All the time, the man and the girl were talking by the gate, some two hundred feet away from me.

Whatever came up the path to the porch must have passed them if it came from the direction of the rectory. But they had not been disturbed. The actual happening, which occurred as I have stated while I was neither thinking of such things or perhaps of anything in particular, left little visible impression upon me.

I left the churchyard soon after as my brother came to call for a cup of tea. Had I heard the steps coming up the little path to the priest's door, I should have been terrified. As it was, whatever manifested itself then seemed intent upon its own errand and to have nothing to do with me. I do not believe I would have gone back alone into the churchyard after that, however!' (Haunted Borley. p.35-36.)

A Séance

It was on the evening of Tuesday 8th June 1948 that a seance took place at the cottage. Those present were: the Turners, Rev. John C. Dening, Mrs G. Taylor of Chelsea, and Mr T.S. Frankland of Trinity College, Cambridge. During the seance an entity wishing to be known as 'Harry Bull' came through and declared that he would haunt Borley for '4004 years'. When asked whose footsteps are heard in the churchyard, the spirit replied that it was the Rev. Lionel Foyster and he suggested that the Rev. Foyster's death occurred under strange circumstances!

Around 2.30 a.m. Mr Frankland asked the so called Harry Bull if he would make an appearance, it being the 21st anniversary of his death, and the entity replied: 'Go to church now!'

The sitters marched over to the church porch where they sat expecting some manifestation. After some time, Mr Turner broke the silence by saying 'I don't think we ought to be here!' Mr Frankland went over to the cottage with Mrs Turner and they talked and had tea while the remaining party still waited in the churchyard. The sceptical Frankland said jokingly: 'You know, nothing will happen if I put my finger on the glass...like this...' Suddenly the glass was seized and made three wide circles - Mr Frankland, quite startled by this, asked 'Why were we sent to the church?' and the answer came back - 'Pray'. Then he asked who was in the church now and these letters were slowly spelt out: 'C-H-R-I-S-T. He ended the questioning then and there!

On another occasion in July 1948, Mrs Turner was sitting on a deck chair, near the location of the old Rectory when she became aware of footsteps approaching towards her, and then dying away. She described them as sounding like a man walking upon floorboards, along a passage. She experienced the same phenomenon two weeks later in the same location.

And again in September 1948, the Turners rushed from the dining-room to the kitchen on hearing a loud noise of smashing crockery, but nothing appeared to have been moved when they investigated. This phenomenon - the sound of breaking crockery had been reported on several occassions by the previous occupants of the cottage, Mr and Mrs Cooper, in 1919, and also in the Rectory itself. Several weeks later, a loud pistol shot was heard by the Turners from in the kitchen - it sounded as if it had been fired in the kitchen, it was that loud!

Phantom Cats

On Thursday 28th July 1949, Mrs Turner was awoken by scratching at the bed clothes. A thorough search by Mr Turner found nothing to be in the room that should not have been there. The door was closed. They also noticed a hollow in the bed where it appeared a cat had been sitting. But no cat was in the room!

Again on Sunday 28th August 1949, Mr Turner was looking out of the kitchen doorway when he saw a mysterious shape, a furry form playing with their own cat Fred. The 'mysterious cat' was grey and white and it disappeared under Mr Turner's car and did not appear again. If it had come out it would have been seen as there was open space all around the car.

There has been a long history of 'spectral cat' sightings at Borley cottage and at the Rectory. Cats were prevalent during the time of the Rev. Harry Bull's incumbency. In fact, he had up to 34 cats on the premises and there is a cat's cemetery in the grounds of the old Rectory. Mr Ronald Blythe, the writer, has also witnessed the so called spectral cat in the bathroom at the cottage during October 1949.

On Sunday 5th March 1950, the Turners were visited by Mr Dening, who stayed the night. Mr Dening went to bed at 12.30 a.m. Mr Turner was in the sitting-room with Fred the cat next to him on the sofa. Mrs Turner was in the kitchen and Holly, their other cat had been let out. Suddenly there was a loud feline scream which seemed to come from inside the cottage, from the landing. After a search they confirmed that Holly was still outside and Fred was still on the sofa - no other cat was present to have made the noise.

On the weekend of 4th and 5th March 1950 Laurence C. Gafford and Peter Underwood spent a night in Turner's lounge at the cottage, below the Turner's bedroom. Controls were placed around the church and within to attempt to capture some of the reported phenomena. Beginning at 1 a.m. on Sunday 5th March after the Turners retired to bed, the controls were checked at regular intervals. At 2.15 a.m. footsteps and voices were heard overhead by both Gafford and Underwood. This occurred on different occassions. The Turners confirmed that they had not woken during the night and that they slept soundly. They were not surprised to hear reports of whisperings and footsteps as it had been an ever-present phenomena in that room. Mr Dening was sleeping in the front room of the cottage on the first floor. He also confirmed that he had not risen in the night and that his sleep was undisturbed.

While living at Borley cottage, Mr Turner wrote his novel - 'My Life With Borley Rectory', published November 1950. The Turners moved out on Saturday 1st July 1950 and went to live at the Mill House, in Belchamp Walter, 3 miles away. Borley was put up for sale for £4000. The site was sold in March 1951 to Mr Robert Bacon and his wife for £3,250 and they lived there until 1972.

Letter from Peter Underwood to James Turner, Saturday 18th January 1969:

'I remember that first visit when Tom Brown and I spent a night in the grounds; you said we were the first ghost-hunters during your occupancy (you had only been there a very short time). Unfortunately we were not the last! You very kindly asked us into the cottage for coffee, saying 'we won't do this every time but as you are the first to spend a night on the site while we're here...' and very acceptable it was, too! We talked about the ghost nun and you said that if you saw her, you'd like to position yourself in her path and see whether she'd walk through you. Perhaps like me you're too sceptical. I've spent scores of nights in haunted houses and I've yet to see my first ghost...

I hope you will not feel it necessary to disparage the Borley hauntings. (Alas, I have a little, I think). There is fact behind the 'legend' of Borley. As I think you know I have contacted and personally interviewed practically every person who had anything to do with the Borley 'case' and I have a great deal of good first-hand evidence from the Coopers, Marianne Foyster, Mr A. H. Foyster, Marianne's husband's brother, Mary Pearsons, the Bulls, Norah Walrond, the Hennings, Edith Whitehouse, Guy L'Estrange, J.P., a doctor who knew Harry Bull, a pupil to who Harry Bull taught Latin, Mrs Goldney (who told me she would be the last person to suggest that nothing of a paranormal nature happened at Borley), Dr Peter Rowe, who saw the 'nun' a few years ago, a Bank of England official, the Rev. John Dening, Mrs Ellie Howe, the Rev. Stanley C. Kipling, Canon Phythian-Adams (who passed to me all his papers pertaining to Borley) - the list is endless - right up to the present day and to the Williamses and the Bacons (who now own the Borley cottage and site). And Harry Price. You know there is no real evidence that he played false at Borley...'

(Sometimes Into England. James Turner. Appendix.)

Leaving my love is binding freedom

In chains, and the burden of spring

Into the overheated summer ovens.

The journeys were into freedom

And the faith of love. Of spring

The freedom. Where can I go,

Up here into the hills above the river,

Or here in the woods or again

Along the tessellated street,

And stare and stare without love?

Leaving my love is the closing of hatches,

And to be lost. This was an investment

Of love, this noble building.

This, too, because of our freedom,

This avenue of ilex was an embodiment

Of the straight road of the free.

Who has betrayed? Or must it come

Always to this, a flower grasped

Slowly dying, each minute slowly,

Dying even with soft water.

Where is the meaning of such freedom

And the heart of happiness?

The meaning comes to a betrayal,

Comes to the loss and to iron gyves,

Because her voice sped the hours,

Her laugh was a shield to humour,

And her body bought off weariness

Leaving my love is an open wound

Handwide in my breast, and a heart

Of blood sucked dry and of throat

Burning with unslaked thirst.

Leaving my love is a life spent.

(The Alien Wood:Twenty Elegies. James Turner. Seven Gardens For Catherine. p.219.)

 

Bibliography Of James Turner

Novels:

 

Murder at Landred Hall. Cassell. 1954.

A death by the sea. Cassell. 1955.

The strange little snakes. Cassell. 1956.

The frontiers of death. Cassell. 1957.

The crystal wave. Cassell. 1957.

The dark index. Cassell. 1959.

The deeper malady. Cassell. 1959.

Condell. Cassell. 1961.

The glass interval. Cassell. 1961.

The crimson moth. Cassell. 1962.

The nettle shade. Cassell. 1963.

The slate landscape. Cassell. 1964.

The long avenues. Cassell. 1964.

The blue mirror. Cassell. 1964.

Anna Chevron. Cassell. 1966.

Requiem for two sisters. Cassell. 1968.

Stone dormitory. Littlehampton Book Services. 1971.

 

History:

 

The dolphin's skin: six studies in eccentricity. Cassell. 1956.

The shrouds of glory: six studies in martyrdom. Cassell. 1956.

 

Poetry:

 

Pastoral. Cambridge University Press. 1940.

The alien wood:twenty elegies. Cambridge University Press. 1945.

The hollow vale: a poem. Cambridge University Press. 1947.

The interior diagram and other poems. Cassell. 1960.

The accident and other poems. Cassell. 1966.

 

General:

 

 

My life with Borley Rectory. The Bodley Head. 1950.

Rivers of East Anglia. Cassell. 1954.

A book of gardens: a collection of original essays on some aspects of gardens and gardening. Editor. Cassell. 1963.

Thy neighbours wife: twelve original variations on a theme of adultery, by Denys Val Baker (and others). Editor. Cassell. 1964.

The fourth ghost book. Barrie & Rockliffe. 1965.

A coin has two sides: a collection of double stories on a theme of love. Cassell. 1967.

Seven gardens for Catherine: an autobiography. Cassell. 1968.

The unlikely ghosts. Mayflower. 1969.

Sometimes into England: a second volume of autobiography. Cassell. 1970.

Love letters: an anthology from the British Isles, 975-1944. Littlehampton Book Services Ltd. 1970.

Ghosts in the South West. David & Charles PLC. 1973.

Stella C. - an account of some original experiments in psychical research. Harry Price. intro by James Turner. Souvenir Press Ltd. 1973.

Staircase to the sea: fourteen ghost stories. Kimber. 1974

The way shadows fall. Kimber. 1975.

Stone peninsula: scenes from a Cornish landscape. Kimber. 1975.

The countryside of Britain [with Edwin Smith and intro by Ronald Blythe]. Book Club Associates. 1977.

Sceptred Isle. [photos by Edwin Smith]. Methuen. 1977.

 

Stories contributed to The Ghost Book series:

 

The guardian. The ghost book vol 4. Editor. 1965

Double take. The ghost book vol 5. 1969.

No one ever comes here in winter. The ghost book vol 6. 1970.

Fly away home. The ghost book vol 7. 1971.

An ordered sequence of events. The ghost book vol 8. 1972.

Love me, love my car. The ghost book vol 9. 1973.

Selected Poetry of Barry Van-Asten

Selected Poems from the collection 'Ghost Blooms':

Wych Elms

Beneath the stones, shallow hearts press
The hours into their starry margins,
And the irregular tide of time turns
The years that are passing away.


The shadows in the swept gardens shake and cease,
Winding a heart in as it repeats.
And beyond the boughs, those remembered things,
Where childhood's ghost is interposing


Its secret world: bones of Roman loneliness
Root with slow life and remain;
Signposts in the green hush, where magnolia's
Lose their language and waste away


In dumb reserve... storm's electric menace,
Winding along the lanes again,
Under the cross-hum of pylons
As the steel-ribbed sun is setting.


Wrists of ancestors make a wilderness
Under the pale beam where we wander,
And in the dark woods something dreadful sleeps,
As love careers into view and slips away.

[also from 'Body and Soul'. United Press. 2005]


Against Us


What strange apostle of wisdom comes
From the hermitage, filled with fear?
He of old pagan enchantment, drawn,
To wear the wild ways beneath his skin;
With history hidden in fingertips:
A seasoned man, forever touching
Love's last seduction...brain-stepping...


And what appalling strength is this
Glut of desire upon us bringing?
The blood-air about us ringed: we kissed
To the cycle of ceremonial sighing!


Yet there was a time once, when song
Was glad in our souls...we listened;
We heard love's language linger long,
As we mouthed the words, not comprehending
The sorrow in the songs we sung.


And beneath the West wind, the end was falling;
We sipped at moon poison and passed into nothing.
My deeds, still dark with worshipping:
I knew, in those degrees of intimacy,
With my blood-lips on your scented skin;
The death-flowers of your craft, in me,
Shall remain, monstrous and stupidly human!

[also from 'Ten of the Best'. United Press. 2013]



Blue Interlude


Frail, iridescent star
In the cosmic green of man:
She has fled our bournes and brooks now,
Too cruel to understand.


But imagine a time of not knowing;
Of seasons measured in fingernails,
Where a theatre of mistakes, unwinding,
Still dowses after death, and fails.


Where someone keeps the hours, someone
Still listens for womanhood's corrosive call,
Into a silence that leaves its listener cold,
Longing for birth tracks, and that is all.


But here, the glass tower's dreaming
Under time's hooded flow,
Where the innocense of love falls, is falling
Into a world we do not want to know.


And there, waiting at the gates of the lodge
According to her habit,
A woman wept to see us still
Defying time and not changed by it.


For my heart reflects your sadness,
And changeless - sings, but sees
No love of life, nor love for us,
Nor love of mortal things.


Yet something animal in its nature;
Something cold and magical
Is born in us, and programmed to lure
The tide of man's sorrow to worship still.


But will time beat out this tragedy
Between our souls that sigh?
Two unshaken blossoms, that
Each side of a woodland lie.


Frail, iridescent star
In the cosmic green of man:
She has fled our bournes and brooks now,
Too cruel to understand.


Dracula's Cousin


Dracula's cousin
Lives in a suburb of Birmingham,
Lisping after the severity of flesh:
His only weakness and his sole outlet.


A bachelor of modest needs
With divination roots that thread
The immemorial sleep of day
Like dancing sea-shore feet,


As faces collapse like dropped buds
Between the sunrise and the dead.
His fingers black with printer's ink
Leaves yesterday's headlines on drained necks.


But no stranger to enchantment, no,
He courses as some satellite,
Steering his blue-shadowed skin that shakes
And sinks into beauty without regret.


And in his most brilliant of moments, one finds
No hesitation, no awkward talk, none,
Just spontaneous in thought and outspoken
On things he's not seen and not done.


But it matters to him, this world of nothing,
This 'creating symbolic magic' by hand.
Yet he was nothing but dead apologies
For a world he could not understand.

[also from 'Ten of the Best'. United Press. 2013]


Something Will Be Done


I live by the power of the amulet;
Of stones and consecrated objects.
Kept in an iron place, I no longer hear
The oracle of sickness: love's undoing.


Between elbows - signs of conjuration
Performed in my anatomy.
A talisman holds you in my sphere;
A goddess in flames: love's ruin.


Let me breathe in your existence
And define the perimeters of love;
To feel the workings of your skin
And the softness of its touch.


But the plague of youthful adoration
Drifts like ribbons on the sea,
Fearful of the ocean guardian
Between the ceremonial waves again.


And I destroy myself by constellations
Where memory's a museum of my love.
We are guided by astronomical phantoms
To intermingle, blood with blood.


But my body is an almanac
Bruised by the morning sun,
And for all these crafted calculations
Something will be done.

[also from 'Ten of the Best'. United Press. 2013]


Finding Orpheus


Under love's not sleeping,
We turned our backs upon the wind
And made a picture book of symbols
From dry leaves and feathers and things that
We'd found.


And we whispered softly into bird madness
Which gave less dread of volume.



Herded like cattle over ley lines;
All night we sang sorrow's tempest is done,
Spun of the fairest years, now flown;
Flung back to a braver and radient realm
To give the death's-head force of nature form.


But a memory of love persisted
Where meanings in broader mysteries cling,
Through this simplicity, drawn
Like a dark veil over everything:


A watery voice; an echo of time's arrows
That murmurs softly from afar,
Blowing its visceral night ballads that roll
Through easeless age and what we are.


But now, a Macbeth in the heart
And a Caesar in the brain
Have given meanings to symbols, and thoughts
Are the beginnings of speech - silent again...



With the spirit's core, we erode our past
And find its obscure language dead;
As dead as the Latin word that seems
A thumping Caliban of things once said.



Still with eyes closed, we feared to look
Upon the eve of another day
Where evolution leaves us sick again.

[also from 'Ten of the Best'. United Press. 2013]


Lost Hearts


But for a shared moment, long ago...
Your voice is painful to me now;
There has been too much said and done between us
And I have shrunk from the world I used to know.


And there are no simple words, just stupid
Things that we said in the past;
Now an impossible cosmos of hurt feelings
Where two hearts had won and lost.


But it's awful how we dream, somehow,
Of sorrow's wickedness in the heart,
For I made a Pompeii of my love
And buried the whole damn lot.


And you will pass as in some dream
Where echoes of those far off days
Shall murmur, winter-thick and constantly:
Love and us remain always.


But my mammoth love was cooled by Severn
Since long before your birth, I said.
Yet still the soft voice whispered near:
Give our unbroken love delight.


And I am obsessed with dead time
And other things shall follow soon.
I do not know of love or its ways
Because of unnatural reserve, nothing evolves.


But like ancient stones we'll stand,
Labouring under some misplaced spell
That will tick us to the end of time,
Into its blue-lipped oblivion.


Something Supernatural


At twilight, I imagine her as before,
Assembled from posted fragments, gathered
Into an alphabet of her ways and more,
Until the female form is covered -


Girlhood's expanse, recurring somehow...
But her eyes only show the reach of dreams
Cutting through the hallway's glow,
Concealed by something more than she seems.


And yes, it's terrible, how she will never say
Those words I need to hear the most.
And when the feminine part inside falls away
To the flood of grim September's ghost,


I won't leave the room, instead I'll wait;
Time won't tell but time will pass,
With my lens fixed to the iron gate
To see its shadow fall across the grass.


For something supernatural keeps her near,
Where desire, dying under dream's wing
Is something sealed that our hearts' won't hear:
Too involved in ourselves to love, and ending.



Telescope Dreaming


This eye-glass on Byzantine worlds
Of our own mythological fate,
Locked upon some distant star
Like Gullivers' gulping on dead space.
A penetrating lens that strays
Beyond those satellites that sing,
To pause on the past and make
A flash in the sky our everything.
As if looking on the microscopic
Where seasons are big things unknown
To single-cell abominations
Content to let big things alone.
A distant supernova detector
Viewed by voyeurs of light years,
Where we are but an eyelash in the soup
Straining at things too far away.
But our little world of telescopes dreaming
Of space...infinite space,
Can't tell us that we're not alone
In a universe of illusion that remains
Content to let big things unknown.

[also from 'Ten of the Best'. United Press. 2013]


Spoon Bending


The house is empty and seems so cold;
Rooms are dying, winding down, all through,
Where childhood thumbled long ago.



And in seclusion, I dummy death,
With fingers touching, still content
To draw stars and circles in the air.



Here, lion-crouching or war dancing;
Test-monkey sitting and laboratory squatting,
Waiting, expectantly, as if you would come in.



Round and round, without touching
Floors and walls or appliances:
These interiors have become your Himalaya's, you said.



And in my hunchbacked morality - I hypnotise...
Corners are head-shaped and I fit in.
Both as giant and insect, table-drowning,



Wanting to hear your voice, but then
Electric socket dreaming and spoon bending
Have taken you from me once again.


There's Something There



I'm an elegant sod, a chemical savant:
We're killers in flared jeans.
We are beautiful
When we're cutting worlds in half.



We pissed through glass canons
At the moon that night.
Love was cremated in the hollows -
We're never safe to be around.



Drowning our Northern sorrows,
Stalking through the bars...
Below the surface we are far
From thinking kind things. We laugh,



And together we shuffle through our thoughts -
What has suddenly come between us?
Why this change in you and me?
But speechless, we sat and smoked in sequence.



Now, our dreams have come to nothing,
And my strategy, in its flawed process
Has collapsed by the stone steps
Where we are beautiful, once again.



Selected Poems from the collection 'Night Flowers':


Birthlines



It is in my mind to be
Rested, in this dark urgency...



Gnarled god of infinite beauty,
With ancient tongue, the hills awake
To nature's call and the season's duty;
To the magic and menace that you make!



And in these things we love the most,
Great beasts of boughs are lost to us.
They wear the darkness like some ghost
That rattles around the rooms of a house.



With their bulged limbs of lump and grot
Deep-twisted through the roll of land;
Green-skirted in your rooted rot:
Horror and history, grooved and grand!



Gorged on darkness, this heart finds
A terrific sadness, deep, that clings...
Death strikes where the river winds
Through a changed landscape that sings



Of experience and gnosis, of hedgerows lost;
Of pathways and barrows and Saxon slain...
To wake the sleeping sylvan ghost
And thunder over mound and hill again!

[also from 'Ten of the Best'. United Press. 2013]


This Ulysses


This angry fellowship of the heart;
This dark seasoned spell that dams
The flow of love's beauty, and fades
Beyond the enchanted reach of the stars...
And the touch of long ago, still haunts,
Like a kiss in darkness, to remain,
An echo of this constant growth
That cannot truly live or die.
O lover, my demon sigh of despair;
My noble god of limitless soul
Who sings and slumbers in the mortal brain -
Strong in spirit and arm, gentle of mind...
But in me there is some whispering dread
That keeps me at its side, always
To watch in the hollows, and handsome, hide
A memory of love on these dead lips of mine;
Dead as the passion that bloomed in youth
To look, Calypso-eyed upon love, and grow...
A love unmoved in every mood -
I go into a dream that I cannot change!


[also from 'Fact and Fantasy'. United Press. 2010]



Natasha


I gazed through the half-open window
In the dimmed afternoon;
And sombre, my heart set me dreaming
As I paced from room to room.



I saw the sun-scorched lawn,
And thought: the rain will come soon.
The frogs lay screaming in a dry pond
And the cat was securing their doom!



But I'll soon send words to Natasha -
Ballads to a baleful moon...
But this house, still gripped by ghosts
Keeps my love from its first bloom!


White Nettle


I looked upon a rose, and saw
The gothic-lipped mist of evening,
Kiss each petal beneath a summer moon
In the dark time brush of the woods.


And ghosts and magic filled the air
Like cinnamon to the nose, and
Those I used to know came by
To see me standing all alone
Between moon dew and black boughs,
Tracing my shadow's outline
Amongst dogweed and wild garlic.


Yes, the woods in June were fragrant,
The oaks and the birches all stood,
Breeze-born and stupendous,
Weathered by elements and time.


But my love is a mythical witch,
Typhooning from the north;
Bound for the cruel starry gloom
And the endless abodes of night.


[also from 'Reflections'. United Press. 2010]



The Birth Of Pan



This earth calamity;
This new-born man:
Short on form, long on reason...
At the coming of the Golden Dawn
Wood whisperings reveal:
Great Pan is born!
Born into a world absorbed by war
Where darkness is thy maiden whore!
And at the fount of our man-god, take
This treacherous rot of globe and make
A Kingdom, wonderful with gold
And goat-god lust both brave and bold:
Awake! Masturbating man of old!



This piss of life;
This earthward bowel:
This token charmed from midnight foul!
Here, vomit up your history
To see the scum of Sodom pouring forth,
From the night to light this mystery;
Where loathsome is the flesh within
The sanctity of salvation's throne,
To reveal a great god, shook from dust;
His thighs thick with honey lust:
Mad, for the passion-bashed clitoris of fire
Where his seed shall flow and never tire
In the endless gash of mortal desire!


The Alien Brook


Dark continent of reeds
Where a mythical world unwinds,
Sunrise stirruped to its mystery, broad,
And the jasmine heart in decline.


An echo of time, repeats and runs
Through meadow's dwindled pulse, and blood
Booms in veins, where hornbeam and ash
Reclaim, a dead fox with its hunting claw.


Stood, as stranger, though always touched
Veiled glamour of long ago - I'll retain
A memory of this evening, between us,
Immersed in magic, sleep shall flow,


Through Tudor brain, moon-milled by woods
Beneath a bat-black oppressive sky;
Purposeless over pebbles now, its course
Meanders with antique weariness,


To sigh, where owl-haunted beauty persists
Between star and steeple - a steady pace
In blankets of twilight - the heart beats
To an ancient song, sung far away.


[also from 'Poetry in Motion'. United Press. 2010]


The Totem Elect


Under the steed breath and warlock eyes,
His granite stare lifts a Canterbury miracle
And a death... Lips like a drained lake, reveals
A winding path amidst the sunken graves...



The thump, thump of hideous thought
In gloomy gardens... violated remains
Castrated to the crack of horse hooves,
To jab like wax-work, and become
Insane at some vile ache of time.



And at the summit of imagination -
Black angry marks; a widow's tongue
Cuts like some cancer through the heart,
Snorting at pantry fever and kitchen dust.



While above the tree-tops, from a steeple
Swooped a raven, thrashing low
Over columns and pillars, to the waterside
Where it earthed with ineffable joy,
And placed itself upon a pendant.



Here it wove for a thousand years:
Dreams and domes and all things lost;
All things smothered in their prime
By twilights charging at dawns...



Some dead foetus tumbled down
From out of the summer lightning;
Performing staggering etudes
In its unsteady playing.



An idea came to me:
Why not show it life?
I'll take it to the idol room
And breathe into it, intellect!


Spring Equinox


You have looked into the dawn, my love,
To see a string of black bound pearls -
Fragments from the darkened tide
To muse upon the world!
From the windows shifting menace
A storm has come to pass...
Sometimes a terrible guardian
In the shape of Briareus;
Sometimes a sleepless wanderer
In the pallor of Saint Alastor...
Yet, the park, fresh with snowdrops
Is also as dead as you are!
And your lips, red and eager,
Spun of gossamer glass -
Do you feel the sea wind's salty
Corrosive whispers pass
Beyond the darkness, sleep of death,
Over sea-world's gleaming?
A rich meadow of love is upon us
Where stars are born of dreaming!


[also from 'Spring Vision'. United Press. 2010]


Troubled By Time


To the memory of A. E. Housman.


Born, in the year of Darwin's 'Origin',
Where secret worlds of unrest grow;
His inward lips were tenderly pressed
Over the lines of Juvenal.



His passion: silent - humanity's ache
Under the touch, lies far away...
And in the night, there is no sleep
To stamp over the angles of each day.



Words lived, yet he was dead,
Caught in a season's oblivion.
His sombre thoughts were all but lost
On boys to which the war had won!



Ballad-whistling, yet still no-one,
For he would not stay...
His spy-hole on the liturgy,
Kept like photos locked away!



Now, he is going into rooms
Where his heart lies with the dead;
His romance found in Latin graves, and
All that need be known - was said!



Not wanting to remain, no,
Our poet-scholar built a tomb -
A small wound bleeds his sex away,
To flow like wine in printing bloom.



But how could a passing flower give
Life to old bones and dust,
When sorrow thought it fit to stay
And cauterize his lust?

[also from 'Ten of the Best'. United Press. 2013]



On Hampstead Heath


Man of earth - titans and wraith stones;
Dwarfed by hornbeam, alder and ash...
Acorn jewelled moss paths, bluebells and nettles;
Dark places of anemone and dead man's rot.


Songs of grass: the honey-haunt of weeds,
Shaken in shafts as shadows darken and sink
Beneath a bridge. The lakeside strangeness
Had disappeared and seemed less strange, somehow...


The chalk bricks, white as maiden bones,
Stood weary, turned on time...
Green pools, poppy-bruised, where
The corpse of years remains...


And here, the dead where pathways cross,
Reach from roots and ground elder stems;
Hoof-thuds vanish down a winding track and
Ale exulted blood still courses through the wood.


The oaken brain, like a steel box, contains
The dream of history, grown dim and flowing
To the magic and menace of reeds by night,
And lips of twilight found me there.


[also from 'Poetry by Moonlight'. United Press. 2009]

Niseag


In bygone squid-lust, it slays
Centuries; shift from eye to eye;
Slumped in the bottomless sludge,
Uncaring of the world above
Where mankind, like mayflies, die!


Devil-curst fame: its fathomed kiss
Lies like love notes on the wake;
Measureless, in its humped myth
Where its bulk of heart can evoke
A dark and ancient emptiness.


Yet, we intrude upon its sleep
To wish upon it: 'museum-death',
The prey of monster eyes, always...
Guardian of your dark reach, deep,
May the mystery of our worlds,
Never meet!

[from the collection 'Hexham Heads' 2011
and 'Ten of the Best'. United Press. 2013]


The Butterfly


O secret or symphony -
I know its heart too well;
Sweet sovereign of life's mystery,
Your silence cannot tell
What difference this is, parts you and I
Or what spirit takes you far away.

Will this love immense, never fade;
Could my heart but love you less?
I have seen your fiery wings displayed
To summer's silver light caress;
Serene, unfolds, and flits away
And blessed to live another day.


I'll say I'll seek its beauty,
To hear its sealed heart sigh
Through the long, lone summer,
Wherever its soft wings lie.
And passions fleeting in vain, will chase,
Though never mar nor seize its grace.


Since then in my remembering
Its sad and sable flush,
Fate, in its surrendering,
Steals by a pale moon's crush
Where the frailness of the butterfly
Unknowing strength - must die!

[From the collection 'From the Hermit's House' 2011.]

Ode To Satan


His bones are black like dragons’ teeth
And he’ll make merry with your soul.
Beyond concept, form and time, to dwell
In the regions of your own imagined Hell.
Like mind-fire, he rises,
Silk instigator, his bulk shall sway,
Song-like, in timeless rhythms, to emerge
Urgent at his supper of souls, again.
No purity too high; no weakness too low;
He is mistrust in the heart of every lover
And anger wrestling in the down-trodden.

A name swift to lips – he’ll come
In sleep or silence, seducing:
‘S’ words – serpent, scratch, sugar, sun;
Slumber, sweet, shout, sex, sing,
Smoke, scream, sinister, snake, sin...
Of them all, Satan, upon the tongue,
Licked with a rush of air...
Shushed and shaped into Sss-a-tan:
Satan, I call thee to me, Satan,
Sensual flame and saviour, strong:
Satan, Satan, Satan, come!

[From the collection 'Under Wind and Over Sun' 2011
and 'Ten of the Best'. United Press. 2013]


THE KILLING OF ERATO

Muse, thy fair and busty presence
Brought moonlight, madness and song;
Conjurations inspired wise words to mind
And invoked beauty, but you belong

In your world of mythology, not mine;
Come no more and trouble me not!
I do not care for your enchantment;
I do not want your alluring rot!

I am sick of your flowery love-words;
Sorceress, do not trouble me!
Go back to your sisters: Melpomene,
Urania, Thalia and Calliope,

Polyhymnia, Clio, Euterpe and
That haunting devil of dance – Terpsichore!
The old blush of youth has gone
And so has your hideous hold on me!

Still she came, she did not listen;
I pushed my pen firm in her eye;
I cut her heart out with my scissors
But still Erato did not die!

The brain slipped easy from the skull;
I tore her lungs out with my fingers!
The tongue was simple to remove
But still the muse of love-words lingers!

I cut her up into nine pieces;
Wiped my finger prints from the pen;
I left her body parts in bags:
She will not trouble me again!

[from the collection 'A Toe in the Queen' 2016]


A EULOGY UPON THE DEATH OF ROMANCE

They said falling in love would be painless –

Some numb beast in the brain,

Distorting dimensions of dreaming

To dull the senses of pain!

A whirlwind romance, they called it,

But the heart is deplorable now;

Love sought a serenade of perfection,

More than the heart would allow!

They said love’s just pure emotion;

A tissue of tournament tears,

Devoid of intellect – love is

A carousel of shameful fears;

A torturous sadness of longing –

The heart hangs heavy with time;

An enchantment of song was left muted

To whither away in its prime!

A dreadful departure of passion;

A vacuum void of cold kisses;

The perfumed pretence of not knowing

Why this arena of soft caresses

Remained flowerless, diminished,

With sweet words blunt and dull;

The dim rush of longing sensation

Was heart-breakingly beautiful!

Sunlight was always my cradle

And moonlight was always my bed;

Romance went out with the old year –

Romance is decidedly dead!

 

[from the collection 'A Modern Antinous' 2018]

Gallery - A Small Selection Of My Illustrations

 

ILLUSTRATIONS BY BARRY VAN-ASTEN

Aleister Crowley

Ink. 1992.

Book Of The Law I

Ink. 8 April 1992.

Book Of The Law II

Ink. 7 April 1993.

Book Of The Law III

Ink. 8 April 1994.

Schizophrenia Carnival

Oil. 1990.

Sisters In Morphine

Ink. 1993.

Fuck Absolute

Acrylic. 1995.

Behind The Scenes

Ink. 1993.

Hendrix

Ink. 1991.

W. B. Yeats

Ink. 1995.

Mountain Scene

water colour. 1996.

Night Flowers

Ink. 2008.

Wych Elms

Ink. 2008.

Ghost Blooms

Ink. 2008.

all works Copyright Barry Van-Asten