Hound of Heaven Hymns - Latest works

shipping forecast

(celebrating 100 years)

whatever the weather
however high the waves
the strength of winds
the fog or rain here
is no depression or
cyclonic panic but
the rippling rhythms
of a constantly changing
climate breaking gently
on shore or against
a hull the vital data
is the enchanting
zephyr ebbing tide
or soothing flood to
keep us safe in
nature’s lap of passion
pounding pulse
and partial peace
these waves are
airborne in their
incantation to steer
us through the passage
of the powers of this
globe and the headlands
and reaches of our
common heart
harbouring us all
for our final
voyage finisterre
no more

eternity in a bottle

it can’t be done says
reason but many of
us spend our days
with this hope or
the compromise of
a delusion fired by
pleasures and
fantasies yet as
the boat with sails
or ship with funnels
sails in its glassy
captivity so there are
intimations of miracle
moment wonders a
beating soaring heart
a mind alight a union
with another the lost
plot in a revelation
of awe all’s nothing
mystery’s missingness
ignite explode dash be
dazzle whisk stir and
whirl in an implosion
of wonder and connection
when the smallest triggers
set off a charge all matter
shatters and eternity’s
oblivion emerges
contained for a flash
in the beautiful breaking
of a bottled wave ~

asphyxiation

truth is oxygen
the pure air of the
soul and society
it comes not in
cylinders and
canisters but in
the exposure to the
chasm of a presence
and justice not formed
by self interest or
self perception as
victims of lies and
deceit vaunting
ambition and mean
self preservation teeter
on the cliff of condemnation
betrayal and disposal
the very air is sucked
from the lungs as
the vertiginous
judgment opens up
a different and
wholly holy other
truth the oblivion
of sacrifice and
union we tumble
to the inevitable
rocks below but
hark, we are remade
by arms everlasting
arms that refashion
restore remake re
surrect and forgive
there is the miracle
beyond my reach our
reach till now and
it costs everything

out of the blue

when love’s tide ebbed
for the last time the
foreshore of my life
was littered with a
huge question mark
beached and blatant
I had often stumbled
over shingle versions
stabbing my feet but
here there is a new
part of my heart and
mind’s landscape
where are you you
seem so unattainably
close within my very
breath but not my
embrace the interrogation
mark forms a barrier
and a signpost inviting
me to pack up the luggage
of living and to cross the
strand into the water
infinitely deep no tide
or wave or swell just
You

lycanthropy

you would never think
the shepherd could
become the wolf they
have and what a bite
and what a death I
live only in faith and
exist but in name
through all my days
I have naturally eschewed
ambition jealousy
competition and status
happily feeling love
even in the darkest of
days but now I am
judged sentenced condemned
and executed in the name
of all that love
is it I who is the wolf

call it out

(calare – to call out)

no year is ever new
rather than old just our
arbitrary calendars that
lock us out of the gift
of spontaneous time
where everything is
everything ever new
ever old pre–existent
and dead all at once in
the miracle of living
where we are held not
by dates but palms
the hands of the
everlasting arms
the moment is
never and always
full of promise that
can be and will be
on terms undetermined
by any us our
way has to be risk
and trust the
setting down of all
we carry and
letting go the
precipice of
existence and
the mighty flow
of time are but
illusions mirrored
by the calendar
let’s call it out

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.

a brumal trilogy

winter

as winter reveals
nature’s skeletons
and cloaks and clogs
with leaves and snow
the bitterness and
cruelty lies less in
the biting winds and
chilling frosts but
in the inner wars
and defeats of
breaking hearts and
soft indifferent injustice
the hibernal desolation
of torture and callous
neglect there is a
yearlong open season
on oppression and
exploitation no
pretty whitened world
when hearts are
made of iron and
stone the sun’s rays
can neither reach nor
warm the tyrant in
us – only the spring
whose power we
deny and despoil

manifest

muddling it is a
season of gifts
and magicians
marriage and
miraculous wine
a baptism in the
Jordan and a voice
from heaven is
this really an
epiphany does the
penny drop the
truth reveal itself
no vision is manifest
to the mole of my
mind that burrows
endlessly afraid
and blinded by the
light

hibernation

suspended held
in stasis there
is no choice
at what age
does our sleep
set in and
why does nothing
wake us this
is no season but
a frozen animus
allowing a frenzied
world of killing
carousing keeping
collecting catching
conforming carelessnessing
our view is coloured
by crimson blood envious
green stale translucent
sweat and alleged
blameless pleasure
there is no end in
the world we choose
and make until
we’re wakened
by eternal death

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

tidiness at Christmastide

buy eat dance drink
feast forget all cares
make sure there’s
surfeit’s plenty amid
the tinselled frenzy
we wrap Christmas up
in fantasy and fripperies
expecting glitter and
glossy glimpses of an
unreal wonder in our
minds and memories
burnish them decorate
clean order and list
catalogue collect and
send my world’s a mess
yet let’s pretend there is
meaning in the tidiness
if only for a while the
miraculous mess lies
in a family sheltering
in an outhouse around
a mangered birth the
smell the chaos displacement
bewilderment – of wonder –
whilst mighty powers are
busy counting collecting
categorising and tagging
wrapping up the chaos
in a present for the
emperor God lies back
crying in the hay ready
to run for his life which
didn’t end neatly with a
cross
don’t let angels and
shepherds mess up your
Christmas

don't meddle with metaphysics

can peace and conflict
share a bed there is no
choice the sleep and the
dream are both turmoil
rather than torpor it is the
embrace and the passion
that count even in the
aftermath of duvet possession
or elbow arrangements and
accommodation waking
and sleeping are never truly
ours but a threshold where
thought and action fall away
the heartbeat and the bed are
a precipice over which mind
and heart tumble and crash
into the sleep from which we
never wake unless awoken

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

all aboard

each year we buy
a ticket for Christmas
but do we ever arrive
we get off somewhere
at 25 December
where do we find
ourselves is there
a birth and a
miracle the promise
of peace and goodwill
for all the wonder of
a world none can make
and lasts for ever the
rich and the spoilt
struggle to find new
joys and simple
surprises pleasure
palls overindulging
bloats and burps
our blindness and
futility kindness
and care are not
bottled for sale
rare and precious
in the scramble
for deadlines and
dates to impress
and imprison us
in pointless parties
and pitiless plenty
the lights twinkle
and the music
plays as the roistering
neurotic shopping
train hurtles through
December to the
buffers of January
please can we get
off and hear the
angels

the fire of faith

from the wastelands
of latter days I remember
how I tried to write on
eternity and call heaven
to earth by surrender
imagination and graft
the mirror of recollection
is cruel for faithfulness
and futility walk hand in
hand through a sunshine
whose rays burn all away
there are no cinders of
significance or ashes of
achievement all spent into
a void a vacuum where all
is surrendered and whatever
can be new can never be
known

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

Herod's song

I speak the language of power
brute force with cunning and lies
three magi enter this hour
questing a birth through the skies

a king is born on this earth
a wonder and promise to be
God with us here in this birth
a friend and saviour is he

I send them on to the child
to find this promise of years
my anger and fear so wild
will lead to slaughter and tears

they leave and follow the star
to find the king of us all
whose love comes near from afar
to raise our world from the Fall

three gifts they leave in the hay
rare signs for love’s golden age
a dream now warns them away
from palace, me and my rage

I still can murder this threat
to me – and powers that wane
by sword round Bethlehem set
so every infant is slain

yet God then snatched him away
to safety far from my hate
they fled to Egypt to stay
till my death would seal my fate

there is one lesson to learn
hatred leads only to death
to God alone we must turn
let in with each fleeting breath

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

infusion

we are bolted
welded melted
into this world
by birth it is
the chassis is the
form the means
of all we think
there is yet the
obverse of thought
the head of the
tails is mystery and
in darkness and
on the fringe
revealed a light
that shares our
knowing from
the inside love
pours in to our
day and night
our flesh and
death and
turns our all
inside out it is
we who are
sought created
and loved
instilled infused
and cascading
into the mist
of mystery the
end of oblivion

the drive of your life

we’re off out of the
garage and drive
and into the world
around the dials
and instruments
dazzle and sparkle
as the journey begins
everything is new
we trust and leave
the route and routines
to others we know so
little and every moment
is exploration a lesson
in motion
things change as we find
our feet and
develop a voice to air
our views the vistas
and vignettes the
outer panorama and
inner mystery the
drive becomes more
organised and we
have to make stops
and worry about
maintenance and
management – even
breakdown –
to fit in with other
drivers and welcome
and care for passengers
the fun is scarcer
amidst duties and
expectations and the
constant question
where am I going
yet we speed on
with friends a
lover a family
for fuel and food
there is another
presence amidst
the gains and
losses of momentum
moment movement
and motivation –
meaning the
meaning that is
belonging befriending
and making a
promise of destination
beyond any map or
atlas the inner
world of mystery
and wonder is a
growing gift
eclipsing the
clouds and sunshine
of the passing scene
we’re moving but
in a different way
and along another
route the memories
passed unlock and
release a new
future where loss
is gain and all
motion stasis
is this drive for
real for the real
is no prospect only
a preview which
you and I can
never see or know
till the miles
and years fall
away fall fail
frighten yet
we’re held and
welcomed by
an end which
is a beginning
with no end

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