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Notes to eternity ~ a sonnet

‘Tis commonplace for music to be played
As background sound to daily chores and rounds –
The wordless realm part hid, a mindless aid,
To counter dull neurotic task filled grounds.
This topsy turvy truth is rarely proved
By quest for why we’re here and what we’re for.
We wander through this life as if removed
From what is real and lasts for evermore.
My love you are the music of my life,
And still beyond the grave you dance and sing –
Completing, holding, sharing every strife
As mind and soul resound as one to ring
In music’s ecstasy of which we’re part:
All falls away – we’re claimed by love’s true heart!

A sonnet of severance

The stone that skims the water needs such speed
To bounce and hurtle on before the plunge.
I feel like this on days impelled by need –
Detached and hard unlike the grief–filled sponge
Which fills and weighs my heart with my lost love
Who burns and fires my days as ever was.
Yet now both close and far – and way above,
The links are frail, no certain cause – ’because’.
So now I live in two worlds, mine and hers,
And both feel strange – uncharted, depths unknown.
The focused life and light for ever blurs
To open myst’ries lifting earthly stone:
There is a part than can endure apart
Because true love is love that fills the heart

The heart of all matter ~ a sonnet of love

(written on a train and in an Ibis Hotel in London at breakfast)

We’re given sight but blind to nature’s praise,
Our human path is shared and never ours –
As formed in dust we have a song to raise
Though self–possessed and blessed with many powers.
We sing alone estranged from earth and sea,
Like gods we sit on thrones and claim the right
To rule o’er all and take the owner’s key:
Exploiting, laying waste, imposing blight.
A song goes on below our busy noise
As mountains, rivers, birds and beasts sing, too,
Of glory, wonder, awe – creator’s poise
Beyond all meaning, turning why to who.
It’s always time to learn anew our part:
Through prayer where mind is met and changed by heart.

A sonnet of melting worlds

Written on a train to and from my great grandson Max’s
baptism at Farm Street Church in London

The hard edged rocky world of grit and stone
Is washed and formed anew by seas whose strength
Erodes, destroys, yet builds a land regrown
By motions changing earth’s frail height and length.
And time, who eats our days, a plastic realm,
Grants but a glimpse of self and human power.
Its truth beguiling – yet will overwhelm –
For nothing stops the passing of each hour.
We have a melting truth for flesh and blood:
The one in whom we all dissolve and die –
Each fleeting life is borne upon this flood
Into the arms of love to whom we cry.
The end will end beyond my words and dreams
For nothing’s always what it never seems.

A sonnet of unremembered living

Written whilst looking out to sea at Aldeburgh

Is memory all we have in human worth?
Our earthly days are short and soon forgot.
If blessed, we’re whole and free and loved from birth
Whilst knowing, too, the pains in human lot.
We sing and dance our lives in toil and play,
Forgetting cares we share a common path,
With others we find joy and hope each day
And lose ourselves: become another’s half.
Yet time extends beyond each mortal life
And, if forgot, what meaning can remain?
All gain seems loss when struck by reaper’s knife,
The human realm erased by death’s domain.
Creator’s call beyond the endless tracts
Brings home redeemer’s triumph over facts!

telescoped time 2

a device in dramas
defying the unities
but never in real
life till now the
distance brought
larger and clearer
clunk collapsing
when eye and scene
crash in to compact
ness for travelling
not seeing you yet
the images remain
being burnt upon
my retina and my
heart those moments
of parting like no
other in intensity
and radical change
who am I what is
was will be reality
anchored to our
passing yet eternal
union where love’s
mystery recalibrates
transfigures and
enchants turning
dross into gold as
it forges the bond
of bliss made in
heaven by love
himself

the flag and the shell

a sandy beach and that urge
to dig and delve to build a castle
by the sea below dry grains the
tide drenched clay to rise in walls
and mound with turrets and
adorning shells perhaps a flag to
own with pride the achievement
of heart’s joy – all held by ocean
its waters binding these fragmented
rocks so too our lives our worlds
the familiar and the forgotten never
ours or mine remember the inevitable
tide the flood that makes us one

history

all our histories are a
painting and a veil life
is so much more and in
capable of being squeezed
faithfully into patterns
we can control types and
shadows create and signify
meaning for the provisional
but the fleeting powers of
mortality have to be
surrendered some
time yet faith promises the
mystery of reality that the
end is the beginning
the precious canvases
and curtains are hung
adorning and concealing
the truth behind the brush
the cloth the pen history
is art and artifice a walkway
for pilgrims a staircase for
worshippers a chariot for
warriors a hallucinogenic
for self–seekers never for
getting the end is the
beginning

holiness

are holy places and people
the same the burning bush
the incensed flickering the
subdued stasis of hush and
awe the arrowed pang and
moment stopping and scarring
us but it can’t be bottled only
put to rite when the inside
and the outside are one creating
the vacuum where only God
can dwell in unannotated form
this is no clever concept but
a truth that cannot be owned
or exploited the reality that
cannot be dealt with but it
will pursue us because here
is love wholeliness nothingness

gaze away

as the light touches
the retina so our
gaze blesses or curses
order and chance
landscape creature
sea and others what
difference does either
way make or do random
meaningless passing
atoms satisfy the
unknown as well as
every encounter I gaze
over water land and
sky each day a prayer
with the blessing of
refreshment and
remembrance I shared
this view as a lover
deeper than any depth
tender as the waft of
a zephyr and a longing
that is meaning
itself

reflected light

at times the moon
drops low and almost
seems to touch the
earth a light and
presence beyond our
reach beguiling and
luminescent in its own
reflected rays filtered
and shaped by the seas
and craters of dusty
rock it’s always there
even when invisible to
teach us new inner
truths to claim us in
a triumph beyond
eclipse caressing the
soul cross questioning
the mind pulling
and easing the tides
of our sinews in which
celestial light was
reflected in human
flesh unrecognised
by many yet and now
forever here

a rose arisen

bud bloom and
hip petalled and
pared a scent
and descent into
a void where
there is still
promise and memory
of will and was
but which is a
rose and arisen
the burgeoning
foetal flower the
unfolding glory of
display the fecund
globe green then
flaming orb it is
all and none like
me and you in
the cycle of a
rolling wheel
generationally
joined and riven
by the neverness
of being and the
always of the
beyond for the
ever shall be
has also always
been but only
glimpsed as in
a garden

seeing ~ more or less

do I know what I want the
next breath a different prospect
the scattered shattered shards
of sight mean something but
not everything that comes
strangely unbidden untrammelled
unknowable yet claiming us
all in the kiss and the handshake
the embrace and the contracts
that make us one running
out when my clock or yours
stops ticking leaving us
only with more – the inevitability
of the unimaginable – what joy

Beauty's benison ~ a sonnet

Does habit take away our freedom true
If unaccompanied by risk and chance
Which comes from others and their point of view
Ignored so often after fleeting glance?
This life of limits feels like prison’s cage;
It’s more we want with neighbours serving needs,
A world where self is writ on every page –
My eyes are shut to those whose difference bleeds.
Yet life can well anew in any form
Through change that meets us all in certain grave.
Our bumpy fragile lives beset by storm
Are precious notes on love and beauty’s stave.
This hope is ours in life though short or long:
The singer loves us – we’re his endless song!

surface

does the surface
speak true can we
lift meaning truth
and purpose with a
glance and always
move on the surface
reveals so much more
the more it covers
the grain and textures
tales and memories
trapped stored paved
lost abandoned and
spurned it is the
mystery of all that
is and nothing the
ephemeral eternity
there is an economy
where nothing is lost
and nothing is every
thing our time trapped
views are so shuttered
partial incomplete and
dangerous the sirens
luring us on to the rocks
of destruction where
we choose not to know
and be known but
casually saunter through
these precious days
caring only for self and
self–reflection and
immediate self
realisation bobbing on
the surface with a smile
of blasphemous
satisfaction bob on

blind and deaf

energies wild and gentle
lapping waves sighing on
sand the howl through
the trees in the gale we
are caressed and thrashed
by powers we harness but
never control we are not
in charge our tenancy
is tenuous and short
lived but we presume
spread vaunt and preen
when the mirror and the
mystery warn and
disagree but who cares
there’s always tomorrow
– or is there

a baptism of the deeps

for some the summer beckons
lures us to the shore as
wavelets lap or breakers crash
enticing us warm and safe
when beached to walk through
rippling tide gently sloping or
steeply shelving into waters
where our lungs prove short
term organs our forms can
float and swim but only for so
long we’re always out of our
depth yet still clinging to power
independence
i
solation a sunny dip can teach
us truth and dry out truths from
falsehood’s deception and deathly
domination come on in let go

now and never

it all happened where
it was a liturgy in
ordinary far from syn
agogue and temple manger
miracles stories and
cross real time all
time no time every
time our time the im
possible incarnated as
a babe and a dying man
nurtured and nailed the
seasons pass and rhythms
and order make a system
that can never contain
the ever present gift that
blunts our powers so we
can see and taste a
touching whose sensuality
is eternal we are taken
and claimed beyond breath
and sustained by its
pentecostal gale and
anointing fire ig
nited oil so all are
chosen called and
carried through clocks
and calendars to the
kingdom of in
candescent darkness
and blazing glorious
joyful endless
night of nights

inconsolable

it’s non negotiable
but everyone wants
to challenge grief
nobody knows and
yet we all pontificate
over a pain panic
pandemic where the
world has ended the
light is no more there
is no familiarity in
this abandonment no
lifebelt it is the no
thingness of it with
fast dying embers of
the physical furnace
the flames still lick
silently invisibly
intoxicatingly irretrievably
ineffably you will always
be here and yet never
again the public fact and
the interior truth two
are one in flesh but
also inextricably for
an everness no one else
can ever understand why
do I have to be consolable
consoled when the pain
is excruciatingly eternal
in the now and the
prospect alone and to
gether in an impossible
unity – help!

The puzzle ~ a villanelle of the questioning life

Life questions who am I and why’re we’re here –
There is a path as through the years we grow,
The soul takes thoughts into a myst’ry clear.

With early dangers soon we learn to fear
The world and people might become our foe;
Life questions who am I and why we’re here.

The wise and loving give us hope and cheer,
They share the riches of this life to know
The soul takes thoughts into a myst’ry clear.

We tread with care by edge’s drop so sheer,
Disaster’s near and joy can turn to woe.
Life’s questions who am I and why we’re here.

There is a light by which we all can steer.
A course through time’s relentless deathly flow:
The soul takes thoughts into a myst’ry clear.

Eternity is now and ever near.
It beckons from above and from below:
Life questions who am I and why’re we’re here –
The soul takes thoughts into a myst’ry clear.

Carol 2026

Metre: 10 10 10 10 10 10

Stockport

Love in your beauty break our stony hearts,
May we receive the joy this birth imparts;
Not just in comforts where we laugh and play
But in the darkness of our present day;
No one forsaken, lost or e’er forgot
By God incarnate in his manger cot.

Now at this crib we kneel – and so adore;
Gift of a saviour making rich the poor,
Thus all our treasure now we’re asked to share –
God’s face made known in service, love and care.
Here is the meaning of our Christmas feast:
Jesus the Saviour found in lost and least.

Night turns to day and water into wine,
Earth is transformed by son of David’s line:
King called as shepherd leading all God’s sheep,
Power stoops to conquer – meeting those who weep –
As from this stable love takes up his cross
To share our lives, our death – all joys and loss.

See how this difference makes a joyful sound
In heaven now joined with earth in common ground!
Jesus is born in Bethlem, house of bread,
Then food himself in broken body, bled.
This is the mystery born on Christmas day –
All time and purpose met in Christ the way.

Songs of the angels fill our every breath.
Flooding God’s light on both sides of our death.
Fear knows no darkness for the human race,
Daring to take his gift of truth and grace;
Christ born of Mary meets our every need:
Into his everlasting life we’re freed!

the strait and arrow

near yet far the narrow
ribbon of water bars all
but ear and eye can I fly
to reach the unreachable
harpooning a line to link
and build a way – my
arrow prayers are darted
pleas for help across the
styx dark lethe crossed
by many and now my be
loved it is such a flight
of longing yearning
aching loss and love
so straight and narrow it
lands from heart to heart

no rhyme nor reason

no life we know has not a heart of finite beats
and into lifespans squeeze we mystery’s ever open door
we make our meaning from the facts we mine and share
and fail to live and dream beyond our powers

if every heart will one day have no pulse
what of the risen Christ with scarred and lancèd wounds
does blood still flow through human heart on heaven’s throne

this dazzling truth transforms our bleak and futile grave
that at the abyss of void and endless end
there is a voice a song a thread that catches love – for it is love itself

from mortal nothing rises truth unknown
all spent and gone eternal’s nought is left
and every energy and hope is held and formed
so stop let go and then we’ll hear its silent call

Easter amalgam

Our lives are split yet held as one in love,
Each day we live a diff’rence strange, apart.
This earth and all it holds – below, above –
Reveals a truth that’s hard for mind not heart:
When light and dark are formed in day and night
Whate’er we will, we cannot always stand.
The sun will set and take away its light
To send us into shadow’s other land.
We each must rest and take our needful sleep
There is no choice for this is nature’s way;
No work or talk: we enter deathlike deep
With only dreams to lead us back to day.
Here Easter’s truth releases us from pris’n –
Our Friday’s God of death is now aris’n!

friday

outside of the city areas
unwalled undefended
often by plenty habit
contentment ease but
countered by the
condemned cells of war
poverty disease tyranny
here in the open but cloaked and
enshrouded by fear prejudice
contempt indifference blood
is spilt judiciously flesh is pierced
technically to shame and
pain beyond words where is
innocence and what
can it mean is sacrifice loss
without benefits is meaning
and its power of love so
absent it might be gone for
ever the lance in the side
no need to break the legs
the sabbath is fast upon us
so back to our temples and
the interior orders of self
and importance the gushing
blood guarantees our job is
done revolt stamped out but look
the flow is watered too a river
of hope embracing all loss death
now has a power transformed
how can I trust it if I can’t see
it

leverage

pulling levers one way or
another is something we
all enjoy exercising power
with a light switch and
entering risk and thrill
on a one armed bandit
being top is the goal and
most have to accept a
nother role but like
the king of the castle
we’re all toppled in the
end and every power is
mutable and muted
making money has no
purpose without the wel
fare of others making music
enfolds us in a mystery on
the edges of time making
love is the cross formed
wave of giving self and
emptying pouring out the
illusory gains of importance
and possession birth gives
us but one lever re
sponding to the call
to lose everything for
the pearl we can never
own the lustrous glory
of every life the smile
of creation and the
darkness from whence
we have come
open your shell

the turning tide

some say the wind
gets up as the tide
turns and turn it
always does pulling
our lives like the shore
into and away from
the restless sea in
turn the slave of
the moon and the
universe our lives are
cut off by the rising
waters an energy that
can carry and contain
set on a journey or
scupper by inundation
the ebb too like the
flood can threaten as
well as bless the waves
and currents caress
careen and crush
taking and leaving
the truth of life
itself yet not just
a quotidian scale
but a tide of decades
and centuries setting
us afloat and adrift
beached and abandoned
riding life and facing
death all in the cycle
of sterile forces holding
us in our infinite
freedom as we soar
in the swirling eddies
of the spirit’s touch
we live and die always
at the same time
whatever the tide

Leaves ~ a cyclical sonnet written in autumn

The canopy of leaves is branched above,
They bud so slow so fresh in vernal green
To shoot like fingers in a glove
And form the panoply of glory seen.
Through wind and rain and sun of summer days
They make a tree alive for coming years;
Then comes an end with glowing autumn blaze:
Their work is done, their beauty falls like tears.
This yearly cycle teaches us new truths:
Our days, like leaves, are short but beauty filled
Because we’re loved by power which nothing proves
Save life is all when death has all life killed.
The leaves of life might skitter at our feet
But they’re a sign that dashes bleak defeat.

(written in Côte Brasserie, Covent Garden, before a performance of Parsifal and dedicated to Sayed, the kindest of waiters)

ground of being

the ground upon we walk
seems certain solid true
we rarely think that at a
stroke all can change the
ground of being no longer
ours to assume and rely
but changed to a free fall
the scenes the same now
viewed completely changed
by eyes no longer fed by
light from you with touch
and breath the unspoken
all that propels and fuels
the directions of love and
purpose the base meaning
moved and messed to be
left with fragments as parts
parted fit together in
mysterious silent fusion
arching over – no longer
through – time both
waiting and I longing with
the ache of steps still to
make and a heart that beats
in flesh but yearns to soar
that the promise of love yet
again draws enfolds ignites
in the ecstasy of fusion and com
pleteness never found in the
partial now but in the allness
that once was and ever will be
o certain land ground me in the
clouds of unknowable knowing

The eye of the needle ~ a sonnet

The heavy laden camel is too wide –
The narrow alley’s fit for just a beast.
Logistics cannot cope with physics pride
In making most of all we want the least.
To thread a needle takes a steady hand,
An eye needs eyes that lock the gaze to sew:
There is no deal or bargain here to land –
Truth must change us if we want to grow.
This makes a problem when we find we’re rich,
We’re judged already by the things we own;
Possessions cause us all to drop the stitch
That makes us poor for ever and alone.
The eye’s true sight is found within each soul:
In poorest freedom find we richest goal.

Ascension ~ a sonnet of love's power

The power that lifted love incarnate high
Is ever here in human life and days;
It brought the Christ to us in baby’s cry
And bears the pain on every cross we raise.
Redemption runs through time like annual rings,
The marks we see when mighty trees are felled,
It’s woven through all passing time – and sings
Of glory’s strong and gentle hands – we’re held
From birth through death to love beyond the skies
By him who conquers all that we most fear.
Here’s power that claims and heals that we may rise
With him who shares each agony and tear:
The gravity of earth and death reversed
In heady truth and hope and joy immersed!

The dissembler's sonnet

The sheep and wolf are warnings to us all
As those who pray and prey on those they think
Are rivals and as such are doomed to fall
By gossip, lies and so to envy’s brink.
Betrayer’s kiss speaks surface love and care:
Oh see how much I love you, dearest friend,
But feel the chill of steel – your heart will tear
As you are conquered and your threat must end.
For so it is in every place and age
That treason smiles whilst wielding dagger’s thrust,
Dissembler’s cloak makes cool the seething rage
And covers hatred’s bile, securing trust.
This life reveals that some we trust as true
Are master’s of self’s pride and heartless coup.

the finding

the sudden silence
a stillness that
steals vitality steels
the time the moment
of departing and
something new and
disturbing is born
within the beloved
a quest a question
to find the lost the
slent the still but
never still bound the
living on to make the
daily round a strange
uncharted land im
printed and evacuated
the half heard voice
and triggered memories
déjavued in an ex
plosive moment of
overwhelming power
and ebbing instantly
in an echoless un
repeatable in
accessible yet
returning capriciously
loss and lost tease
as well as tear apart
am I being led acc
ompanied loved I
teeter constantly on
a precipice where my
senses swirl whirl and
spin as everything falls
away in the dizzying
gift of finding and
being
found

Sonnet of sacrifice ~ 1

The word we use slips quickly off the tongue
For sacrifice is safe with costed price.
This risk is well but nought – no heart is wrung –
True blood is spilt in choice and roll of dice.
Our worlds collapse when faced with death’s true toll;
Our lives are never truly ours alone,
Much more unknown must change our human goal
Oft hid in loss and pain, each silent groan.
Thus disappointment is a blessing true
To switch our gaze and thoughts towards a light
That only shines when self to others flew –
And makes a vision bright in darkest night.
Now sacrifice brings life whate’er the cost
And brings abundant gain when all is lost.

Written on the train to see the Anish Kapoor exhibition in London

A sonnet for the over engineered

The world is full of nuts and bolts unseen:
They’re made by us like bricks to build our power,
Not welded but entwined, a mean machine
To join and hold by screw through every hour.
They’re strong and last much longer than our days,
They also blind us to the way ahead
That lies beyond the narrow selfish gaze,
The world we build and prize until we’re dead.
But life surprises – holy love doth call
In body’s beauty warming mind and heart
To sigh with spirit’s breath in raptured thrall
When every soul awakens with a start.
The engineering self is doomed to fall,
Love’s realm is truly ours when found in all.

A sonnet of stasis

The world’s so different when we stop awhile,
Our days in motion set a pace of haste.
It’s only when we halt or sit, we smile,
And many people feel in life we’re chased.
This pace is set by deadlines we must meet
And then all else must scramble on aboard;
Life hurtles on – each day will ne’er repeat,
So spent this life by price we can’t afford.
The pulse of life needs measure so we rest;
Such space gives fuller meaning for our souls –
A view and thoughts to challenge and to test
The health and purpose of our daily roles.
Beware the dust of a stampeding herd
Which blinds us all in mindless vision blurred.

(written on a train between London and Rochester late at night)

Just a thought? ~ a sonnet of retrieval

There comes a thought that stops us in our track,
It will not melt away or have an end:
It haunts and troubles – mind and soul look back
Retrieving, haunting, power which must descend
To change us, challenge and to make us new.
Whate’er the pain, discomfort – cost what may –
We face and learn despite our fear – what’s true
Is changing us as living truth today.
And then the memory from the past is torn,
A dream whose poetry now to prose is turned
And something strange and new is somehow born.
There is no way to backtrack now: we’ve learned
That mystery’s power is more than present’s now,
We’re held and made by hope’s eternal vow.

The Skein ~ a sonnet of war and peace

There is a skein that runs through life and time,
A hidden web set in this world of ours,
Though mostly hid, it’s writ in human crime.
Each self will lie – combine in evil’s powers –
It’s often hard to call, e’en harder own –
The way we work makes cover for a show.
Denying, frightened, all the hat that’s sown
Is formed anew in reimagined foe.
We’re set against each other yet we’re one
As creatures born to live a life of love.
There’s always hope – the daily rising sun
Tells of a power that comes from high above.
Lift up your eyes from selfish means and ways:
Let peace abound, redeeming earthly days.

(written on a train between Rochester and London)

A year's mind sonnet

This death I face of which I’m most afeared
Has power and transformation unalloyed.
The daily round is strange and dark, oft teared,
As remnant life unfolds now unenjoyed.
When once our time was shared, our lives conjoined,
And brought to life through love – this flesh and blood
On earth no longer meets – our days purloined.
My compass, chart, seem lost in deathly flood.
And yet this day you died is shared with Mark,
His wingèd lion soaring to the skies,
To see the light that penetrates the dark
That all may see a hope with no disguise.
The truth sets free a limitless domain –
For love is all and always will remain.

25 April 2026 ~ The Feast of S. Mark

dance

to many religion seems or feels
like engineering where inevitability
is made possible by formula so
different is the resurrection
found beyond despite repelled
by memory and its powers behind
the curtain the wizard is exposed
as fraud and frail flawed and
failing we look and expect
but fail to see the corrupt and
fading mind the life departed before
or soon after birth the unremembered
the ever forgotten is where we’re
not and so can be in the way we
cannot even imagine yet once
mistaken as a gardener strange and
unknowable to Emmaus then in a room
bolted by fear and barred by despair
the impossible broke our spells and
certainties it is the broken bread that
remembers the other and the
unreachable and pulls us into one orbit
dancing to a tune we never wrote and
can only sing together the fragmented
the lost unknown apart a part – won
– one

Sonnet of sacrifice ~ 2

Walls of blood and lumps of entrails raw,
The invert mountain hanging close and low
Where God instructs a death in horror’s awe
Before the knife is stayed from father’s blow.
The call of sacrifice runs long and deep
To expiate the darkness facing all;
This blackness beckons – all time and matter reap –
Its presence real in holding us in thrall.
By contrast, light reflected changes every view and sight:
The sky below, the ground above our feet,
Our ordered world remade in visions bright
To challenge all as myst’ries cost we meet.
Short life is here displaced in wonder’s clue
This world is open to a view more true.

Written after a visit to the Anish Kapoor exhibition
at the Hayward Gallery

A sonnet of terms and conditions

We set our terms on everything we do,
Conditions seem to make us who we are.
All this makes safe, we think, our world where few
With power exploit all lives both near and far.
‘To gain and ne’er to lose at my expense’ –
We’re taught these jungle rules right from our birth;
My interests frame this self of mind and sense
As people live in fear of loss and dearth.
This globe is blessed by untamed weather’s bite:
Beneath the skies we face creator’s hand
So even clouds and storms bestow new sight –
Conditions, terms, are set by love’s new land.
Life’s ways and means are never truly ours
In mystery’s sweet unfathomable powers!

hard facts

what currency does
truth trade in or
beauty and love the
world cries out for
hard facts objective
truth these we
might load on to
a card or stuff in
a wallet under
grided by the vaults
of gold but breath
is free and universal
writing a different
story and not a
statement the
heart is the heart
and challenges all
else intelligence
matter and extinction
itself here is the
springboard from
self a bubbling source
bursting into the
luminescent droplets
of a playing fountain
whose purpose is joy
and glory for all the
parts and the facts
matter not when
entranced by the
mystery of being
being alive and
sensing all in
nothing and held
for ever in the
suspended diamonds
of sun kissed spray
infinite everlasting
now!

e.s.p. – without question marks

what is this world without senses
is it a life in the womb or the tomb
where do we live inside or out of our bodies
what can we seek but we don’t
think of the bond of the lover
immeasurable but sung through time
are there buffers at the end of the line
or an airport to take us to the sky
if the end is a beginning
does it also start now as well as then
if I can’t touch you are you still there
why is your touch so real in the ache and the tear
the missed beat of the heart
the arrest that sends me into the heights
all our living is filled with the inexpressible
lying just out of reach because
we’re not yet ready for the ever hereafter

signature 2

whatever he wrote it is a
mystery set in the dust the
Word incarnate pitching
his tent in time to challenge
us with forgiveness the
miracle of restoration new
life this signature is a
promise like but more than
a signed cheque or contract
our signature dies when we
die but it is written in a
dust of glory taken from
our eyes and powers into the
realm of the unique image
created and now redeemed
as clocks tick and deadlines
loom nothing is lost and
nothing is our hope the
negation of the falsities of
a compass that encompasses
self as the cardinal points of
a universe a creation that
passes like our transience
in the mortality of the ishness
from which self must die and
escape my signature says
nothing save that I’m loved by
the one who recognises the
hallmark of divinity written
engraved on my heart and the
one which beats and stops at
the same time

down and out?

you walked down 26
stairs and out of 23
technically so stricken
you were about to die
taken straight into
resuscitation but
never giving up this
was the ebb tide
of mortality but a
triumph of love over
coming months and
years of pain and
recent days of agony
but the greatest un
spoken torture was
the parting the
separation of imm
inent death and
the seeming supp
osed silence and
darkness that swallow
us all at our end
another two days
it was real forceful
tangible love that
sang over the life
support pumps and
the burble and bustle
of a ward your eyes
filled with an imm
ensity that made
this life so small but
every person so
precious and the
end came like a
cadenza leading
into an unending
music a drama
of subsiding energy
and struggle through
a calm a stasis of
waiting and pre
paration for a
triumph of what
we record as the
last note you rose
and stared into
a tomorrow I will
never know until
my
heart
stops
but really
beats for
ever