A Barghest

A re-working of a previous poem.

Photo by Fabian Lauer on Unsplash

Tell me what you have been named
And what that means to you.
Does it follow silently
To bite onto the new?
All that great expectation,
Mythology and lore,
Does it stalk you like a beast
That prowls upon the moor?

Tell me what has drawn you here;
The journey that you took,
The adventure you carried
While earth beneath you shook.
Bear your teeth through exhaustion,
Each huff and puff of fear.
Hear it’s echoes… Now hear me:
In this place, you're safe here.

Tell me what you’re running from
That chases through the dark.
How its eyes despise of you,
The snarl with every bark.
Even now, it circles round.
You glimpse its spectral stance.
The chain within you tightens
As it waits for its chance.

Tell me: now we stroke its name,
And risk summoning it,
As it’s closing in on you
Your body starts to fit.
For it shares your name, this fiend,
And my eyes can't discern
Its fangs clasped upon your chest
That tell of its return.

It’s okay to cry out at
The trauma’s wrath again.
A black dog only you know
Is causing you this pain.
But I’ve been leashed by a shuck
That I then realised
Was no hound, just a puppy
From the past, left despised.

You can hate me, if you must,
For I rattled this cage.
But I’ve not betrayed my word:
You outlive this dog’s rage.
Now that you have seen his tricks,
Be sure your dog is tame.
Relieve him of his duties,
Now tell me: what’s your name?

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This poem is a re-working of one of the oldest poems I have ever written, and one of the oldest here on Substack: Black Dog.

Black Dog

I’m still incredibly proud of that original piece - and, with increased practise and skill, I saw powerful opportunities to revisit the piece with a tighter grasp on meter, better pacing, and introducing ideas from British folklore (in this case, the Barghest or Black Shuck - both considered to be malicious, spectral black dogs that terrorise lone travellers) which I’ve been increasingly interested in across my poetry. Here was a great opportunity to connect the personal to the mythological to highlight that there are great reasons why these kinds of folk tales have been carried through the centuries.

Why bother focusing on folklore? Because these are some of the most pervasive, long-standing societal narratives that exist. In an era saturated by manipulative narratives from the media and politics, exercises in taking the narratives of the past and re-working our relationship with them to move beyond a state of fear, as I do here in A Barghest, we have a model for rewriting the story of our lives to become the heroes, whether it’s an ancestral or societal component, or a long-standing personal one. And I believe we’re in need of that more than ever.

Leave a comment to let me know how this piece landed with you compared to the original.

Thank you for taking the time to read this piece. I look forward to bringing you more soon.

With gratitude,

Tom

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