Powerless Praise

(Commissioned as anthem text by Philip Wilby to celebrate
Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum’s 50th anniversary)

Beyond our power, paean’s praise
Sings out and to the heart of love –
Who formed the earth and all that is
Whose glory shines from high above –
The radiant sun and lambent moon
Bring light for us in night and day
As fire and rock and air and flood
Reveal and form as nature’s way.
The earth itself is hymn and prayer,
An act of love and art we share,
Where mind and will are free to choose
In common life where all show care.
Our world is rent by self and strife
And strangled by the lure of gain,
Ignoring love in poor and weak,
Inflicting heartless, pointless pain.
Yet glory heals and comes again
As Christ is raised in each new day:
Inviting us to change and grow,
Surrender all – to give and pray.
We sing this song of risk and truth:
Our words in music’s flight now ring
To take us into spirit’s realm
And soar with joy on beauty’s wing.

© Neil Thompson 2024

calibration

does it matter
or make a
difference
a second a
lifetime the
hour the day
divisions matter
to us making
meaning manageable
even though it
may not be
we make our own
place and
significance
but it is all
through my
eyes perhaps
ours I see a
reflection and
not a vision
the beckoning
mystery is
missed we
creep around
it like a
stealthy cat
or a blind
mole we
creep and
burrow but
with the
swagger of
an anthro
pocentric
ruler
beware what
it can’t
measure

© Neil Thompson 2024

A villanelle of the broken heart

Grief’s furnace melts us all as loved ones die,
The flower of beauty blooms in truth and loss –
Our broken hearts must trust as well as sigh.

We rage and question every road we try:
The unknown land encroaches worldly dross.
Grief’s furnace melts us all as loved ones die.

There are no answers clear that we can buy.
Alluring pleasures are a passing gloss:
Our broken hearts must trust as well as sigh.

Love’s freedom is a gift and does not pry –
It gives and risks the seal of death’s emboss.
Grief’s furnace melts us all as loved ones die.

There’s joy as well as pain in tears we cry,
We face the sun as much as tempest’s toss –
Our broken hearts must trust as well as sigh.

There is a leap that lifts us through the sky.
Its source is dark and formed in saviour’s cross:
Grief’s furnace melts us all as loved ones die.
Our broken hearts must trust as well as sigh.

 

© Neil Thompson 2024

A sonnet of substance

I lean against a fence that cannot hold
My weight, my life or anything I chance:
It is this globe to which we cling so bold,
And nothing lasts – all’s but a fleeting glance.
It sets us up with promises so bright;
A rising sun with happiness ahead
– Is dimmed and dashed by flaws which lead to fright,
The hurts and thorns by which our veins are bled.
Offence and fence are both removed by breath
That fills each life from love’s eternal spring –
And takes us through each hour and then through death
When nature makes our form a lifeless thing.
This myst’ry is a truth so real each day
Which many miss – beguiled, we turn away.

(written on a train between Rochester and London)

© Neil Thompson 2024

epiphany

magi magic myrrh
make mystery
myth revealing
the missed and
forgotten power
and prayer we
grasp greedily
in misunderstanding
and misplaced self
interest the star
is beyond our grasp
its light hits us
with a gentleness
and strength that
pierces the mind
the heart the
ancient rays are
ever new to us
and beckon
uncover the
change we need –
the life of the
lover born in
Bethlehem

destroy this little
one with all
others around for
threat and
promise challenge
and change beyond
me can and
must be wiped
out whatever it
costs there is no
escape from this
death except the
dream and the
angel where
consciousness is
overcome by love’s
truth and the
journey that
confronts and
triumphs over
every ploy my
selfish heart
employs the
return is the
outset the
onset of
eternity

© Neil Thompson 2024

signature

marks that are mine
only to give share
and seal all I
am is here en
crypted en
ciphered en
ding the contract
of being be
longing en
during en
lightening en
suing the
name that was
spoken by the
love and lord
of all
life not in
water not in
dust but on
your heart

© Neil Thompson 2024

storms and teacups

size and significance
are not the same
even stirring with
a teaspoon never
creates a storm
the gentle vortex
of milky brown
spirals to a smooth
suspension or
colloid depending
on putting the milk
in last or
first there is a
controversy but
no milk war or
cream catastrophe
the chink of bone
china and the rattle
of a saucer neither
is the clarion call
to battle the slap
of the dueller’s glove
the ruined company
ravaged people or
storm tossed wreck
the mental breakdown
terminal diagnosis
the loss and pain
that punctuates all
life the answer is
never one lump or
two darjeeling or
assam loose or bag
below the surface
our hearts break
our worlds fall
apart and no cup
but one can soothe
the knife that
cleaves the bone
the nail that
rends the wrist
only the cup that
catches all our pain
and every death and
it is full full
of blood over
flowing with
love

© Neil Thompson 2024

soup of the day

take potassium
sulphur sodium
chlorine and
magnesium dopamine
oxytocin serotonin
and endorphin
it’s time to be
the soup
of the day
the miracle
of material
living through
these ingredients'
flow
the wonder
of feeling
and sensation
blended whisked
cooked seasoned
into you and
me we are but
oxygen carbon
hydrogen and
nitrogen yet in
a recipe becoming
and being
presented for a
purpose and
prepared for
the now of
mysterious
infinite
eternity
bon
appetit

© Neil Thompson 2024

unframed

the frame that
held your image
has gone holding
capturing all
gone you are free
and I am clutching
nothing all form
vanishes into the
mists of memories
and the chilling
cold archive it
is the breath that
warms and cools
sets us on fire and
takes us to heaven
but where is its
source and savour
when the frame is
gone kiss caress
and our completing
coupling and co
existence collapses
into an unframed
unattainability I
know you’re gone
yet here free but
bound in the breaking
beating heart of
flesh this is not
stillness but the
pounding breakers
bloomed and enhaloed
by the revealing
spume where the
breath is disclosed and
the wind of all being
takes us all
away

© Neil Thompson 2024

A villanelle of time

The future’s gaze makes history of us all,
Our human days are precious and so rare:
We live across a strand of time so small.

There is behind the clock another call
That comes on spirit’s breath as free as air.
The future’s gaze makes history of us all

The voice of love sings out – will never pall,
It gives us joy and more than we can bear.
We live across a strand of time so small.

No storm of life, destructive blast or squall
Can break the power of love’s redeeming care.
The future’s gaze makes history of us all.

In moment’s plight we often seem to fall,
Yet light and rescue come in heartfelt prayer.
We live across a strand of time so small

Our maker reaches out beyond time’s wall:
Let go of fear and self, risk all and dare!
The future’s gaze makes history of us all,
We live across a strand of time so small.

© Neil Thompson 2024

seasons

which season
is for real
insofar as
it sees us
flourish
and where
to start in
entering the
cycle that
engulfs the
year of each
life spring
is the stirring
the start and
springboard of
renewal and
hope breaking
and budding
with growth
and fertility
a greening
and glimmer
of what is to
come yet the
summer which
follows burns
with colour
and excess
a balmy
blousy breezy
apogee of
promise over
topping into
over blown
bronzing and
billowing of
autumn fiery
fruitful and
fulsome in
its decay and
decline into
the sterile
stillness of
winter
die back
dormant
frigidity of
frost and frozen
filling and
freezing our
human living
with fear and
fortitude
relieved by
the release
of the spring
as we are
propelled again
from the
vicious to
victorious
virtuous
cycle
are we the
season or the
seasoned the
traveller or the
road through
which reality
passes

© Neil Thompson 2024

the four winds

why four why
corners on the
earth our sphere
our home is
enfolded by the
air and its
movement caressing
blasting billowing
piercing carrying
sweeping in
spiring
from north and
south from east
and west they
bring us weather
veering and dying
beyond our
powers soft sultry
notus and cruel
chilling boreas
bracing bitter eurus
and wild and
warm zephyrus
you blow as a
benison and a
beating reminding
our forgetfulness
of spirit’s constant
work guiding
reproving renewing
and dying touch
our inner life and
bring us to your
source blow our
bluster into the
haven of heaven

© Neil Thompson 2024

looking east

Written during the Israeli–Gaza conflict in October 2023 after a visit to Haddon Hall and its chapel with recently restored east window

reproaches in love and glass
the scene is far from clear
incomplete in its extent and
mutilated in form the blindness
and the light obscure yet howl
blinded captive pierced and
nailed in gaza and outside
the walls on lonely friday
hill so many in the wrong place
familiarity is faint the heavenly
places indistinct and heralds
depleted to a winged man and
lion even the light darkens the
scene and blanches out the
meaning mass and velocity
produce momentum gravitas
futility of power unrestrained
sacrifice alone forgiveness
beyond limit here with grinding
mill of time the prisoner fails to
pull the pillars down but dies
alone and forever in time to
reach our eastward eyes all
pointless unrelenting spite
and hurt whose power across
the ages consumes us all and
now all life extinguished soon
unremembered save by the
gracious beauty of the face and
promise now exposed to every
moment every life born and
unborn borne through the
darkened glass to face to
face look down across within
and bring us the hope the
death drenched love shattered
peace which guides each uneven
stone and step o my people
what have I done to you eli
eli lama sabachthani

© Neil Thompson 2023

Art's leaven

Art is the scent and not the flower
No image caught in one fixed hour
Arousing night and day.
It costs our reason for its love
Catches the light that shines above
The hue of passing ray.

Life is the love and not the deeds
Alone that breaks our hearts and bleeds
Our moments into night
Where sorrows met in mystery's dawn
Conjoin us all as oneness borne
Into celestial light.

There is the joy we seek to own
But in this life is but a loan
From love who calls us home.
And art transports our earthbound ways
Beyond all sight into the blaze
Where light and matter foam!

The trails of art defy the dark
And substance of each stain and mark
To touch the inmost prize
And lift us out of self’s brute cage
To breathe the air of future’s age
Where we are sure to rise.

© Neil Thompson 2023

redemption

bring me to the moment when I know
bring me to the dying when I live
bring me to your presence where I grow
bring me to the truth where we shall give

live and die in us that we can share
live and die in time to make us one
live and die in us that makes our prayer
live and die in all so all is won

© Neil Thompson 2023

Bread

How simple seems the joy of bread
The mill, the wheat, by which we’re fed
With crust and dough so sweet.
Yet complex lives and shady ways
Are part and process of this maze
When grain is ground to eat.

The loaf, the roll, are baked by power
For food makes money hour by hour
For profit and for gain.
Oppressive work and selfish cheats
Are kneaded, sent to ovens’ heats
Which bake each ear of grain.

The greed of politics and trade
Are baked into each loaf that’s made,
Along with love and skill.
We eat our pain, exploiters’ cost,
Our innocence is ever lost
In bakers’ grist to mill.

‘Tis this that’s brought to altar’s stone
And offered, broken, to atone
Through love’s one perfect life.
Along with grape, the sullied wine,
Our souls are fed by breath divine –
A meal that ends all strife.

© Neil Thompson 2023

without trace

the imprint of love lies just out of our sight
we yearn for those marks that will burn ever bright
there has to be darkness in uncreate light
which makes our powers nothing in terms of love’s might

the strength of our days is both fragile and slight
we meet never stopping like ships in the night
the wake of our living a fast fading white
all legacies die if in water we write

there is nothing that lasts and that is our plight
with love and its truth there is no cause for fright
we are met and we’re raised to immeasurable height
it’s the soul that will last in love’s heady flight

© Neil Thompson 2023

interior light

the stillness the
emptiness of our
home without you
seems soulless yet
you feel so close
and why wishful
thinking no the
mystery that warmed
every moment and
day that now cannot
be fully extinguished
it means the harsh
clarity reality of
material creation
isn’t all and its
shivering awe and
immense frigidity
of light years
stellar beams and
black holes are
neither the beginning
nor the end and
never the moment
of encounter with
the sacred heart of
love and meaning
belonging and
purpose there is
no need to wish
upon a star the
eternal flame and
warming smiling
truth burbles on a
bed of hay and the
tiny fingers take
my shaking hand
and wordlessly turns
me inside out upside
down from fear and
despair into a now
that opens to a never
ending where birth
eclipses all death
and his death destroys
all that seems to kill
us there is now no
age and all clocks
are redundant

© Neil Thompson 2023

A Villanelle of the Spirit's Deeps

There flows a stream which bathes the broken day;
Each life has pains that hurt and never heal:
Sweet waters run within to guide the way.

We like to think our human strength holds sway
And fear the love whose depths force us to kneel:
There flows a stream which bathes the broken day.

The world around us suffers as we slay
The weakest and the lost on blood–soaked steel:
Sweet waters run within to guide the way.

The love we need must risk the cruellest fray,
For sacrifice brings life and truth that’s real:
There flows a stream which bathes the broken day.

The work of love gains strength in spirit’s play
Where self and others join in values real:
Sweet waters run within to guide the way.

There is no price or cost too much to pay
For love whose journey every life does seal:
There flows a stream which bathes the broken day;
Sweet waters run within to guide the way.

© Neil Thompson 2023

will this be the last

there is no dying year
no newness of the next
the chronophage is a
game of chase your tail
or chase your tale
unpacking a box of
snakes and laddering
our lives with rules
to make us first the
pulse isn’t even panting
up the rungs the slow
ascent of the funicular
rollercoaster these aren’t
machines that measure
unlike the beautiful
ticks and chimes of time’s
pieces who beguile to
make a stationary vortex
of self–regard and racing
destroyer no computation
no memory alone can
turn moment into
music or power and
progress into poetry
only the opportunity
of friendship whose
love is hidden
by veils and vales
dials and dales not
in a topography not
even the journey
for it is the now
never the never now
the always now that
breaks me and makes
us the escapologist from
the waiting room
into the beyondness
of everything and
the bosom of the
beloved

© Neil Thompson 2023

Christmas Carol 2023

Metre: DCMNoel

We sing with joy the Christmas truth
That God was born on earth:
A gift of love and peace, our friend,
Our brother, by this birth.
Yet we ignore his rule of love
To choose the path of power
Where selfish gain corrupts the world
And turns sweet living sour.

Yet Jesus brings forgiveness sweet –
The healing balm of grace;
He offers life abundantly
To all the human race.
In place of want and deathly strife:
Injustice, hate and war –
His love and death, his birth and life
Bring hope for evermore.

So as we praise the prince of peace,
Blessed Mary’s child today,
We bend the knee and worship him –
To live out what we pray:
That all are called and all are blessed
By God whose name is love –
And shun division’s cruel lore –
Made one by power above.

Our Christmas joy is plain and clear
For all the world to see:
That choice abounds for those with power
To set all people free;
Because the babe of Bethlehem
Turns darkness into light –
Our fears, our past, are set at nought
By Jesus’ birth this night.

Make straight the crooked paths of might
By humble love and care;
Speak out whate’er the cost may be –
This is our Saviour’s prayer.
His work is ours – to live in peace,
To care for all oppressed;
Forgive, as we forgiveness seek,
And live in freedom blest!

© Neil Thompson 2023

angels

what do you see what
do you hear white dazzling
light wings and wonder
the message comes with
glory borne to the heart
but these are our terms
and comfort decorative
adornments unreal and
fanciful do they wipe their
feet and clear their
throats mumble or proclaim
it really matters magic and
miracle are not the same
you can’t hang them on a
tree unlike God himself
they come only in our
weakness and fears breaching
our defences and fancies
and the message is a
song a siren soaring
piercing the permeable
curtain of our dimensions
no dancing on a pinhead
except in our calculating
sums they don’t add up
they don’t do they only
share the mystery the
mystery they place in
head hands heart the
dust that is bound for
glory

© Neil Thompson 2023

silentium

what kind of god
has no speech or
strength and power
yet infant love
lies in manger’s
wood as rough
as cross’s arms
of death where
all words end
in another cry
into noon’s night
this mute silence
means all in love’s
economy of mystery
reaching deep and
everlastingly into
every heart of flesh
the hope that blooms
and lasts below the
beating brevity of
our fleeting importance
are you there

© Neil Thompson 2023

prose and song

when you’re minding
sheep you look to the
skies for weather when
you’re busy surviving
the weather and the
dark you listen for
fear and danger when
you’re on a hillside
in Augustus’ days you
hope for a better world
and an Israel whose
glory is free in God’s
favour
and then this glory
shone amidst the
bleating and the night’s
chill the snatched sleep
and the cursing of
poverty a radiance
of sound and light
outshining any and
every dawn and
sunset a piercing
terrifying shining
and a symphony of
praise then a voice
to us don’t be afraid
for here is joy and
salvation down the
hill a newborn child
swaddled in a manger
here is the sign and
saviour longed and
waited gloria in
excelsis et in terra
still shaking and
stunned the bleating
night asks do we go
as one we say yes
and rush to find the
truth and the gift in
one tiny form held
and loved by Mary
and Joseph a new
worship and world
has come upon us
and everybody must
know back to the
flocks and the fields
the skies the gateway
to the eternal
birth

© Neil Thompson 2023