Hound of Heaven Hymns - Latest works

Christmas Carol 2024 ~ a lullaby for Love

Metre: 4444 + refrain

Small sleeping God,
Slain weeping God,
Born in the night:
Fill us with light.

Laid with beasts’ food –
You are our food;
Fed on this earth –
Give us new birth.

Shepherds are near,
Magi come near,
Rich and the poor
Cross heaven’s door.

Night turns to dawn,
True hope can dawn:
Hope brought to light,
Sharing our plight.

Angels now sing:
Everyone sing!
Echo the heights,
Peace of truth’s rights!

What shall we sing?
Can we all sing?
God is right here
In each shed tear.

Seeing this love,
Sharing this love:
Here is God’s power –
Midnight’s dark hour.

Pondering heart,
Wondering heart;
Birth and a death,
First and last breath.

Christmas is here!
Jesus is here!
Every depth plumb –
Your Kingdom come!

Small sleeping God,
Slain weeping God,
Born in the night:
Fill us with light.

starlight express

advent takes away
the buffers of our
mortality the line
that runs from
womb to shroud
has a different destination
which has no mortal
name or form are we
on a slow stopping
train boarding and
alighting in temporary
commuting to the
self–reflecting importance
of transience and trivia
where the passengers
are parents and progeny
but with tickets to
nowhere but me and
ours even if we
board a fast train we
hardly wonder at the
passing scene but eat
and feast on the food
of the moment and the
dream of an end that
never begins and
on each train there is
already one whose
journey is short and
doomed by my horizon
and yours yet it is he
who offers a ticket
on the starlight express

Trivia

Big gestures, big welcome!
I am a big table named and fit for a refectory!
I lend importance to meals and meetings
So
Little crumbs and casual thoughts
Are gathered and revalued
Asides and hesitations
Smiles and frowns
All are recalibrated
Retabled
Altared

A challenge to write 2 poems about

artichoke and resentment

refectory table and trivia

holed below the water

cold and deathly
waters chill my
blood they trickle
flow ready to
overwhelm the
world I can see
it is collision
and separation
that brought it
to mind and heart
then entering my
soul these waters
cannot be staunched
I can float and
sail for only so
long our days
are numbered life
and notion are
not possessions
but gifts fragile
flotillas of a
lover’s art and a
creator’s mind
the source the
spring can never
stop so through
the waters of
death we all must
pass becoming
drops in the ocean
of otherness

december caress

december without god
is not possible nor
january till november
love seeps through
each inevitable crack
in our certitude ten
pin bowling with a
strike knocked down
but think we’re standing
overcome but not
defeated for love
has remade the world
we can only see with
lover’s eyes caressed
not lectured loved beyond
self into the delirium of en
fleshed heaven religion
is but the brushwork of
the artist and faith the
abandon to the beloved –
word made flesh in the
immediacy of us believing is
joy the uncorked fizz the
overflowing of a moment’s
delight that can never stop
fuelled by the effervescent
spirit we can forget the
rules in the love of the ruler
whose throne is the heart
more than the mind

dare I ask

did it happen
and did it
matter all things
are thrown into
focus by time
and destroyed by
it is is is was
was is shall be
shall be so many
questions doubts
confusions what
is certain nothing
is certain and
thou art nothing
holding everything
in the mystery
beyond all powers
of self and its
strange ego
centred permanence
yet in strange
and mystical
sacramental
encounter and
transcendence
in the beloved
the beloved’s love
there is eternity
glimpsed tasted
even secured in
loss and grief
in sacrifice and
ecstasy

telling the difference

how different is
a baby God once
conceived and
born he is formed
like us all and
imprisoned in
flesh and time
or is there a
difference awe
is the difference
it is the wonder
of infinite love
swaddled and held
by us all the
tiny helpless life
warmed and fed
by another – you
– me his arms
we fold in ours
will cradle all the
pain and darkness
of our human lot
on a lonely tree
here is kingship
power and glory
that cares and
triumphs in our
fear and not our
strength if we forget
there is no
telling

Resentment

I may be green and vegetable
But I still have feelings
Whether I’m related to a mandrake
I just don’t know but
I do shriek and it’s with outrage
How dare a global star of the garden
Be cut down – and then be boiled
Yes boiled
I am choked to the core at this assault
By the appetites of bon viveurs –
And they’re only dining on the fringe
Whilst taking down my metre high head
Crowned and swaying in majesty
I’m better than this for starters
Keep away you predatory jaws
And your accomplices butter and lemon
Yes
How dare you
You’ll pay for this –
My thistly cousin promises me
Nemo me impune lacessit

A challenge to write 2 poems about

artichoke and resentment

refectory table and trivia

3 operas 1 poem

love offered and rejected
love imprisoned, imperilled
and set free
love exposed to dark forces
and the unresolved past

what songs are sung by
broken hearts and fractured
senses into the now of our
lives and somehow we too
bleed and weep fear and
fight flee and forgive
flourish or forget the
pools and curtains of light
facades of illusion waves of
sound spinning a golden
string that vibrates in our
hearts and weaves a tale
into the moment
and why
to be a traveller to
every world our alienated
self–aggrieved forced jigsaw
picturing a crazy truth
and vision my hall of
mirrors with hideous
distortions like ghostly
monsters haunts the
paths and bridges we
all must take prodded
by the clock the tick that
jerks and jolts the
yearning for a haven
and sanctuary where
pain is no more
there is no end till the
final curtain of the
apocalypse angels and
trumpets no longer off
stage in the mighty
maelstrom of mystery’s
magnificence and
munificence all sense
nonsense

Eugene Onegin
Fidelio
The Turn of the Screw

dark arts (an epiphany)

the bended knee the star–
led journey the dumb
founding destination
after the palace arrival

these treasures are power
not naked but gift wrapped
melchior’s gold is not money
per se but the essence of
purchase the indomitable
choice of possession
glittering with its charisma
of riches cash down have
what you want unlike caspar’s
petition of prayer to gods
who can seemingly deliver
if appeased and satisfied by
the curling smoke to heaven
of burning gums and resins
the frankincense of piety
pity pitted against fate and
fatality unlike balthazar who
offers the spices of anointed
death the body immured and
enmyrrhed to ward off for a
while the inevitable decay

what will a child and young man
do with these his humility
overpowers all dominations
and more defusing the fears
the phantasies the glamour of
earthly futility utility ability
in a new dispensation of
unmerited gift and graciousness
the goodness that comes from
afar but lives in the now for ever

fast food

the clatter of the
restaurant at low tide
a quiet hum and
chatter we all know
what we’re doing
refuelling refreshing
engaged engorged
the spotlights
pool the glinting
cutlery and everyday
arrangements a stage
for dining no a pitstop
interval where nothing
really matters save the
banal bread and bill
a fare affairs afears

winding and unravelling

the snared garment
the frayed cloth
undoes the beauty
and purpose of the
loom that’s life
– and loss it is
the everyday and
commonplace but
asks a question is
love the weaver
or the rag merchant
the strange and
disturbing answer
lies in life giving
death in the
ultimate oxymoron
that frees us from
everything we wear
and clothes us even
our flesh our
minds only the
spirit can die
and live unravel
and wind us in
through the golden
gate far from the
threads of our
material reality
it is there that
all our worlds
and our living
are remade
the miracle that
starts in time

overcoat

the sun is shining
the world is at play
laughter fills the air
yet I am wearing an
overcoat night and
day in season and
out I have no clothes
for this world only
a cloak a covering
of that constant loss
and disfigurement
that scars those
who are left
behind

noel noel

this star doesn’t
shine alone it
moves and shoots
shatters and pierces
for its light is also
darkness the splintering
manger prickly hay
guttering oil lamp
breathy wheezy
lumbering restless
animals whose coarse
and smelly coats fill
and squeeze the
sheltered rude space
for the fragile three
with visitors and threats
aplenty unfolding
through Gaza to Egypt
and from Bethlehem
through Jerusalem to
Tyre and Persia
and today tomorrow
till the darkness bursts
beyond my control
and yours from the
the eclipsed death of the
skull–shaped hill
to a dawn that has
no date and a shining
where one life alone
is all
noël
noël
no end

canopy

under the shadow
the shadow of love’s
eternal love’s
wings – green then
russet before winter’s
stark spikes – protection
and benison of a
material journey
writ in dust be
tokening the on
going of grace’s
capture be
stowing glory peace
the everything
we never can
measure because
it is the invisible
eternal of the
nothing we fear
because we can
never know it we
can only belong as
we live and lie
protected by
the living canopy
of spirit

dare this be so

its form is young and smiling
outstretched in welcome and
dying pierced and generous in
rising the colour is as skin
and flesh subject to prejudice
and poverty then taste the
richest wine heady and rare
pure and clear as water from
the Fall the joy of touch
brings healing and smell the
ecstasy of resin and holy
desire ‘tis music played and
felt on every stave of heart
and heaven this is Hope the
Advent Hope He comes in
every age – waiting