Hound of Heaven Hymns

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.

substantiation (A Camino Quartet 4)

a single silver
line of sound
began the miracle
a psalm of
entrance into
courts unimaginable
the golden stone
and dazzling glory
lit by a love the
spirit of presence
a journey not ended
but embraced in
its finality and
moments exploding
into infinity old
bones once found
now lie beneath
us the cost of
following to an
end that is not
the end the music
spreads and grows
in many ways
focusing us to
receive a gift
that can never
be possessed but
always received
it will lead us
on beyond every
horizon even our
minds and hearts
the stars fall into
the seas and
make this place
holy
compostela

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

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

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.

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

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)

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

changing the points

I never knew I
couldn’t even
imagine it
that the
meaning could
change within
me and I
never knew
at a stroke
loss and death
rewrite the
language and
purpose of my
life love is
grief grief is
love perhaps
not the same
but a world is
redrawn a new
uncharted land
scape seascape
heartscape the
dawn is leached
of glory as is
the setting and
the daily zenith
the golden orb
no longer warms
the inner life
and floods the
view with hope
a different light
shines where I
cannot see some
move on but
most move back
to a reflected
refracted ray
lensed and focused
in the familiar
hopes and visions
for me there is a
new direction
that has to be
taken alone and
strangely not alone
though that is not
the feeling a
momentum of
union though
not recovery
‘tis more a
renunciation
and a shedding
of all certainties
and sureties
that confer
status and
progress here
is a new
beckoning horizon
where all loss
is gain and
restoration is
realised as the
dust settles and
the new direction
is a birthing never
possible in time
the womb of the
clock ticks away
but never
reaches the
destination that
death brings so
triumphantly
changing
everything

A cinquain of sleep

In sleep we find a strange and distant world
Both like and different from the one we know:
Our senses keen against all reason hurled,
Are caught in night time’s tide and undertow
Then tossed ashore when morning’s light does show.

Yet nearly half our lives are spent asleep –
Our worldly strength and status set aside.
We seem to die when lying still so deep,
And all can happen as we rest and slide
Into the realms where laws no longer guide.

Do dreams have meaning for the daylight hours
To challenge all we trust and take for sure?
The sleeping soul encounters mystic powers
That shake our waking truths and so inure –
Including dread and loss we all endure.

For some the night brings terrors of its own
With madness strange and torments near and real:
To wake in sweat and shiver, cold as stone.
The mind is scarred, and fear is all we feel:
The sleeping worlds disturbing truths reveal.

Why, then, the future meets our dreaming night,
Interpreters make sense of stories wild
And tame them into visions clear and bright.
But is our reason overturned, beguiled,
By signs and portents in our dreams compiled?

The greatest gift of sleep is healing rest –
A spring whose waters bubble to restore,
Our weary flesh and minds by cares distressed.
We lie in time to face an open door
Whose threshold beckons us to heaven’s shore.

d day eve 80

in town dining alone
what did they die for
the inconsequential
chatter the pained
silences of over
familiarity eighty
years ago lives
teetered agonisingly
in anxiety and
fear as they faced
the unknown the
known foe the
unforeseeable
tomorrow with
torments and
oblivion yet now
freedom allows
us to dispute
and be rude
swagger and
gossip forget
and care not
yet every life
of unremembered
living is my
neighbour and
my debt my
today this small
time economy
of self–regard
and prepossession
will never free
the world but
lure us onto the
rocks of a
hostile shore only
grace can and
will prevail

draining or feeding

it slinks
stealthily lazily
it boils and
bolts battling
against tide
and wind the
river glistens
glides
glamourising
the light and
the sky filled
with mystery
danger debris
life and death
liquifying and
silting as it
ineluctably heads
for the sea this
magical silvered
stream drains
the heavens
then the earth
but it fills
us with hope
and life like
mercy in the
face of death
the waters are
a food and a
foretaste of the
unstoppable
journey that
takes us all
whither save
into the
greater depths
lost and
purposed by
the rhythm
we dance to
but cannot
count and
halt

seven days

it’s happening
the last week
the one we call
holy Jerusalem
awaits as always
the magnet the
hope the promise
life and death
in a cosmic
focus the dust
the donkey the
palms the
cheering a
dizzying day
of sunshine
that must then
be eclipsed the
meaning lies
beyond control
in the pettiness
of spite and the
bleakness of
disillusion and
betrayal within
these days are the
meal that spans
the grave and the
everyday cruelty
of judgment and
torture amidst
the olive trees the
blood like sweat
of fear and the
apogee of
uncertainty –
your will that
sharpens the
agonies and
darkens the
skies of
forsakenness
until the
spirit is
given up here
is the muddle
of all living
as it spins into
death and all
believing is
waiting

like plastic (A Camino Quartet 2 ~ at the Pilgrims' Mass at Santiago de Compostela)

like plastic heated
in a furnace or by
a blowtorch the
certain shapes distort
and move a change
overwhelms as the
nearness of heaven
sears away the
illusory dimensions
of our mortality even
bread and wine are
incandescent in the
glorious food of
angels where body
and blood escape
into us and live
in us and we
are consumed as
we eat this is
not reason but
the metamorphosis
of faith the oneness
of all and the presence
of heaven open a
vision lit by the
darkness itself no
thing matters there
is a suffusion a
flower opens a
sun rises a new
day dawns in a
softness and mercy
like gentle rain
on the parched
soil the moment
cannot last in
time all is

like plastic

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

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

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

the step (A Camino Quartet 1 ~ a Camino truth)

one of countless
the basis of
all journeys
bruised uncertain
aching resolute
all kinds are
in the taking
first or last or
in between there
is a stampede
not just of boots
and soles there
is one journey
and one step
that makes and
unites us all
every journey is
an outset and
a return into
the beckoning
fading filling
blinding light of
darkness that
lies within
and without
penetrated only
by prayer the
beam of love
the cloak of
darkling God
that opens and
closes everything
at the same
time revealing
that step the
journey where
we are lost

and found

before a pilgrimage

part of a journey

it began before me
and yet I was there
set in the before
not an idea or
a twinkle but
in the heart the
centre of love
which is my
centre and my
essence yet in one
sense I am not I
don’t exist
only we thou
us all and
especially nothing
here is the start
and the end of
every journey
and enterprise
as it is taken
converted
suffused beyond
the recognition of
self and control into
the mists of
mystery

there are particularities
in time location
and distance departure
and destination the
excitement of
anticipation the
immersion of engagement
the senses which delight
and disappoint the
encounters of the
other and the

isolation and apogee
of self a regard
of deception and
discovery a bottomless
void where all can
be won and lost
though the winning
is the loss here is
the alchemy of being
the transformation of
the journey where the
changing scene is
but an illusion of
time and timidity
sore feet soar
feat the road and
ride the wilderness
and the way sing
and cry and
reveal if we dare
but look not with
our I’s but eyes the
sights that seduce
us into the holy
and such a
different power
overshadows with
a radiant light
and we float
float away un
tethered beyond
memories and
meaning into
the start and the
end at the same
time and in
the neverness of
being known

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

metaphor and simile

stuff your poetry
with these – metaphor
and simile that is
what goes wrong it
leaves us with the
here and now the
images and sensations
of a world that is
changing changing
so I you we are
never sure and there
lies the blessing
for the precarious
position is the
one open to thee
love which we never
can comprehend
the mediation of
this world in beauty
and images in
sound and sensation
always takes us
takes us out of
all knowledge and
control into the
essence of diffusion
and dissonance where
and when we are
united beyond all
knowing in the
everything that
is nothing

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

head over heels

that’s love it
is insane to the
rational disruptive
radical revolutionary
there is no gauge or
graph to notate this
passion which rips
and roars through
life like a fire
hungry with an
energy that singes
burns destroys
the certitudes of
calculation and
order this rebel
though is so lovable
that the topsy turvy
madness is worth it
not just in the moment
but off the clock and
in the foreverness of
reckless adventure when
we are claimed by a
new world a kingdom
whose power is most
completely seen in
the tortured crosspiece
and cry of agonised
abandonment and
utter trust this
love is the reality
that recalibrates
our convention
into the normality
of never ever and
ever ever and
I am nothing and
we are all

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

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

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.

pilgrims

the journey the
path the route
the destination
all is hidden
until the step
and the scene
melt into a
mesmeric
transparency
pilgrims see
through the
material and
the concrete
for it is there
that the
pilgrimage
begins and
ends whatever
we see there
is another
realm read
by the heart
the inner eye
and throne of
sensibility
and value
it is a burnished
orb of illumination
a lodestar and
magnetic field
the escape from
time the
compass point
that leads us
into eternity
suffusing each
breath we
take with
a wind that
fills the
sails of
meaning
urging and
propelling
us over
the seas of
temporality
towards a
mist a
mystery of
inner light
the clarity
of the darkness
that subdues
the desperate
need for power
the control
the knowledge
the clock
and the grave
the pilgrimage
never stops
because it
never began
and will never
end all our
dust and dominion
will perish in
nothing the
annihilation of
grace the opening
of the road
which leads
into the oblivion
of love’s
ravishing
revealing
ecstasy of
delight

take the
first and
last steps
at the
same
time
pilgrims

finisterre

the land has gone
colliding melting
falling the surges
of energy and love
where everything
falls away and
in the mystic spume
and thundering
breakers a new world
unfolds within where
earth and heaven touch
in cosmic intimacy
and promise the rocks
of ages and hopes of
hearts the probing
mind and restless
soul crash into
the infinite drops
of rainbow lit
mist so that the
newness and the
eternal may change
transform transfix
us into the
mystery that is
always there and
yet rarely seen
our journey’s end
our home
our finisterre

la danse atomique

the light fantastic
it is like
another language
the dance of
the atoms in
silence music
cacophony
and many
tongues a
chaos ordered
by the
unknowable
in which we
as part of
creation’s
choreography
spin and
pirouette leap
and fly through
time finite
dust animated
in a unique
story identifiable
for a season and
then refashioned
beyond sight
and feeling
knowledge and
matter the
inner meaning
translated
captured and
freed by the
rhythm and
ground that
is source and
fundament to
our everything
and nothing
the atoms will
rest but the
dance goes
on

winter solstice

the night is blessed
as the day we have
invaded its darkness
with ingenuity and
artifice a new world
of opportunity and
gain yet we are the
po orer and the blinder
our seeing exists in
the dark and our
prayer burgeons and
blossoms in the
divine night our
footsteps may stumble
our senses reel and
panic our fingers fumble
as the familiar is
jagged hostile uncertain
illegible yet our need is
all the answer as clear
as day bright as any sun
they exist together and
always confounding
our patterns and
footmarks the maps
of a meaning we
invent to make
everything mine
embrace the liberty
of the longest night
take the darkness
to the heart
and see live an
otherness whose
light shines as
absolute black in
a bleakness and
glory we cannot
comprehend

A vilanelle of the Camino (A Camino Quartet 3)

The scallop beams and beckons on the Way –
The walk is long through hills and streams and trees,
Each limping striding step is ours to pray.

Our senses stirred by Nature’s power to sway,
Sweet eucalyptus floats upon the breeze,
The scallop beams and beckons on the Way.

Each pilgrim’s path is filled by fears to slay –
Our hearts and minds are burdened by our pleas,
Each limping striding step is ours to pray

Yet grace prevails as penitents we pay:
Love’s beauty bursts to force us to our knees.
The scallop beams and beckons on the Way

An offering of our lives to God we lay:
With clouds of incense fade our certainties;
Each limping striding step is ours to pray

The road leads on to endless night and day,
Our journeys end with rocks o’erwhelmed by seas;
The scallop beams and beckons on the Way,
Each limping striding step is ours to pray.

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

the hook of reality

there is a reverberation
outside of the material
order in which sympathy
realises presence in absence
stretching out flaming out
from body and mind into the
reality of the wholly other
the holy a shining darkness
and all–enveloping nothing
that is everything beyond
things and matter and
ideas a singularity is
claimed and won and
possessed by another in
the journey to eternity and
the hook of our sensibilities
catches the glimpse the
glance the chance of an
intimation which knows no
end I speak because I
know not understand
drawn aroused awakened
to the real realm over
which I have no control
only an invitation to
seek to enter to sing
and rejoice and never
never alone it is the
threshold of heaven
breathe in the other
exhale the self belong
and do not possess
the hook of reality is
not an anchor nor
a nail it is the
open palm and
heart and mind that
lays down life to
receive it no end
no beginning just
the kiss of adoration
and rapture of
being truly truly
loved

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

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

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

crucis

on a hill
two arms
this intersection
of complementarity
and contradictions
life and death
control and
abandonment
pity and cruelty
chaos and effective
detail midday
eclipse
public death by
execution is no
performance when
it comes to the
pain
exhaustion and
traumatic fear
are no balm to
the dust and
sweat the shouts
and excruciating
blows of hammers

searing
tearing
reeling
stabbing
aching
no escape
heavy breath
gasp
arid mouth
rasping
clutching
clinging
the cries of
others
taunts
curses
tears of
mother
beloved John
absent father
Abba

lowering clouds
shrinking sun
desolation
into the
darkness
agonising
hours
leaving love
leaving life
into the
darkness
eradication
abandoned
the portal of
death
consummatum
est
to the end of
time

tetelestai

raw emotion

(beyond metaphor)

unique untameable
yet without reason
it is madness it has
to run on rails
the mind and body
focusing and releasing
to prevent destruction
the colours and shapes
of feeling erupt in
all manner of languages
but the radiance and
essence are always
diminished it is the
contradiction of self
and awareness of time
and the immeasurable
the poet often paints
and sings seeing
below the surface
yet there is a warren
of concepts telescoping
and swelling
leading us into
the heady atmosphere
of paradox freeing the
rational to burst into
the unknown the
unexpected the utterly
open my feelings are
left behind in the
explosive frenzy of
the journey into this
unknown
and the
unknowable

A Confirmation Acrostic for Benjamin

26th November 2023 ~ The Feast of Christ the King

Baptised in Jesus’ love for ever:
Every day in life’s endeavour
Now is shared by friend and saviour –
Joy abounds in faith’s behaviour;
And He will bless you day by day,
Make you free, so strong in God’s way;
Into truth the Spirit leads you
Now confirmed, all life is made new!

Commissioned by his grandmother

puzzling or dazzling

A poem for Pentecost

the pieces don’t fit
together in the
picture I am trying
to assemble perhaps
I can force the puzzle
or dissemble the
pieces aren’t really mine
but I don’t want to
share for fear of
losing the moment
and the outcome
the jigsaw is my
solitary problem
and a bigger picture
will only be possible
when I am overtaken
overwhelmed in spired
breath in the wind
and breath that
touches blows glows
takes fire in joy and
glory with beauty and
power creating healing
leading singing
dancing today
in eternity
imperceptibly piecing
together our lives
and world not as a
puzzle solved but
a fragmented reality
loved into the
song of heaven
a view with a
room for all

dark mystery

a song of two souls

each death and passing
blots out the sun and
chills the inner soul and
outer skin but nought
prepares you for your
true love’s flesh to leave
you broken forlorn
distraught there is a
disjunction of all being
a loss diminishment
beyond reckon or measure
the heart beats but the
blood is chilled and no
longer colours life with
passion and joy here is
disconnection the
quintessence of all change
that is grief and the horror
of loss life telescopes
back into existence losing
the dimension of coloured
living joy union brings
a mystery and parting
severs leaving a faint
and ghostly shadow a
hope a whispered presence
a possibility that love alone
can make real upon that
other shore the home we
yearn the end Thou promises
the beginning born of love

unction

more than we can ever mean

a touch of oil
and a torrent of
transforming love
one life all lives
are changed by a
promise and the
presence that lives
outside our powers
and deep within
them setting apart
and simultaneously
fusing mortality
with the eternal a
meaning and purpose
are bestowed in
simplicity and
ambiguity the choice
becomes mine and
yours to accept
the gift and live
the mercy of
forgiveness and the
life inherent and
destined in and
beyond flesh a king a
priest a prophet is
seen but resides
most really within
our souls our common
life our God the olive
pressed and running
over bedews our
form to call us
home and to
adventure in the
only purpose that
lasts

Written on the Eve of the Coronation 2023

shingle

shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
earth’s pulsing music to make the soul soar!

song of the sea casts its hypnotic spell
singing in stone through the notes of the swell
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
earth’s pulsing music to make the soul soar!

shingle must mingle in each single surge
as seas beat the land – with primeval urge
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
earth’s pulsing music to make the soul soar!

polished and formed like bright gems to our sight
the dull and the mundane glow lustrous in light
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
earth’s pulsing music to make the soul soar!

sharp–edged and piercing till sung on sea’s stave
stones fashioned smoothly by power of each wave
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
earth’s pulsing music to make the soul soar!

we are the stones and love’s life is the sea
whose waves shape our days in setting us free
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
earth’s pulsing music to make the soul soar!

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

Two acrostics of remembrance

Written hastily as I led a workshop: 'Remembrance ~ Imprints on the soul'

Rather would I have known that
Every day that has flown
Means that love is fleeting and
Eternal: the past submerged by
Mysterious time is not lost but
Beckons to bless not as a word out of
Earshot but as an imprint of God
Risked to live in the scars of my soul

Reverberating deep within me
Energy that was and shall be
Muting strident chords of now
Even every why and how
Making sense of treasures lost
Broken hearts and painful cost
REMEMBER
At the last these shall be gifts
Never lost to Him who lifts
Clouds of dark forgetting sadness
Erasing all but Love’s true gladness

flowing

a river runs
by my life
breathing in and
out by the channel’s
tides always there
and never the same
lit by searing sun and
limpid moon and grey
donkeyed skies it has
a beginning and an end
though never for me but
rather a constancy in its
chameleon moods colours
dour and shining torpid
and glassy white mane
breakers and pulsing billows
these waters cleanse and
refresh whilst bearing
flood’s flotsam and
litterers’ jetsam familiar
but not a friend the moods
are many but its secret
suction and dizzying
currents spell doom it
asks no questions so
why do I ask why as
it scours the earthen banks
and links and sprints
in a beguiling of nature’s
generous cruel bewitching
beauty it speaks no
whispers
don’t go with the
flow

the triumph of the moment

amidst the buzz
of the ward at
lunchtime behind
the curtains of
our bay unfolded
the greatest drama
of my life our life
the sentence of death
which we are all
under and which
had been pronounced
by diagnosis for my
true love was being
executed in an
unspeakable beauty
and glory the clock
seemed to stop and
the world ceased its
turning as an
ineffable centre
of reality was
focused in the
stilling of my
beloved’s form
I held one hand
the other held a
small olive wood
cross I touched
her brow and hands
with oil from the cross’s
tree and spoke the
words of love’s
welcome and farewell
she rose and a
cascade of
sickening disease
poured out of her life
as she began to
leave the prison
which had been
the spirit’s temple
falling back into
the eternal arms from
which we have
come the air
was filled with loss
and triumph signifying
a peace and a travail
a journey and a
rest an end and a
beginning a parting
and a union which
can never never
be broken
a moment
a triumph
a life
forever

the golden string

amidst the warp and
weft of each life as
we are woven into
a tapestry not of
our making is there
a thread a golden
string that leads us
in the random clatter
of looming time
joining us to the
source and end the
home of belonging
the seamless perpetuity
in union loss yet
clothed in love and
pierced and threaded
where self is seamlessly
formed beyond identity
into being may this
spinning string of light
beam and burnish my
baffled brain my hapless
heart my bruised and
breaking being bereft of
brightness and bring me
bind me buy me billow
me beyond the knots
and stitches weave and
entwinements of
mortality’s fabric upbraided
by life’s storms yet catching
us all by golden strand to
heaven’s golden gate

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.

ascension

ascension is
glory but what
can that be
without location
or form when
freed from horizon
and dimension
it is union and
parting life and
death for us in
now the paradox
of finitude bound
for the everlasting
no hillside launch
pad but the gift
of beyondness
within and among
our familiarities
take time to let
this gift find you
every day it
changes the
polarities of
our perception
and suffuses
everything with
the glory no
human eye alone
can see yet alone
define as we are
realised anew
in love and
beyond limit
our scars his
scars are
in glory and
for all time
the pain and
the dust will
be gone

blowing in the wind

autumnal smoke seems
always wistful slow and
steely grey winding lazily
from warm bejewelled
leaves a mist of memories
disappearing as they come
transporting the inner
self and soul to almost
forgotten lands of living
when childhood’s patina
enfolds in spite of hurts
and hardships life’s fire
is mainly smoke a
smouldering of indistinct
consumption and
consummation cremation
and coming to life with
hope no matter the leaves
be brittle brown or soggy
amber and red all is taken
by change and impossibly
transformed by love we
are not the fire though oft
we think so we are the
in between from leaf to ash
from kindling to cinders
the fire is the spirit and
takes us onto the wind
the skies overshadowing
two pieces of wood and
the pierced heart of love

requiescat

below the copper beech
such precious dust in
earth that carried love
and spirit form and
strength the miracle of
creation the limit of
mortality the rest and
peace of resurrection
hope cut grass and
falling leaves occluded
skies holy stones are
living dying testimony
the breath of the
wind the stillness
of the scene caresses
the longing and waiting
the wondering and the
aching to know and to
to know nothing all voiding
and surpassing this
threshold lies truly beyond
any compass point but
pulls both and everyway
every moment the drama
is unfolding the stage
revolves and all the
action and pretending
are becoming real leaving
the little plot the shady
grave the half–lit world
that walks away to a home
that is nowhere on this earth
yet everywhere else in its
completeness perfection and
inaccessibility until my
time and all time
comes to its
end

the other

birth and death are one
one follows inevitably after
the other the simple truth
leaves us with the interim
and its meaning what
matters quantity quality
endurance meaning it is
far from simple and the
answer lies outside of us
even if we don’t want to
dare to know so there is
another always another the
immensity of galaxies and
inconceivable time cannot
render us alone and without
meaning there is more than
matter maths and existence
there is an abundance of life
bursting into the nano
second and lifting us into
eternity dare we let it
take us raise us up make
us irrelevant to our own
maps of aspiration and be
seized by the transcendence
that invades each moment
and particle with purpose
we are stopped only by self–
importance and fear both
cancelled by love and relationship
relativity is compromise to
all being provisionality will
end but the present moment
unfettered by the dying past
and unborn future is birth
and death waiting for the
claim capture and catastrophe
of being yours not
mine

benison

blessing is a kiss the
affection of eternity on
the frailty of creation we
need love the belonging
that brings life life that
lives beyond existence
and a blessing touches
and caresses our hurts and
wounds in the confusions
and conflicts the prisons we
choose to lock ourselves and
one another in to make
the journey a competition
where some no all are losers
limping or galloping into
perdition benediction brings
change comfort purpose to
re–enter the now and the
to be accompanied by the
strength which is easily
missed often dismissed and
always breaks if recognised
and received into a flower
beyond compare the flower
of all transformation

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

heaven scent

can you smell eternity
or heaven surely not
yet the incense of
damask rose and lily
burnt into fleeting
fragrance its passing
perfume caresses
and releases arrests
the heart in a
momentary
explosion of dancing
delight a heightened
beat plunging dropping
bursting us out
of a prison into
the delirium that
might could shall
last for
ever

sparkle

catching the light
makes such a
difference it draws
us and fascinates
luring us out of
our self–satisfaction
and a world predicated
on self–absorption
the tiniest speck can
have an intensity
fleeting but beyond
compare each point
dancing on a stage
of habit and complacency
we are not masters or
in control the spirit
is life beyond my grasp
or capture but offered
daily in the surface
and speck we accept
and forget without
thanks we only know
and take shelter within
our five senses
and brains in a
reality where there is
always so much
more – or less – the
glint the leap of
light beckons and
bestows the possibilities
we deny the life we
overlook the joy
that could be ours

symphony ~ a poem of the incarnation

cells and tissue
bursting with life
engorged with blood
pumped by the
muscle that
embodies our love
the excitement
and the slog
cannot endure
that we know
yet sage and
sanguine don’t
make poetry poetry
makes everything
real the music
that is silently
eternal in its
paean and out
pouring the notes
no stave or beat
can sustain the
invading delight
of a creation
beyond matter
hear it now in
contradiction of
knowledge and
in the paradox
of death’s true
life the flesh
retires to let
another beat
infuse our
partial reality
and how and
why in the
reverse thrust
of self’s power
allowing the new
and fragile gift
as a baby and
a nailed and
piercèd corpse
the start and
finish of me
in the symphony
of love

and its place will know it no more

chilling and true
we spend our lives
shutting it out
filling every moment
possible the
momentum of
moment memory
and me but
nothing can or
will remain unless
the giver is eternal
and the love divine
where we are known
beyond knowledge
informed beyond fact
and lit beyond day
in the human night
of the radiant darkness
of the ever and then
each day is changed
infused with purpose
added to effort
not as a sum
but as a gift
and revelation
adding the
energy of the
spirit the
dynamo of
doubt and faith
emitting meaning
in the momentum
where its place
will know it no
more

lachrimae

cried or suppressed
tears are the water
that laves our loves
that loves our lives
in the longing from
long away from the
arid desert of self–
contained and isolated
self
they bridge miles
thoughts and even the
immeasurable chasm of
death their
drops
are the lubricant of
loving in a world of
controlling calculation
and righteous
reason drowning us
in passion to surface
more alive and sensitive
more touched and raw
unprotected by the
railings forged by
fear and certitude by
busyness and brain
howl and sob rock and
ache love is so real and
beautiful is never truly
lost but after the apogee
of joy the eruption of
ecstasy the tears run
freely for a love reaching
from the immediate to
afar so far the heart
only registers the presence
save for the memories that
scud haphazardly like
a wild and
windy sky let it
rain tears at the
grave and in the
noisy world for
they are the ever
bubbling fount of
feeling and fervour
that follows and
fetches the pain
and cry to hear its
music dying away
into the forever
taking us where
it can never fade

come sweet death

death has revealed new truths
the final ebb tide has uncovered
my heart and being reforged in
the deepest intimacy of union
giving and receiving of selves
that dissolves in amalgam of hearts
and minds bodies fused in the
ecstasy of oneness a delirium of
being lost and found amidst the
banality of everyday demands and
habits we were one and still
we are one but is this for ever
it sounds possessive but is
realised in sacrifice and loss
everyday buried in the familiar
round and burden of living out
responsibilities and cares of
a life where duty is truly a
springboard into freedom from
the cage of our location and lineage
the journey within is the release
tunnel from earthly fetters open
to all and every but asking the
ultimate to risk beyond all limit
to promise and jump into the
love that has no bounds but is
there in flesh and blood and the
incomprehensible other that lies
in every breath – and touch and
taste and glimpse and sound and
thought and smell – the heart is
formed and the spirit flies as I am
lost in you and we are transported
into the beyond of the divine who
stooped to share to lose and love so
that we might see the truth as we are
loved in grace freed from survival
formed in love and saved by death

come sweet death

unbound

does the frame
contain the art
the score the
music the stone
the sculpture the
poem the truth
sometimes never
always the life
is always greater
than any limit
or annotation
the created only
hints glimpses
snatches at the
limitless oblivion
of the ungraspable
gift planted
within on the
breath and leading
growing whelming
us where we
can never go
on any terms
of consciousness
and self art is
being taken
overcome demolished
new pieces and
fragments nebulised
into the heady
perfumed air
of spirit the void
of freedom the
triumph opened
by the beginning
after my end

a terrible beauty

dreaded
yet I was
willing it
the end of
the struggle
the pain
death’s agony
and what I
never wanted it
was extraordinary
in its power
and beauty
a completing
an overcoming
a finishing
achieved with
a radiant
glory reflecting
the ninth
hour’s culmination
of triumph
nothing remains
save that of
glory indelibly
written into
a perpetually
breaking heart
and a hope
built on a
substance without
form memories
which are not
residue but
radiance that
overwhelms and
overpowers all
time with
its terrible
beauty

drowning in love

drowning in love
can this be possible
and its place will
know it no more it
is the release from the
burden of presence
and memory and on
our terms spells
annihilation because
we are loved beyond
limits the conceptual
falls away in a being
that is nothing to me
to all yet everything
and so much more what
is this mystery it is
so near so real so true
inapprehensible to the
soul alone the
realm of the spirit
the material every
day is permeated by
the other the unseen
reality undergirding
the fragile solidity
of passing flesh yes
we are drowning
even when the tide
seems out and the
dry lands are safe
we are drowning
but in the waters
of love eternal
love

Tutored Time ~ A Sonnet

Each life is set within a frame and view:
Our spirits soar and yearn to make things well
As years teach lessons hard and deep and true;
The world holds myst’ries which we cannot tell.
The daylight changes as we older grow,
And sight and sense reform to shape our course
Because we learn the truth and less we know:
Our finite years and strength become the force
That tells us all that time is running out.
We long to leave our mark and make a start,
And counter fear and death with mighty shout
When all we need lies close within the heart.
So simple breath and pulse have much to teach
In setting heaven’s home within our reach.

(written on a train between Rochester and London)

under the shadow

every shadow is a
blessing from on
high the promise of
a gentle everyday
benison signifying
the love and life
that death cannot
snuff out for the
light of this world
is provisional shot
through with the
darkness of eternity
the mystery of shade
and incompleteness
we are overlooked in
every way allowed to
fail and fall yet always
held and healed if
only we dare trust
beyond our reach
our power our
horizon
each shadow reminds
our faltering steps
and blind blunders
of the immaterial
reality enfolding our
form and feelings
trust not only the
fierce noonday sun
but the soft beckoning of
the shades we are
loved on high and the
gentle touch of
the true light and the
company of glory blesses
us with
shadows

relevance

faith is the language
of love lifting humanity’s
cares and concern out
of relevance into
revelation
relationship
reality
beyond concepts and
words into belovedness
belonging and the
beyondness of bountiful
beatific bestowal of
being
no custom currency
control
just the power and
the power and
the glory which no
eye can see no life
contain no measure
span yet abiding
in innocence frailty
and loss the clouds
that break and
through which the
light of faith can
pour
faith is the irrelevant
emptiness that fills
us all takes us
nowhere but home
away into a moment
that has never existed
but lasts forever
unguessing ungrasping
unceasing uncovering
the extinguishing
fulfilment the totality
of extinction

injury time

FIRST HALF

the dying ember
of a fire
still hot
but spent
and the flames
yet to come
will be fanned
only by the spirit’s
breath in the
innermost heart
of love
there is both
hope and terrible
sadness
the grief of
change that
sees flesh die
and leave our
love airborne
testing consolation
and belonging
in the earthiness
of quotidian
breath
inspire
expire
I no longer know or
hope as ever before
and what is and
yet to come matches
nothing in our match

SECOND HALF

the match is
over or so
it seems to
me as I
mourn a death
so profound I
no longer know
in a world where
I feel lost and
bewildered incomplete
living on the other
side of death yet
breathing in the
air of now
an oxygen that
no longer
satisfies a
body and mind
struggling to be
free and see
the love
that has passed
out of sight into
the fragments of
uncertain
memory and the
prospect of a
future remade
beyond familiarity
in an intimacy
that is more than
real
so the match
continues but
for now it
hurts in
injury time
…amid the ashes

the table

gathering place
for people
meeting the
other
transforming all
else the food
is holy all
labour and toil
transacted with
meaning in
this meeting
the encounter
lifting existence
into life
and drudgery into
joy so every
place of love should
have a table
making family
out of strangers
and communion
out of isolation
bring to it
a generous heart
an open mind
a loving spirit
the openness of
the question
that seeks the
answer no one
knows but
knows us all
place of warmth
safety and
peace we can
feed and be one
never to leave
the same and
so never to
leave

never to be
alone

love is faith is hope

grief powerful
intimate ontological
grief has changed
my faith my beloved
is not just the
other but is me
beyond understanding
but fully and entirely
true as self and
identity meaning
and purpose I have
been remade and re
formed by love by
you by us
and now I live
with memories and
shadows types that
have their ending
so love proclaims
in revelation sacrament
and word yet the
mystery is the reality
when I am flesh and
blood and your smell
and voice touch and
taste face and form
are burnt into my
mind and soul a
union that is indelible
inalienable as I breath
we are still still for
ever in a world that
ticks and moves through
time what release
and freedom do I we
know when you are
free beyond imagining
yet present in every
moment and breath
every tear and memory
triggered daily daily
relentlessly absent and
present void and visible
in the inner life of love
and faith and hope
love becomes and makes
faith and leaps leaps
into that believed precious
hope

the miracle of music

he enters through the
stately door and sat
at the dominating
ebony black instrument
the hush deepened as
we settled and the
miracle began released
from mind and heart
from staves and keys
soaring beyond all
measure pouring out
into infinity surging
and carrying us on
its waves and wonder
the elbow in my ribs
receded in this transport
of promise and spirit
spiralling lifting healing
losing us in the abandonment of
giving praise to the mystery
and the meaning beyond
all–encompassing yet
fusing miraculously in
the spirit within and
among the moments pass
and merge as a kaleidoscope
of fragments of blazing beauty
and hushed chasmed silence
some may shuffle or yawn
holding on to the wrong powers
with ears deafened by the cares
of self or importance or
resistance each phrase and
answering line each pause
and rapturous sound renews
the invitation of the miracle
come to the courts of heaven

(lines penned after a sublime recital by Jean–Efflam Bavouzet at the Wigmore Hall)

antiphon

how can i sing the
lord’s song in a
foreign land the
song that echoes and
answers speaks and
replies finds one
voice in two one
music in tandem
one life in union
and sacrament one
heart in two lives
it is the song of
consummation where
self finds a home
that opens heaven
no more in this world
can i sing the joys
that are always shared
now sheared by
mortality
answer me beloved
from on high

eggs in the basket

how many eggs
all
all of them
that is the
extravagance
and heady
madness of
love take
them all all
that I am
I give to you
it is the
greatest leap
of joy and
there is no
soft landing
where are the
eggs where
am I the
love and the
eggs are still
all yours
living the
answer is
as impossible
as the
question save
for the knowing
below the
senses and
the sensate
realm
what new
life is
promised
the egg
will hatch

that is
what the
empty
silence
says

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.

falling into you

I can feel you
close in the
great stillness
and silence of
our home a
prison of our
love with me
behind the bars
of time and
space our love
is a bridge over
this terrifying
chasm the void
of parting in
flesh and conversation
in the partnership
of each day’s burdens
and joys it is
more than an
imprint or
memory and all
the more painful
for heightening an
end unsolicited
though inevitable
what a difference it
makes in understanding
yet alone accepting
everything no dawn
or sunset meal or
music is ever the
same and asks the
question was it
ever

you are the difference
that makes me
you fill every
moment because
love is the void
and love alone
fills it
always together
the agony
the ecstasy
the everlasting

feeling
falling
headlong
into you

sentience

I think
I think
I know
I think
information reason
cognition intelligence
all this maps
and coheres substance
material and theory
its truth involves me
only as a statistic and
evidence then there is
the passion and beauty
of feeling emotions
that storm and serenity
of spirit sighing and
shouting weeping and
singing here is another
world within and amongst
us whose realities burst
our mortality and dust
creating and intimating
an eternity of joy and
belonging constructed
through love and born
into being by
relationship emotion
is the divine breaker
stirred by the heart of
love whose ride
catches us beyond reason
and eventually beyond
doubt

rebellion and submission

I want you back
as we were I still
live with you
entirely completely
as I can but the
terms of reality have
changed because of
time I struggle as
I miss your beauty
in touch and sight
and voice your
ethereal caress makes
me long and hunger
for the senses of the
flesh as much as the
you was and is your
essence and soul
melded into mine
and burning beating
billowing and breaking
in my solitary today
your presence and power
has not gone but my
purpose has my body
is rudderless becalmed
and careering over time’s
changing seas going
nowhere till I fail
and fall caught and
raised by the one the
only that can bring
me to you
completely
my rebellion and
submission fused
merged obliviated
to be one

red mist

in a flash a reeling
heady moment reason
and restrain are gone
our passion’s flood
shapes a mighty breaker
crashing on the beach
of action there is no
stopping the destructive
force lashing out the
wail the shriek and cry of
primal temper this
terrifying force grips
people and nations as
we fragment and break
into the pieces of hate
and fury smash kill
no forgiveness or mercy
just finish everyone and
everything we don’t
care there is no right
or wrong just blood to
spill and flesh to rend
stamp shriek flay
politics dissolves as
harboured hates and
punishing prejudice
turn the world red
red with the rage that
has dashed the hope
the truth that difference
is true and beautiful
kyrie eleison

gain and loss

in love both
gain and loss
are one
they are wed
in mystic union
where measurement
overflows in
consummation
and a remaking
of our human
powers and hopes
our purposes
and satisfaction
belonging overtakes
longing as humility
and care are
prized to set all
free even time
and tragedy are
reframed and by
the ultimate
love the cruciform
loss and gain of
empty tomb
redeem every
breath into the
whirlwind and
zephyr of the
spirit

nec tamen consumebatur

in those moments
the living fire
irradiated the
bush the desert
flamed and the
substance was
not consumed
though now no
more all things
pass but bearing
spirit last for
ever the holy
indwells through
time and passing
not remaining
yet raising and
triumphing in
the union of
the fire and the
rose Moses saw
and heard a truth
and power beyond
telling and
understanding yet
embraced in its
story in which we
all have a part and
a promise all
passes and away
but the shining of
love endures the
wood and not a
bone is broken before
all is raised in a
moment where we
all become and were
forever one

the path

increasingly I
hear a longing
call colouring
the familiar
making a new
path strange
and seemingly
leading nowhere
a nowhere real
in the moment
where senses
resonate with
futility but not
despair a mystery
of transformation
in a world no
longer mapped with
the signposts and
milestones of the
journey so far
the call and
longing come
from the silence
of my now voiceless
love who speaks
from and into
my nowhere and
who I now seek
to meet in the
void and future
we call hope
and promises

who knew that
pain and blessing
have to be one
and this path
has always been
here and it is
the path of love

that is the pain
and the blessing

memories

into the stillness
we move a
dynamic peace
where effort and
struggle fall away
in the eclipse of
limit where our
creatureness dissolves
beyond creation into
newness and union
an identity of love
annotated in pure
nothing and all
everything the
letting go is triumph
glory and fulfilment
but how we miss the
music and sounds
of our earthly embrace
with those who
go before

dust free

it clogs and smothers
yet it forms beauty
strength and poetry
in living and flesh
but only for a time
before it is reduced
to grains and atoms
this is incarnate
life concealing the
mystery of meaning
spark of spirit
pellucidity of purpose
there is a yearning
glimpse whilst the
music plays of what
we are and the
belonging of beauty
it is a freedom and
a joy
uncontained

imagination

it is being stunned
by wonder nothing
to do with you save
you have been gifted
this miracle of
otherness here is
no commodity or
process no inevitability
not even justice it
happens it strikes
unfairly arbitrarily
with no notion of
worth or status it is
a freedom and the
very threshold of
salvation and for
most it costs so
much it isn’t
recognised till the
life is gone
dead
it’s also a short
circuit to conformity
status quo convergent
thinking it is other
outrageous breaking
the rules showing us
something new to the
point of shocking
and even scandal it
is out of control whilst
placed delicately and
nuanced in learning
wisdom humility enquiry
daring sacrifice risk
commerce and industry
power influence and
success
think they can buy it
and bottle it it is
never here and
always there – just
beyond our reach –
and utterly beyond
price

the skittle

it stands scarred
and scratched by
its perpetual
execution by
barraged balls
bombarded and
bowled in
the bellicose
belligerence of a
game where ten
targets are doomed
to fall for fun
this one pin
is a theft by
pupil prank a
trophy of youth
but now a
veteran never
to stand and
topple again
on the alley run
inanimate and
anonymous evoking
lost time and
carefree joys it
is signed and marked
by story the
narrative soul of
being the hope
and heft that
topples our lives
into the caring
caress of the
creator who fashions
us anew not in
flesh but in the
invisibility of love

parting

it was coming
down the road
in full view for
quite some time
you knew
straightaway
but braved it
down settling to
fight with all
your worth driven
by love and oh
what love
the battle was
brutish and
bloody with moments
of exhausted respite
pools of tenderness
flooding all time
yet we never mentioned
the inevitable why
would we spoil and
chill the warmth of
union in any
and every moment
for a pain and
travail still
unimaginable
in its totality
ferocious void
and aching
aching ever
after
it is all too real
so real it blinds
and bleaches the
rich colours of
such abundant
living and loving
yet the loving goes
on at times red
hot an ardour of
spirit in the gift
of the Giver in our
togetherness
if the parting
is truly incomplete
what can ever
separate us it
is a triumph
born only in
love and borne
only by love

vendetta

it’s Mine because
I am I love I forgive
it is never a possession
or a right it is the
poison of all life in
our hands and is
vicious in its cycle
unending without the
forgiveness of love and
humility it never stops
here is the darkness of
the soul which lights
the power today in
black night avenging
purging destroying
no tree can stand its
axe or storm save one
on skull hill the scales
of justice have no
balance a restitution
without mercy unalloyed
our feelings strangle our
souls in getting even
retaliation is the
sepsis of our psyche the
sisyphus of our souls
endless pointless
universally futile
vengeance pollutes
cleansed only by the
balm of forgiveness which
flows like a holy stream
from the spring of mercy
bubbling through the
tectonic plates and
basalt and peat of time
and personality there is
a world remade restored
and it starts with the
death love’s death
vendetta’s death

the terror

it’s new since we
were parted and
comes so often in
a flash a chill so
great and fearsome
gripping flesh and
mind penetrating
into soul so fierce
the aloneness the
abandonment so
bleak and desperate
and then it’s gone
and it teaches so much
falling apart is
life – and death –
the image of the
false god and the
no god deludes and
it is the aloneness
that brings me to
you to us to the
mystery where I can
only float and sink
die and rise the
grip of terror the vice
of certitude explode
in the detonation where
nothingness becomes
all the combustion of
love

climate change

living beyond
consciousness is
it reality is it
possible not to
the conscious
world if material
and cogent
evidence is
required but the
mist is as real
as the clarity
the weather of
being is determined
by a climate
beyond our reach
and control we
might meddle or
abuse the little
world we think
we own and
possess yet
even our blind
and arrogant logic
can be lit and
informed by
imagination and
experience to lead
us above the
meteorological me
and you into
the dazzling heavens
untouched by self
and untrammelled by
forecasts storms
droughts or change
our fickle insecurities
can enter the
peace that passes
our understanding
the thermometer and
anemometer are
eclipsed by the
divine fire and wind
it is good to know
but better to be known

innocence

living in each moment
as for the first time
no memories no
fears or apprehensions
just the trust and
excitement of the new
and astonishing the
beautiful fascinating
surround can it ever
return perhaps it is
never lost just hidden
by the clouds of time
and the shutters of
fear what a re–
awakening awaits
as all things are made
new and returning to
perfection

gathered

living on the watery
wind swept shore and
looking to the bluff
above a solitary ancient
tower higher than the
brooding keep and
heavenward spire
behind there lies a
later jewelled casket
that calls and gathers
us to meet and share
the One among us
who has promised so
to be our bread and
joy our hope and
purpose enduring far
and longer than any
measurement of mind
but nestling close in
heart and kiss and then
in the breath that closes
every life leading us to
a home for which we yearn
yet know only in depth
and tear warm embrace
and breaking laughter all
this lies written and lived
through centuries of
hope and faith looking
up and reaching out
receiving the gift we didn’t
know of till our spirits’
eyes were opened by
forgetting self and living the
truths that turn us inside
out so never alone by river
or in grief the gathering
god retrieves our solitary
loss and makes again but
not in dust but in the manifold
meeting maze of mansions many

demolished by a piece of bronze

looking up my
heart broke at
his face where
all time’s agony
was caught
in the moment
and held as
he was dying – the cloth fluttering as he writhed
and stilled betwixt me and you and the Father the
mystery where our futility is revalued in a different
currency and clime
my heart had been
warmed and moved
by this love held
by his mother
so close and
endearingly in
marble and
terracotta but
now that hope
was dashed and
remade in bronze
in the desolation
of death no
thoughts just
feelings mercy
tears donatello’s
genius God’s
amazing grace

encounter

love’s meaning is
eternal and set
within a myriad of
encounters and
focussed in fidelity
and one the transience
of each moment
becomes a blessing
for purpose is given
yet never fixed our
flesh is not substantial
nor outliving nor
outlasting it is
outstanding for
the miracle of life
is a dizzying force
building you and
me a countless
family and a world
so fragile so strong
the paradox is built
into the very earth
from which we come
and our gaze outwards
places our hearts and
loves in a home we
never build alone
together we encounter
and in that meeting
we are lost and remade
through the passing
hours and where no
clocks can exist
here in my heart
and yours lies the
gift of eternity
awakened and realised
by a simple touch
and the loving yes
that propels us
into the ever
never

lookout

most of us
are not
watching
we bury
our sight
our views
and hopes
in the certainties
of the inward
gaze based
on self
we know the
road will run
out but we
persist because
looking out
is risky and
full of doubts
questions ricochet
through our
defences opening
us up to others
and the
other
something new
is born and
all our control
is overwhelmed
by the power
which takes
our absolute
away and
makes us
relatively important
yet extremely
precious if we
dare to let go
our selfish gravity
no longer holds
and limits and
imprisons us

look out

effervescence

our love was
as natural as
breathing giving
life space
freedom beyond
the self being
held by grace
and formed by
spirit into one
for the journey
into the One
imperfect and
at odds our differences
and disagreements
were formed into a
beauty and peace
the amalgam of
spirit in which hope
is realised in the
provisionality that
schools and delights
in sacrifice
and giving
in union
and gift
in flesh
and thought
that is overtaken
by the forever
of the limitless
effervescing into the
delight of the Lover

oblivion

our true home
is beyond description
and possession

explosion of
love and
the overwhelming
of matter by
relationship
and spirit

it is the radiant
darkness the
shining black
negative positive
positive negative

how can it live
in me and us
now and through
nature and time

by the one who
was born and
died yet was
and is alive
beyond the
grave in the
always of
the beyond
in the now
and the
eternity
written in
dust

but can it
be
only if
it can conquer
the fortress
of my fear
and the
shutters of
self

then the
converging point
of infinite
nothing takes
us into the
incomprehensible
meaning of our
days and the

everlasting
night of
peace where
our nothingness
no longer stops
nothing

tutti

please don’t
speak all at
once two ears
and one brain
struggle with
the divine music
when all can sing
in harmony and
individuality whilst
being one and
intelligible in a
new and mystical
way all living is
changed transformed
from monaural
monotony into
polyphonic panorama
bordering infinity
as spirit suffuses
senses and each
ear drum hears
the beat of divine
love and truth
beyond our understanding
whilst notated
in our hearts which
can beat too this
rhythm whose
infectious ravishing
pulse explodes in
myriad voices and
one simple ground
and line of love
unknown
can it be
never alone
tutti
powers and
potentates and
personality take
note

tutti

poesy

poetry isn’t understanding
no power or control only
the veil of words opening
and never ceasing – the
clam shut mind the bolted
heart might try to resist
the relentless beckoning
beyond below becoming
beleaguering our strengths
that they may yield their
protection of self into the
labyrinth that loses all
choices as we teeter swoon
fall and find a haven a
heaven where belonging
collapses the clutch of the
clock all ticking spent in
the shimmering stunned
awe of the meaning that is
poetry

prayer

prayer is about being
lost being lost so
that you and I can
be found the points
of our compass must
fall away and every
distraction and
thought guarantee a
return by an unknown
path we let go and
lose the pains joys and
perplexities of flesh
thought and soul
that we might face
them with a fresh
view formed by Your
love it takes us into
the process shared in
the rough and rude
feeding trough and
cruel cruciform wood
the newness is forged
by the third day a
light year away
from a mortal span
but placed in our
innermost essence
prayer touches and
changes us in spite
of our certain needs
and pleadings turning
us from the blind
alley to infinite
possibilities refreshing
the racked frame and
the last breath with
the sweetness the
power and hope of
pre–existent spirit
effervescing and taking
us into the sacred all
whose entrance is
barred by aberrant
self and importance
in prayer we are
lost nothing else
matters and
the touch of divinity
claims us
again and
again
our certain
and uncertain
world bursts
behold I make
all things
new

context

prayer is about climate
change – the climate of
our human wills hearts
and minds
it is not a lottery so that
unless someone prays God
does nothing or if the words
are wrong the prayer has no
validity
the centre of prayer is God
not me or even us reality
embeds itself into the fortress
of self and humanity to warm
inspire break wear down
overwhelm and above all unite
this is peace the dynamo of love
in stasis and nullity in
everything and nothing in
me you us all in the
blinding darkness of light

the only way

resignation brings a
different power and
perspective opened
not by defeat and
despair but a
gathering newness
adventure and
being no longer do
we have to possess
with its strutting
and status but to
be caught and
owned by the
invisible the love
that blows through
every life and is
offered in every
moment what a
freedom lies amidst
the debris of ego
and the fallout
of vaunting ambition
we are not powerless
save when we scheme
and grab then we
are caught in the
net that disables
the spirit and
feeds the greed
that makes us
important in eyes
that cannot see
truth cannot be
plainer I cannot
do it my way

tended

she filled my life
in every way and
now only memories
what is this
transforming threshold
what is the meaning
of history’s irretrievability
what does memory
do when so much is
forgotten forever the
garden of life grows
over into unstoppable
disarray and primal
impersonal energy
we are buried in the
moment hoping the
gardener will till
the dust and prize
the colour and form
that warm the heart
enliven the mind
and touch the soul
beyond the tomb yes
the cold earth still
stone and death bearing
cross shaped wood
take every life in
turn into that
empty inconceivable
nothing the void
that only the holy
knows and which
love can fill

overcome

so much reduces
me to tears and
collapse ravishing
music and an
everyday item
touched by you
and the astonishing
of love and once
belonging so
many things come
and go but it is
the goingness that
now predominates
all shall pass the
loneness of the
evergrowing nothing
the habitation of
true love where
all is given but
never possessed
except that I am
possessed by a
belonging coming
from nothing I
have or own and
never will it was
revealed in our
love and union
it hurts all the
more in the
parting that
overcomes like
the great wave
dashing us all
into the fragments
and allness of
union on the
shore of heaven

presence absence

so near so real
but so differently
present when
absent all the
points of perception
are challenged
and changed reality
is never chosen nor
an option only a
mystery it is time
that brings and
takes delivers and
corrupts it does so
relentlessly and
renders our powers
and controls useless
its stream is really
a torrent whose
cataract catches each
one of us as we
hurtle in a momentum
that cascades and
casts us where we
truly belong and where
we have always
been and never been
but will ever be
yet I withdraw so
readily into the
delusory consolation
of the present when it
is the absent that
is the eternal present

to pray is to bleed

sometimes a drop a
slow offering of life and
self then the unstenchable
flood the dizzying drift
an overcoming when loss
is truly gain and glory
unlike the agonies and
pains the dilemmas
doubts and despairs that
bleed from others through
my heart and mind the
artery is not broken only
connected to the source
and meaning and a vein
is filled with hope released
as life and force not living
but flowing from the love
I cannot see because I and
we are enfolded by it

shingle shore chaconne

song of the sea casts its hypnotic spell
singing in stone through the notes of the swell
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
notes in the music of creator’s awe!

shingle must mingle in each single surge
as seas beat the land – with primeval urge
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
earth’s pulsing music to make the soul soar!

eating the cliff from its base so its slides
debris abundant for the work of the tides
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
notes in the music of creator’s awe!

the thud on the beach and the rasp of the stones
boulders to pebbles – the sea breaks and hones
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
earth’s pulsing music to make the soul soar!

over and over by day and by night
restless relentless shore pounded by might
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
notes in the music of creator’s awe!

then laved and caressed in a calm gentle sea
water and shingle embrace lovingly
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
earth’s pulsing music to make the soul soar!

polished and formed like bright gems to our sight
the dull and the mundane glow lustrous in light
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
notes in the music of creator’s awe!

sharp–edged and piercing till sung on sea’s stave
stones fashioned smoothly by power of each wave
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
earth’s pulsing music to make the soul soar!

we are the stones and love’s life is the sea
whose waves shape our days in setting us free
shingle shore shingle shore shingle and shore
notes in the music of creator’s awe!

endless spring

spring is exactly
what it says a
leaping vaulting
surging as the
life force breaks
anew as bud and
form sprouting
from the lifeless
dormancy creating
a revived sensory
world vivid and
fresh filling our
souls and minds
with hope possibilities
lit by the world
around us
yet
the spring is always
within and ready to
break out as
source and stream
to take us through
time and course
into a different
realm where our
dust is saturated
into a life over
our horizons the
spring of living
water imagines
and trusts
dissolving the
grit of self
and blinding
obsession and
possession our
thirst for the
glory of the
looking glass
is slaked and
as drops in
time we thunder
together over and
lost in the cataract
of eternity falling
into the endless
abyss of love
spring
time
for
ever

a year of tears

surprised
ashamed
and also
strangely
glad

yes each and every
day never before but
since your death
a cleft in my riven
heart pours out
a lava of hot burning
searing tears
not living in the
past but struggling
to face each new day
alone the sharing
of conjoined flesh
and spirit is so
overwhelming and deep
that so little seems
left now you have
gone strangely your
last hour your last
minute fills my every
moment hauntingly
taking me with you
from this world I
know and feel you
are with me perhaps
because here I no
longer belong more as a
spectator distant from
the fevered focus of the
immediate surface and
clamour I float displaced
and disconnected for my
hunger and need is with
you my breaking heart
cries out as it thunders
on that distant shore

where all is all
and all is
nothing and
beyond us
all

corpus christi

the bread is
miracle
but the miracle
is miracle for
us who live in
prose and
half–hearted love
and passion
faith burns and
sets alight an
inconvenient truth
when we want the
power and control
even the loaf is a
fantasy of chemistry
when wheat and
yeast and water
are fired by the
miracle of alchemy
to feed and to
delight us all
our days the
author and
magician is
flesh and bread
ferment and blood
giver and gift
it can’t happen
in your head or
stomach only in
your heart and
soul where heaven
abides if you let
it the priest and
victim are one
but not the same
are real but never
owned lasting but
a little for ever
till the end when
time dissolves the
loaf and cup
and glory feeds
us in the golden
moment that was
and is and never
ceased
corpus christi

which way

the compass is
a sign and means
of the geographic
journey locating
the ego in space
but not society
on earth but
not in heaven
cardinal points
and ordinal
directions lock
us into the
world and we
lose our way it
is death’s power
that takes me
out of self and
beyond the dust
of finitude and
limit the void
and emptiness of
the tomb call us to
a home without a
plot a dwelling with
no place the life
that has no end
nor beginning
because the clock
has nothing to
measure and the
compass no location
it is matter and
creation that holds
this truth and
invitation so delicately
we can miss it
there are so many
signs and wonders
to lock us in the
unreal now the
illusion of possession
and permanence
listen to the heart
that sings without
a beat of the
great ineffable
journey of love –
we’re going

nowhere
and for
never and never

take us

solstice

the dancing
sun stands
still a teetering
balance in
the music of
the spheres
the golden orb
holds a moment
of climax in
diurnal light and
nocturnal darkness
we too dance
in time and
wonder at the
heavens and
their gift to
us of mystery
and daily light
the rays of
gold blind
and bathe
our days to
grow and
change to
glow and
burn and
die yet
remembering
those solar
days the days
the sun
stands still

below the surface

the diamond glint
the light hits the
surface of this globe
and daily lives
dazzling sparkling
bouncing off the
face and features
that bring location
identity and meaning
these flashes of
brilliance bring joy
and deception
there is so much
more overlooked
forgotten buried
deep and inscrutable
to the fancy flighty
fluttering of surface
living what does time
truly garner and
betoken the display
or the depths that
require a different
sight and even a
different heart to
value and follow an
entirely hidden path
whose hints and
hauntings sparkle
in the mystery where
words and wisdom
fall away to reveal
the reality where
the clock stops and
the when has no
meaning and the
life no
end

the echo

the echo is reality
it always was is
and shall be never
believed but ever true
we think it’s now
but it’s never for the
past and future always
overtake the moment
the lost are found
the hope is real
the strengths fall
away the vivid now
is delivered by was
and shall be
the ear is all when
seated in the soul the
eye can see when
shaded and prismed by
love the breath brings
life when inhaled
from beyond every
thought and moment
every possession
and power
come again and
redeem

Love beneath the tide ~ a sonnet

The gentle lapping rill and flowing stream
Are matched by spate and storm and angry seas.
This beauty’s form is not that all it seems;
It hides a force that spirit only sees
In bringing change to rugged rock and stone:
A polished gem adorns a heavenly crown
Which nature without love can never hone.
It is the heart of all – no power of flood can drown –
And draws us from the surface to the deep,
A realm beyond our strengths, our certain powers,
Where wakening thoughts are matched by myst’ries sleep
To take us through the veil of passing hours.
Let waters streaming over all our earth
With pulling tides lead us from death to birth.

(written on a train between London and Rochester)

The Winged Lion ~ A Villanelle for the Feast of St Mark

The golden lion lifts us on his wings –
He spreads God’s peace and love both far and wide:
In every age and place the Spirit sings!

St Mark wrote truth from which salvation springs,
And on his feast day my beloved died:
The golden lion lifts us on his wings.

The dead shall live, the gospel message rings,
And Christ on earth will ever with us bide:
In every age and place the Spirit sings!

Let go vain powers – our selfish nature clings
To passing gains which ebb on every tide:
The golden lion lifts us on his wings.

Abundant life this wingèd herald brings,
God’s love and grace to us forever tied:
In every age and place the Spirit sings!

All power flows from Jesus, king of kings:
Proud empires learn – for each has had its day.
The golden lion lifts us on his wings,
In every age and place the Spirit sings!

rainbow love

the heavenly arch
the bow of primal colour
the promise
the covenant
flesh is loved
created by love
and capable of
love in its
intimate union
heaven and earth
are one and
eclipsed in eternity
this death and
darkness takes each
one of us into
union and communion
ecstasy and extinction
born again into a
light and joy that
can never be notated
or spoken it is
the spectrum of all
unknowing and the
moment of conjunction
salvation’s promise
imprinted in more than
dust the warm blood of
the passion where we are
subjugated and
obliviated by the
being and the friendship
of neighbour is critical
in this journey
signified and enabled
by the overarching colours
that take our binary
black and white into
the diversity of the loss
that holds and bestows
fulness and fulfilment
in which we are
emptied and filled
satiation that is none
other than divinity

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

noel

the lost is born in
hope to retrieve by
breath and death
night and light
scorn and dawn
that leaves and
awaits for all held
in time the tiny
form of stable birth
touches anew the
flesh of earth in
longest night and
greatest sight as
breath and bone
are one – won in
human span and
bleakest loss to show
and share the other
way that lies within
beyond our grasp –
the gift – ‘tis love

taking the plunge

the moment on the
rock by the pool at
the vertiginous top of
a slide or board the
water waits opaque or
translucent lurking
beckoning coldly flat
or sparkling hesitation
and impulse decide
whether we discard
control and enter a
hinterland of between
and before when it
comes there is no
return a different
power will hold us
and we are out of
our depth so is
the faith and the
hope of love this is
no institution or
configuration belonging
is dying plunging
being held when and
where no one and
nothing can here is
believing and the
power of the presence
always outside our
vocabulary outside
everything and so
deep it penetrates
personhood and self
at its utter utter
core such is love

ex machina

the music physically
flowed out of
the ebony black instrument
yet the beauty ravishing
and touching my soul came
from elsewhere with
no location an eternity
from whence and to
which we undecidedly
belong albeit aliens
by sense and reason
beguiled by self and
substance here assembled
our ears open our minds
and hearts receive spirit
making everything out
of our something and
infinity out of nothing
music is set in maths
and physics but they
are not its home
there is another
world in this one
open in its access
and welcome utterly
different and
absolutely holy
beckoning fulfilling
carrying inspiring
that all may know
we know nothing save
the promise and
presence of the giver
the music plays on
and can and never
will stop stop and
listen listen and let
go
ex machina

wrapping up the wrong gift

the night at
its longest and
darkest we can
chart our path
geographically
and socially
just party here
and now mingle
dance feast
forget fill your
self and pretend
to know to live
to love whilst
the uninvited
gift and guest
offers what we
think we want
but
at an impossible
cost me my life
my heart my all
a new centre and
purpose that leads
and lives every
hour until the
end taking me
and us from
a strange and
disturbing birth
through an unspeakable
agonising tortured
death into
miraculous light
the flowing
drinks and coloured
lights rich and
sumptuous food the
unneeded and soon
forgotten presents
smother and soothe
distract and derail
the simplicity
beauty and glory
of the love with
the tiny hand
offered never to let
go

daynight

the paradox
of the next
five words

nothing matters
more than
matter

love dissolves
self’s power
in prayer
and union
as we fall
into the
chasmatic energy
falling and rising
simultaneously
as liturgies’ words
and music’s
wings collapse
the scaffolding
of pattern and
form and the
scenery of perception
rolls away into
the wings of
boundless freedom
where light and
dark are one
and never
it is a death
and the end of
death a beginning
and an end over
which I have no
control yet loved
and held as we
are hurled into
the absolute delirium
of nothing’s joy
such is prayer
and it leaves us
with a world
remade where
nothing is all
that matters
the chaos of the
whirlpool’s
salvation
is the only will
that was and is
and will
be
stepping off the
heights of our
fantasies
no longer held by
the gravity of self
nothing
matters
nothing

silence

the silence that is
full and the silence
that is empty the
first is evident in
music and grows in
prayer to an over
whelming fulness
and rapture the
mystic union beyond
words and sound
thought and sense
the empty silence
is full of memories
pain loss regrets
insufficiency pangs
and images signals
and daggers the
impossible agony
of abandonment
separation the
contrasting scene
so dramatic the
oasis and the
desert our hearts
seek one and
dread the other
healing and
hell and somehow
they leak into
one another and
turn as a curdling
creation we fill
our days with
busy self lest
the truth of
silence leaks
in hesitate
and we are
confronted with
a different world
where we can
never be god can
we choose no we
can only live to
enjoy and endure
as the truth of
reality allows it
is a new and
different freedom
from the one of
power and control
it is an encounter
that leads us ever
deeper into the
mystery that
embraces us so
no clock can tick
no pulse can beat
no life can live
alone
alone in the myriad
contradiction of
the marriage of
eternity

song

the song that I
now sing is darker
ageing from amber
to ruby in the
shadow of loss

the song that I
now sing is lighter
the roseate dawn
of death changes
everything

the song that I
now sing is stranger
than I have ever
known as life
subsides unexplained
in its relentless
change

the song that I
now sing is fuller
as love overflows
the home and
grave into
eternity

the song that I
now sing cannot
be heard for it
sounds on a
far and distant
shore

the song that I
now sing is only
of love beyond
words and notes
which fall away
with no breath

An Easter Villanelle

The sound of silence sings on Easter Day!
Love dawns anew to end our human night –
Death’s triumph does not have the final say.

Our fears and swagger make it hard to pray,
God’s voice of love is drowned by selfish might;
The sound of silence sings on Easter Day!

Th’eternal Word has walked with feet of clay
To meet and touch us even though we fight;
Death’s triumph does not have the final say.

The cross’s nails were hammered in to slay
The lamb of God who shares our mortal plight:
The sound of silence sings on Easter Day!

Noon’s blackened sky and borrowed tomb made way
For dazzling light – eternal day so bright –
Death’s triumph does not have the final say.

The grave is blessed and now has lost its prey
As loss and tears and pain are put to flight;
The sound of silence sings on Easter Day!
Death’s triumph does not have the final say.

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

value the shadows

the tidal water glistens
and flows coming to the
window the leaving a
strand this constant
pattern and variation
are the backdrop to my
outer world where we
loved so strongly like
the waters beside us
surging raging placid
serene sparkling the
love is unquenchable but
now inhabits a world
transformed into shadows
where the business and
bustle and certainties of
life have lost all colour
and vivid immediacy
the shadows bear the
love of the past present
and yet to come and now
I realise more than ever
it has always been so
and it is the shadows
that carry the joy of
the meeting the fusion
the ecstasies that form a
background music a
diorama of the heart
and the reality of the
mystery that makes us
me and you we are
never and ever earthed
in the understated and
mostly unrecognised the
delirium of being lost
and held
in the now that
is never mine
but always yours
this shadowy truth
is shared and revealed
by the Love that dies
with us till the
shadows lengthen into
the infinite darkness of
light perpetual

quid est veritas

the truth the mystery of this life
is veiled by mind and fragile flesh
we think and feel – our senses rife –
in moment’s joys alive and fresh

it’s never here and always there
enticing all beyond our reach
receive the gift in silent prayer
below the words and sounds that teach

each breath contains an endless span
we fall into the heart of love
no longer held in mortal plan
but owned and freed by light above

for all we touch is naught but dust
yet spirit sings and leaps in art
we dare and risk in faith and trust
reborn and held in heav’n bound start

so what is truth – it’s never mine
but lives and thrives in sharing dare
to give and cross self–interest’s line
that makes earth sweet with spirit’s air

the choice is ours until last breath
to live for self not others’ plight
and curse the love that lives through death
or keep the joy of faith alight

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.

note to self

there is a greater music
a story beyond our telling
of size unknown but
inaccessible save for
hint and glimpse moments
and flashes when we are
taken possessed united
beyond dimension yet
aware free in an ecstasy
of fulfilment that we belong
without our provisional
purposes and swaggering
blindness it is the fleeting
snatch of heaven’s song that
IS all and in its arbitrary
appearance in a moment
immediately lost we must
must remember that it is
the future future the
allness in its nothingness
and that is where we
belong from where we spring
and to which we go in a here
but never mine our breath
is holy other lent and
spirit filled let all else
fallaway lest we fail to
let ourselves be be for each
other and the other that
calls us down through time
and place to die and live
another way that loss
becomes our plenty and our
hope not hereafter not
ever but now in the
missed mystery the forgotten
faces the dreary detritus of
the clock’s savage scythe
it is THE note word smudge
that places us in eternity
and lets its music soar
its story saturate its
art arise and take
us
nothing left
nothing mine
just all
un
ending
joy

splintered love

there is a splinter
in my soul the
memory of our
union now broken
off and triggered
by so many signs
and sounds amidst
the aching void of
shared living where
words aplenty were
equally unnecessary
for a symphony of
fusion and
creation and
contentment we
thought we had for
ever it felt like
that but mortal
truth’s reality
has bestowed its
inevitable gift
and I simply now
know
know
nothing
save the biting
pain and burning
tears of the
splinter that
alone
remains

reckless

there is a wonder
in observation
whilst passion rises
from within and
recollection and
remembrance fire
the flames and
whip up the waves
of feeling so
torrents of crashing
energy erupt
but why are we
thus made and wired
to know beyond sense
and experience being
separated from reason
all calculation falls away
when we are overwhelmed
and toppled by forces
overtaking our citadels
of security and purpose
how precious these humours
are in purging and
releasing a humanity
that blows and burns and
crashes on the shores of
ardour creating and
destroying raising and
levelling us all in a
humanity which is kindling
for the spirit and a
dwelling for the divine this
mystery lies in a strange
inconstancy breaking out and
falling away running deep
and shooting high whilst
meandering like a languid
water embedded far below
the surface care and
calculations waiting
waiting to be roused
awakened to a torrent of
passion this distant
background thrum leads
us into this realm of
wonder as we are devastated
and ravished made nothing
and all wrecked and
reckless

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

local weather

there’s a storm
everyday where
I live I howl
and cry at some
time and more
I know it will
end can end will
end should end
but not yet as
I am caught in
the storm of loss
the lashing cruel
elemental grief
whose lowering
clouds shadow the
sunshine of love
the high noon
of union and ecstasy
a belonging that
exists beyond time
but is hacked
down in it the
storm will pass
all weather will
end but until
the end of my
days your life
and memories will
pour
pour blessings
and rattle
rattle my soul
with
undying
storms
of
gentle
basking
love

righting the writing

these familiar yet
ultimately strange
marks on a page
are filled with a
limited meaning
of form and pattern
discipline and
imagination focused
through humanity
and personality
material and
time the real
meaning and reality
itself we write in
a language of self
regard unless we can
or dare to turn inside
out and launch out
into the freedom of the
uncreate void from
whence the incarnate
love touches our
flesh and realms
to release us from
a present that always
is and never is for
all is passing and
we all write in water
and fade and finish
in this form let
us always let in the
light from the other
that anchors may drag
and our journeys begin
to where we belong
and everything belongs
and truly is

why metaphors

they earth and open
excite and apprehend
the feelings and
thoughts reconnecting
the subterranean
vaults of being if
there are thoughts
at all perhaps
urbane fantasies
a rock bed as
insubstantial as
mist that gently
refocuses every
vista in that
softness of self
retreat it could
so it should and
must what sun
should burn away
my dreams and
face me with light
perpetual I need
the shadows and the
doubt to stand firm
in my concepts and
conceits in my take
on being without
end pour me a glass
of metaphors to drug
me in the euphoria
of delusion give me
pleasure not delight
me not you me
not us feed me with
the confections the
menu and meal of
metaphor

two hemispheres

they’re not equal
they’re my brain
and yours unique
and different left
and right revealing
and processing
informing and
ordering creating
questing adventuring
I can see neither half
but both let me see
yet not in the same
way different worlds
shifting perspectives
converging diverging
homing in panning
out storing facts and
dreaming dreams
forming new languages
discovering new worlds
taking to myself
expending and
risking all
but do we choose
no rather in our
differences we, know
and know not see
and cannot dare
we let another teach
and show the
incomprehensible
unknowable
or shall we plough
my field my way
which is already dust
without spirit
returning fast to
pre–existent darkness
the chaos has a
pattern and the present
a future hidden in
synthesis and
philharmony
released beyond thought
and embedded deep within
the brain is wired to let
us know our limits
only the formless
stirring of the spirit
takes us out of
mind and into
empty fulness

the alabaster vase

thirty seven years
of marriage and
this was my last
gift its creamy
smoothness cold
stone and translucent
delicacy betokened
the love and passion
of our selves and
now it lay open
waiting to be
filled with oil
and light for the
journey and the
entrusting the
taking and the
letting go into
the night of
dazzling day
and blinding
luminescent sight
a departure and a
homecoming a
separation and a
union beyond flesh
but anchored still
in the waiting
and the silent
beautiful stone
the jar that opens
onto eternity

marriage

till
a word fixing us in
time and looking to
a limited future just
when we empty ourselves
into the other and become
no more save in union

death
is the finishing
post for our minds and
senses yet we have never
existed except in mystery
so dying self has begun
unrecognised and unrewarded
separation speaks the
agony of eternity and
union which makes

us
the forever and renders
the survival of ego impossible
never alone always lost in
the other where self falls
away into the abyss
of sublimation and
the plateau of holy
rapture here there is
stasis and a void that
fills each created moment

do
is the action and
initiative that destroys
and saves bringing me
as us in the dynamic
fusion of time
and nothingness
where each and every

part
is component and
separation life and
death the marriage of
contradiction and the
union of flesh and
spirit

conquest

truth and beauty
beauty and truth

mysteries more
than concepts
engulfing our
conscious partial
days and opening
us to the eternal
whose name is
written as love
being that dies to
share and
heal completing
our finitude as
feast and glory
demolished and
remade beyond ken
is this a victory never
temporal but an over
coming of unmerited
inexpressible love
words music paint
form ideas even
silence fall away
as we are conquered
vanquished liberated
in and through
the breath that leads
us away a
way for
ever

vortices and thermals

walls of sound
meet us in
the waves of
music crashing
on the shores of
our senses and
beings
sucked deep down
in the frenzied
energy of creativity
intimating the
realm we did
not make or even
imagine taking
us out of our
certitudes and
prisons into
the everstantial
dream of uncreate
being

a single line

can lift us
to float high
out of our controls
and on the
mysterious
nothingness of
spirit’s air
that makes all
out of nothing
and thou
out of me

crucifixus

we live and die
in real time unfolding
unhasting uncontrolled
and within it
is the mystery of
past and present
one known albeit
partially the other
unknown there
is no certainty in
real time save
love who lives in
every moment and
and in mystery
incarnate truth
eternal life
speaking last words
in real and every
time it is finished
calvary embraces
every death
ever
golgotha every
bone testifying
to the strength
and structures
borne away by
time
love’s Friday death
invades every
joy and breath
to bring the
meaning that
endures beyond
our finite
reach
and places it
in our hearts
to change
each day
and challenge
every power
the powers that
betrayed and
scorned flogged
and taunted
spat and
hammered
pierced and
denied in
real time in
every age
the bullies and
abusers the
tyrants and
the torturers
we are found
in every play
ground and
onward scourging
love’s faith and
hope to the
end of time
the Lamb is
slain to rise
in real time
disclosing the
mystery of
death’s power
that merely veils
the glory of
eternity’s dawn
this is the cross
road we must
choose and
walk

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

the looking glass

what do you see
what do we see
ourselves and
a world reflecting
our thought and
importance what
if the glass lets
us see see more
clearly further
deeper where
our place and
meaning are
writ by another
a relationship
of intimate and
encompassing
transcendent freedom
lost and
found
changed and
vulnerable formed
in humility to
be apprehended by
meaning and value
beyond image and
sight reckoning
and control the
glass that refocuses
our humanity as
dust and glory this
glass is the world
and our neighbour
our brother and
redeemer the
incarnate
the pierced and
entombed
the raised and
ascended
dust
and glory

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

the turning year

what we notice and
what we fail to see are
so irregular yet from our
views and habits the
golden leaves and sparkling
pearls of dew are wonders
and signs of constant
change a gift beyond price
and telling nothing is
certain as turning time
changes us and all what
constancy and faith can
brave these seas and
storms as each sail on
and on there is more
than survival there is the
making and risking of
meaning and meaning is
the meeting of time with
eternity is this change or
death or both all change
is death all change is life
it turns and turns and
leaves us never the same
dead and changed no fruit
lasts for fruit is formed to
rot and die changed from
lustre to decay when life
sleeps in putrid dissolution
to be remade reborn returned
by turning year by turning
time the passing year takes
us all never to be what was
or will be yet never now and
always now the turning year
turns all into the confusion
and clarity of ticking tyranny
when next can still be liberty

a glimpse of heaven

when love and flesh
are one we cheer
and whoop and weep
with joy unless it’s the
wrong flesh apart from
consanguinity flesh is
holy created by the
mystery of love yet in
our freedom we deny its
compulsion and beauty
its greater freedom and
inner light it is the
bond of faith that
completes transcends
transforms and lets
in the meaning that
eludes our selfish ways
we have so much to say
and do but rarely with
fidelity and love as the
overwhelming drive in all
things moments then
melt into eternity and
the routines of duty
and drudge spin into
the whirling glory of
the angels’ music and
the tremulous ecstasy
of union with the One

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

lucifer

why does an
angel fall power
pride and envy
bring rebellion
reigning not
serving subverting
spirit and freedom
into ego and control
expelling love and
expelled by love yet
always welcome
by forgiveness
can we make
service perfect
in artifice and
intelligence free
from revolt and
ultimate dare of
domination lucifer
by name promises
light yet the morning
star sets eclipsed
by freedom’s
possibility of slavery
suffering and death
in time beware what
we make and let free
lest rebellion strikes
again bearing darkness
rather than light

The threat of machination: written not as a Luddite but with consideration of Artifical Intelligence

broken joys and empty living

words words or feelings
truths or wounded pain
is all life stricken in its
imperfection and fragile
incompleteness the miracle
of the smile the soft and
electric caress the voice
speaking singing into the
heart the silent bliss the
cry of delight but none
of it is mine unhoused
in flesh which fails and
signals the ebb of the tide
that was always going to
turn though I scarce could
believe it the vast deserted
beach opens out beyond
the horizon the sea will
never return to this
shore and picking my
way between the stones
and shells the haunting
breeze of breath and silent
waters empty this life
into another and joy is
broken into only promised
ecstasy

imprint

you have made
your mark
imprinted on
my heart and
mind so many
objects still and
ordinary everyday
lifted back and
forth through time
in memory bringing
tears and delight
then dashing me
back into the
chasm of loss is
all void in the
end and is the end
already begun for all
even as we are
submerged in the
substance of survival
surfacing into the
ecstasy of belonging
this is love and it
lies beyond our grasp
but within reach of
the leaning out and
toppling over of self
into you into Thou
there is a holiness
imprinted in the order
and chaos of this life
often fleeting always
erased by time it
echoes us into
eternity as the
beloved is held by
the love that turns
us all inside
out and we
see the imprint
that shines through
the darkness of
all time
substance and
sentiment have
their day but
You have made
made Your mark
and you my darling
have made yours

insufficiency

you have your memories
kind people say
but as frail flesh
that’s not enough I
yearn for your voice
and touch your eyes
in mine our bodies
synchronised in
complementarity
our minds seeking
meeting in our
glorious and vexing
differences our souls
entwined and fused
bringing a dimension
of freedom and bliss
below the struggles
of existence and
the ever–changing scenes
of life a drama lived
not only in this world
but committed and
already beyond in
the realm of the
ineffable the love
and power making
our something out
of nothing
and nothing is where
I feel and am without
you yet in that
nothing you are
there with the
nothing who is divine
help and mercy
is my plea in
the ashes of my
ardent glowing
thanks and
passion

planting

you ordered golden
leafed shrubs with
pendant gems for
flowers the ground
was duly readied
with love and care
all was lavished
on this bed of hope
and life as other
colours lit our lives
and garden nothing
though can last because
we will it neither you
and me in touch and
embrace nor the plants
we tend letting go and
hoping for nothing lets
the tendrils and hooks
of love weave our ways
and work into the clouds
and heavens that tower
above and beyond our
gardens of endeavour
and all plans and powers
are dashed by the storms
and droughts that stir
and strain our scene
we plant we die we
flower in a beauty more
glorious because it is
our end

Beyond reason

Lines written with one eye (my surgeon loves music) & inspired by Emily Dickinson

All matter lives when spirit sings
Amidst the atoms teem
The spinning ball aglows with love
Which reason cannot seem

The heart of all is not afar
Upon a distant shore
But set within our mundane span
Where less is more and more

This mystery lights a flickering world
Beyond our grasp and reach
A gift for all yet never owned
The music of love’s speech

telescoped time

a scene unfolds
the sparkling water
shimmering
under the
sun beguiles me
looking out to
a backdrop and
a plot
where all ages
lived and yet unlived
can pivot in
my span
and space
in mind and
form
no prospect
no moment
is empty of
meaning
and the end
is always now
as well as
to come
nothing new
is needed
but to see
the all offered
in the vacuity
of our unique
and eternal
createdness
authorship
is shared
but never
equally
because I
cannot imagine
beyond the margins
that enable
understanding
the sight
that has no
horizon
the beauty
of the
limitless void
whose love
touches
me from
nowhere

futility

aggression and violence
unbridled
destroy to grab
overpower
dominate
we are enslaved
by our inability
to live
with difference
and
outlaw injustice
transform our base
nature and
drives
with goodness
and compassion
maelstrom of
raving temper
cold calculation
of status and
control
nothing is gained
everything
becomes futile
only love’s
redemption can
remain

where is it?

it is
pain and death
and loss
that
will lead us
to the source
and
power of
meaning

revaluation

all my life
each day has
had an impact

an encounter beyond
me

but the material
world has
snatched me back
yet each time
less emphatically
less completely
I’ve been left
open to
another world
completely
beyond my control
and my experience

my soul mate,
my complete in other
has died
and yet
she is still
there
beyond my apprehension
but there
real
within?

no, beyond
but here
in a dialectic
that challenges
all reality
and truth
she lives
not just
in me
but there
where I know
but cannot enter

I live in a different
now
revalued
recalibrated
reset
re–viewed
there is a
new holy
radiating
into the nowness
of each
moment

here is the
gift of God
the glimpse of
the glory
yet to come

it does not
take away
the pain
the endurance
the aloneness
bleakness
emptiness
but fills
everything
with a strange
unfamiliar
hope
and presence
where I am
safe in the
hands
of the
one
who is all
and nothing
Jesus

name calling
for every
name

limen ~ the last step ...and the first

all our days lead to one
moment
when we encounter
the threshold
the mystery
the window
that opens
out from time

we change
we depart
we enter
we stop
and dissolve

unbelievably
this is becoming
the transformation
of time
and embodiment

seemingly
we become
lost
disappearing
more and more
into the
irretrievable
past

paschally
it is the springboard
of reality
of realisation
of release
the triumph
of life
over body
existence
biology

nothing is lost
if we can
but dare
to look
forward to
our end
my end
the end
of ends
and a step
over the
threshold
into inaccessible light

it’s a breath away
a lifetime away
it’s now
and
always
let
go

and look

unravelling

as the clock ticks
our lives unravel
from hopes to
commitment left
in a muddle
of confusions
what does it mean
to me
to us
to eternity
do we have
to wait to
understand
are all things
being remade
into a greater
reality which
I and we
cannot yet see
if ever
in the light of
finite sight
as each life
unravels
in giving
and spending
there are signs
and hints
that there is
so much more
our matter
matters
but not as
we suppose
for the wind
and fire
of spirit
bring a different
value and
dimension
we travel
but in one breath
into the
infinite light

forwards and backwards ~ an autumnal sigh

as the leaves
begin to fall
I remember
the fears and
uncertainties
of this walk
a year ago
a rehearsal
of loss and
leavetaking
yet sustained
by the presence
of voice and
touch

the final act
has ended
and once
again the
leaves fall
and all is
different
only memory
and its
twilight
are left
for winter
chills every
season and
the motion
of life is
unbalanced
even missing

forwards I go
or is it backwards
the eddies of
leaves
skitter and
rustle
echoing

nothing

are you
there

the abyss

at the prospect
of nature’s
winter
I have learnt
that the chill
of grief makes
the ice thinner
and the waters
below colder
as I face each
day forgetting
and remembering
treading on and
floundering
simultaneously
is this real
living

it is more real
yet less certain
than anything
I have ever known
but is the more
truthful picture
and experience
of human days
when we live
in paradox and
are held in
mystery even when
we fail to hear
see or feel it
our incompleteness
is such a gift
for it makes
us open and
vulnerable to
the other
who was and
is and is
to come

as strength
and familiarity
falter and
fall away
the abyss
is love

breathtaking

beauty and wonder
are all around
and within
a force that
winds us and
takes our breath
away
the rhythm of the
ordinary is
interrupted
stops us in
our tracks
overwhelms
and pauses
our activity
a pause that can
turn into forever
when loss
takes breath away
and life as we
know it

ceases

these caesurae
are not a pause for
breath
but a vacuum
when we are
taken
possessed
and even
abandoned

love is
ecstasy and
agony
apogee and
fundament
without it
we are clay
and nothing else
let the breath
take us
even if it costs
everything

over familiar

blessed to make
our home in this
world
too readily assuming
this is all there
is
reading the signals
and making patterns of
meaning
in our own language
our own image
yet there is more
always more
and it can be
found in
less
ego and importance
impede the
truth
and yearn for
comfort status
and affirmation
nothing is ours
owned and
possessed
yet dust and
matter are
touched by
transcendence
the love we miss
by familiarity and
self
whose immanence
is so simple
we overlook
and disregard
seeking the power
and glory
that deceives

put out to the
deep

overturn

catastrophe
in greek

all pervading
penetrating the
interstices of
life and
banishing all
sense of
normality
it may be
predicted but
always comes
out of
nowhere
rehearsed it
is always
utterly different
it brings the
unthinkable
and the
unbearable
leaving rubble
and ashes
what can arise

only miracle
brings balm
to the loss
and severance
of never seeing
or being the
same again
it is our lot

so through
all ages
we pray for
deliverance
lift up your
eyes lift up
your hearts

shaft

christmas is a gift
and promise for this
earth
yet its essence is the
heavenly places
and the
celestial light
this truth is neither
impaired nor
diminished by
cynical materialism
here is no
exercise in neurotic
transcendence
or fantasy
optimism or
naïve gullibility
no fear
no superstition
just light
undiminished light
pouring without limit
into our dark places
a love
that can be
cuddled and
crucified
so where are
the dead and
the downcast
in the heart
of a love
we cannot
conceive
save by
grace

and so it’s
up to us
to receive
and open
and share
the gift
no hoax
no fingers
crossed
no shutting
out of
truth
and thought
this birth is
more than a
new start
just the beginning
of eternity

pierce my
heart

fault line

christmas lies
on a fault line
it is the crack
in time that
answers the
cry for help
we sing and
dance and
feast and
forget the
offered hand
the thanks
that brings the
warmed heart and
opened mind only
to feel better on
our own terms
and make up
our own
meaning
as we fall
blindly and
joyously into
the abyss
of self–
pre–occupation
and short
term pleasure
forget the
draughty stable
murdered innocents
fleeing family
and splintered
cross
joy and
salvation can
never come
from there
the fault line
never ends

the seasons

circle or progress
they’re never the same
but follow a pattern
yet vary or disappear
over our globe

do they make us
count the passing of time
or mark the importance of life
mood and meaning
movement and similitude
reassuring and perplexing
where are we going

which is the first
the springing or the fading
the apogee or the stasis
high noon or deep death
and never do they stop and cease

but bear us along
to where
we are nurtured and buffeted
inspired and brought down
through the ever–changing

I seek but for what
I am met but can I see
the energy alone is not
the truth
or the way
or the life

the living mystery

death is so
much more than
absence
it defines value
and life
itself
it opens a
new dimension
of the
invisible
enfolds our
literal limits
in the voice
and verse of
silence
remembered and
unremembered
it welcomes us
to a certainty
where all fear
ends and
untrammelled
life begins
the chasm and
division of
grief
is reintegrated
into the greater
truth and
meaning
we can neither
make nor
possess
this mystery
challenges
all our
certitudes
to give
a home
we can
never
lose

inside a second

eternity is hidden
in every
second
neither locked
nor bound
but waiting
to complete
and encourage
transforming
what we think
is true
and lying
as a gift
to transform
a lifetime
every age
and all
human hopes
and ideas
it flies
literally
in the face
of reason
and subverts
earthly powers
by promise
and the ineffable
beyondness
of being
there is a name
spoken
and a presence
released
why can’t I
trust
love
only knows

knife edge

faith is a
knife edge
precarious and
grace alone
provides the
balance
there is no
effort or poetry
on our part
just pure
unmerited love
which changes
all human
possibilities
the invitation
and the risk
are one
certainty is
blind
and certitude
paralysis
it is the
beyondness
that takes
our hand
stepping into
the nothingness
that is the
kingdom and
the glory
the knife edge
is ours
on loan from
birth and
hurtling us
into light
and life
through death’s
door and
frail flesh’s
finitude

the flash
of the blade
is the
epiphany of
salvation

petrified (grief is fear)

from stone is
released the
spirit of
revelation
and presence
sculptors have
chipped away
the imprisoning
chunks of heavy
suffocating
substance so
that christ is
raised and
human forms
given the breath
of being
for me my
love has been
reclaimed into
dust and the
dead weight
of cold stony
history only
memories
escape into
the warmth
and light of today
with the fragility
of possibility for
us and a loss that
is shared and
celebrated as we
are one in
the fearless
moment and
no clock and
scythe of
mortality can
separate and
bury

the stony path
is trod
where will it lead
I cannot
wait

artificial light (the penumbra of grief)

have I taken
the sunshine
for granted
the golden light
of my beloved?

bathed and warmed
caressed and cared
lavished and loved
by rays of life
abundantly
blessing
and making
sense of every
hour and day

the light has gone
the sun no longer shines
and I live only in
artificial light
seeing but not
recognising the
immediate gift
of time as present
and
infinity

yet it is still there
but the rays can
no longer fall on me
until I leave this world

what a beckoning
what a dawn

cristo re

his kingship is
foreign to us
for his kingdom
is not of this
world yet deeply
embedded within
its darkness and
suffering its
warmth and
joy and light
the throne is
place of eclipse
abandonment
and agony
the crown the
shame and
hurt as sharp
as nails but
thorns of
hurtful disdain
robed in the
lesions of the
scourge and
held by the
wrist split
nails this
power is lanced
laterally to
guarantee its
extinction
here love reigns
and reaches every
hope heart hurt
it never stops
till all time melts
into the glory first
lit by easter dawn

all life is blessed
and saved all
power is judged
and brought
to justice
the first is
last the last
is first the
inverse realm
of incandescent
divinity and
inebriate love
cristo regna

freefall

how long
does this
poem
run

don’t
measure
it

let go
let in
let be

the being
defies
the clock
the tick
the unceasing
unstoppable
passing
of time

we have
met
in time
so
don’t
let go

no
no
let go
was it
only time
that united
us

the moment
is filled
and cluttered
by the
irretrievability
of the past
the transience
of the present
the impossible
possibilities
of the future

there is
only the
present
and never
the present

for
as soon as
I possess it
it is
no
more

below it
lies a reality
which possesses
us
it is never
mine
but always
yours
and ours

enjoy the
journey
of the years
if you can
but never
live there
alone

the words
of this
poem
are hurtling
to their
close

it is the
collision with loss
sacrifice
which allow
union
and belonging

being found
in the
moment
and losing
the powers
of all
time

life and
meaning
telescope

into
the void
that is love

into
which
we freefall

into
the grace
of the
everlasting arms

the puzzle

how many pieces
I need to know
but cannot
they interlink
uniquely and
bear an image
and pattern
colour and shape
but only partly
I reach out seeking
the interlocking
that increases
and fulfils
a union that
is part of the
completing I
can never know
till every piece
is found and
joined far
beyond my
place and time
yet never without
me – and
you – and
the love that
makes us
one

black hole

how much do
we know
when our limit
and our minds
already know
that most of
what is
defies our
understanding
where time
and space
do not exist
as we do
and the
mystery of
creation
beckons us
to wonder
and worship
beyond the
mirrors we
prize and
vaunt
what matters
is the miracle
that we are not
the author or
the purpose
but the
beloved and
promised
an energy
and love
beyond the
blackest hole
and
bleakest
heart

journey's end

I am not well–travelled
yet fascinated by
places and maps
where oh where is
my beloved the
focus and centre
of my life
I have seen her journey’s
end in the flesh
and consigned the precious
remains to dissolution
and earth
yearning to know where
and how she now is
I feel her within
beside
on the air and
in my interior sight
memory is such a different
place and its journey
can take me in the
wrong direction
as I ride the tide
of time how I need to
know my love is
safe amidst the
foaming changing
waters of a life
that has crashed
on a far and
distant shore

till death do us part

I never realised what
this truly meant
it’s over
and in this life
you’re on your own
again

but I am no longer
I
my consciousness is
formed by
sacramental union
an ecstasy and
a constant
waking and perhaps
e’en sleeping
I am yours and
you are mine

the presence of God
and the joys of love
eternal
are mediated through

this gateway
and union

grief is a new
inadequate reality
because that is what
I wish and know
to be true
no will to change
to a world where it
is as though
you have never been
for in me you
are my always and
for ever

there is no death
I
cannot be parted
utterly lost
completely found
nothing
but the
ravishing madness of
love

descent

I walk down the
stairs seeing you
leave our home for
ever – stricken
by the fate that awaits
us all a descent
which I can never
forget and is burnt
into my happiness
disabling and souring
it for it is together
that our differences beat
in heart and soul
and now the daily
trigger of loss the tearing
pang of absence
of oblivion
every step down
I need
to follow but
please take
my hand

one moment

ice sheets and
desert
waste spaces
or holy ground
it is my heart
and yours
that coldly
warms the
earth to
extinction
closed minds
comfort focused
habits and
fear of personal
loss the ego
and herd instinct
for gain triumph
possession and
status they hold
truth ransom
wills immobilised
by the blindness
of immediacy
the future is
my responsibility
yours and ours
there will be no
joy or fulfilment
without the cost
of giving
thought
of giving
up the moment’s
pleasure
the cause of
the bleakest
effect
neither is the
future mine
only this
moment of
holiness and
surrender

curtain up

if all the world
is a stage
has the curtain
gone up
or is this
the dress rehearsal
do I know my part
my lines are ad libbed
rather than learnt
and how does it all end

interval

yet there is a meaning
and an audience
the one who watches
is also a player
if we can but
recognise him
this drama is an
act of love
and runs to the
end of time
drawing all life
together in a
final scene when
we bow
and hear the applause
as we go out into
the dazzling
light

crucible

in darkness
forgiveness is
born
in pain
redemption is
borne
in loss
recovery is
drawn
in death
true hope
can dawn

when I
am nothing
God
can touch
and create

empty

the crucible
contains the
will
heated by the
light
of vision
transformed by the
ineffable

love

In life, in death ~ a villanelle of the heart

In life, in death, love fills each heart:
Enjoy its riches, treasure rare.
Endure the pain when death does part.

The eyes are locked at union’s start:
The hearts enjoin each life to dare –
In life, in death love fills each heart.

And so they form a lovers’ chart
To journey as with each they share;
Endure the pain when death does part.

Our days are changed by passion’s art,
Routines are charged with ardour’s flair:
In life, in death, love fills each heart.

The knocks of life that make us smart
Are forged as links that form a prayer:
Endure the pain when death does part.

Love’s arrow pierces as a dart
To make us one through every care.
In life, in death, love fills each heart.
Endure the pain when death does part.

inside the music

inside the music
there is no time
and all time

art possesses us
uniquely and
takes us to
forever and
beyond within
where we are
possessed and held

here are the margins
and the centre
where the physical
is transcended
and transported
whilst inhabiting
each now and me
without it we
are empty
empty
of hope and spirit
of love and truth
for beauty is the
kiss of grace and
the touch of love

melt my senses
and my will
that its notes
and colour lines
and form may
take us all into
its giver’s heart

ruthless

is the love
that is left
seeking your
warmth and
embrace

is the hollow
emptiness
of each moment
scoured of its
meaning

is the day
that follows
day when
the sun forgets
the dawn

is the waiting
for your return
and the road
which keeps me
from you

is the call
to carry on
be busy move
on find new make do
without you

is the world
that has forgotten
or half–remembered at best
your beauty and
your being

is the life
strangled by
death and
heartlessly
cast adrift

is the voice
unspoken amidst
the teeming chatter
and endless noise
just silence

is the cold
that chills and
freezes unawares
my core
cruel ice

is the clock
that ticks
away a future
barren and bereft
of you

trading gifts

it is just
what we wanted
or is it
we have traded
the gift in
for what we
want this
moment
or perhaps we
can make it
something else
so it lets me
wallow in my
or our take on
earthly delights
let’s ice reality
over so senses
triumph over
the heart
and the cold
and hungry
tortured and
wearied are
forgotten
no longer
the heart
and purpose
of the gift
it is just
what we
wanted
fun rather
than joy
escape
rather than
salvation
survival not
life

royalty

it is the oil
of chosenness
to live for
the other
and all others
a life apart
in the heart
of all
to lead in
care and
protection
with power
that serves
beyond choice
to make
a unity owned
by none and
all
its nature
comes from
love and
for the pain
of flesh and
doubt
to show the
panoply of a
kingdom
won and
given by
hands we
pierce but
who hold all
time
on a tree
that kills
yet lives for ever
this crown
is sharp
and dazzling
blooded by
the head
whose heart
is eternal

power

it takes strength
to lift and carry
the life that is
gone
but the power that
endures lies within the
dead
for new and risen
life
is beyond us all
yet lay in the
tomb
and carries the
dissolving flesh
into a future we
cannot calibrate or
even influence
all the king’s horses
even the king’s men
have no power to
raise us all who
have passed through
cast down discarded
inhabited and thought we
owned
there is no putting
together again
our repair
lies in
abandonment
that relinquishment
which lets in
the power beyond
flesh and
cannot rest
carry us now
and at our
end

mid–august assumption

laying aside
power and importance
self and pretence
we are lifted
into truth
and glory

grace and mercy meld
mary filled
as love
enters the
human stage
and takes
her to himself
completely

grace and mercy
remain
for all
till the end of
time

advent lost

leafless days as
winter’s sparse colour
and shrinking light
lead us to a gift
unasked but beyond
price and comprehension
of its meaning
it happened and we
have lost its blessing
by confusing
anticipation with
satisfaction and
preparation with
celebration
it is the emptiness
and the need the
power of the future
owned only by
the otherness of
love where
holiness completes
even those who
never can be until
the breath has joined
the spirit and the
self has lessened
to nought
the leaves will
return not because
we quaff and indulge
pretend and shut our
eyes only when we
wait

and hope

Ruth

Love’s new beginning born amid the corn
From loss a journey made in faith and loyalty true
A sign of hope and trust in covenant sworn
This life brings joy and gleans a treasure: heaven’s due

So many years have passed since Bible’s view
Another Ruth brought me the joy of love’s new dawn
Our souls entwined and into one we grew
Till cruel death did strike and left me all forlorn

bound

more than
any vows
I am bound
to you by
an irresistible
power of
hypostatic
union where
my essence
and yours
are melded
in the fusion
of a marriage
of flesh and
spirit
now a stranger
to this world
treading time
like water
awaiting the
submersion and
the ascent
when I am
as free
as you

the outsider

my life
and yours
draws a
line
creating division
inside and
outside
I would it
were not so
though it
makes life
clear and
comforting
there is always
the other
beyond my
line and yours
and with that
stranger
dwells the
love which
creates
redeems
and sustains
it is there
that each
of us
must live
with the
eternal mystery
of the one
who is always
beyond
my margin
here is hope
joy
and the
real future

incandescence

no trick of the
light
or the past and
present
truth burns
love irradiates
renews
but never
on my terms
the stone
I place
cannot move
lest I be
overturned
I cannot
see
only the
risen
can be
seen
there is
no sense
only
no thing
and all

simulacrum

nothing is at is seems
reality is never mine
my neighbour redefines it
and creation is not
eternity
the path to truth
accepts provisionality
the road of promise
demands abnegation
losing life to
gain it
takes us
to a mystery
that is so real
all else is
passing but
leading us
through the
power of sacrifice
into all truth
and the joy
that has no end
truth’s calibration
is out of reach
the focus
that enables
us to see
is a gift
and a
contradiction
I can only
see with
other’s eyes
and the other
is the Father’s Son
what am I
a father’s child
a mother’s babe
yet eternity is
sown in my soul
and I must go
where love’s
substance calls
nothing is at it seems

on the brink

we are always on
the brink
whether we know
it or not
there is a chasm
over which we might topple
into oblivion
or eternity
just like every
breath
of every
life
somehow it’s
not really
mine
I am always
in need
dependent

on the
brink

the unknown
unfathomable
is a friend
a voice
even a touch
others share
it
but they are
not the
One

the brink
who brings
a new dimension
and new life

black minutes

poured into two
minutes
an immeasurable
torrent of suffering
needless and
critical
for tyranny’s
cruelty is
unnecessary
obscene yet
must be
resisted and
stopped
the sacrifice
is beyond pity
and reason
an aching gape
a chasm of
catastrophe that can
only be healed
by a love beyond
compare
hanging
outstretched
reaching all
time
and taking experience
frailty humanity
darkness
to the everlasting

peace still eludes
us in this now
we cling to a
poppy whose seed
is black as
golgotha

let in the light
never forget

humility

pouring myself into
today and even tomorrow
am I taming or unleashing
the primal powers of
truth and mercy
justice and love
art does it by
faithfulness and prophecy
artifice and commerce
science by adventure
and innovation
exploitation and reward
but me –
and you –
dare we live what is never
and can never be
ours
but the mystery of
transcendence in immanence
unknowability expressed
in the diary and the dross
in the risk of a greatness
and a beauty
that has no end

breath

start at the end
she died with a cross
in her hand and my
hand in the other
and the last words
I love you
the body failed
was stricken
doomed

but living
is more than mechanics
or chemistry
we fly not earthbound
but seeking the heavens
with mind and imagination
the spirit soars
unfettered
breathing a different air
from another realm

live there and thus
learn and share
and teach and give of
this eternal infinity
invading existence
and bringing us to life

let go and only death
is left behind
for love can find us
and take us
to himself
even now
even me

elegy

the bell tolls
for us
all
never again
will things
be the same
and this
life and
this death
impart
a daily truth

deep
sonorous
resonance

the knell
vibrates
into us
deep within
it is the
pulse of
creation
and the
signifier
of all
nothingness
from which
we come
and to which
we journey

whose threshold
is the welcome
of the void
beyond

whose mystery
brushes our
senses with
a promise
and no end

quo vadis

the compass
the map and
the route
so simple
but where
and why
am I travelling
the journey
is inside
or there is
no point
and I am
not alone
even when
I am on my own
being is
companionship
breaking bread
sharing
so the route
can never be
solely mine
and I must tread
by trust
and embrace
the other and
the unknown
days will run out
form wear out
but the journey
takes us over
the threshold
into the meaning
that is always now
never
and always

hodie

the gift
once given
can never
be withdrawn
all things on
earth and
all people
are changed
as the creator
is born and
set in time
today becomes
eternal and
human flesh
touches eternity
every tick of
time all moments
are met in
infinite love
the gentle hand
of the saviour
yet to be pierced
sets free
existence
into life
when promise
fulfils every
day with
hope as
substantial
as the present
moment and
the ancient
of days
incarnation
is now
and ever
birth is death
and new life
as the entry
into glory
is never unknown
nor deferred
hodie christus
natus est

ajar

the light seeps
through
the door is not
fully closed
there is a beam
a shaft of hope
that beckons
invites
even welcomes
to where we
cannot see
fully and
whose life
seems separated
do I push
or pull
hope or struggle
accept or challenge
to cross the
threshold
that is always
there
this is the
nature of
truth and
reality
partial and
whole
relative and
absolute

the one
who is
abundant
thrilling
newness
throws open
one door
and whose
hand turns
the lock open
on all
others

zenith

the longest day comes
and goes so fast
the peak and climax
of daylight and the
dreams of summer
the longing spirit seeks
the zenith of sun’s
shine and happiness
in every day
only to seize what
we can in any moment
and allow its gift to
be the rays of hope
for every winter’s hour
and dismal day
a climax that can
somehow last a lifetime
of solstice years and
yield an inner joy
and meaning lit by
an essence not of our
making and making
us something truly other
it is the shortest truth
and greatest light

emptiness

the manger is more
than poverty it
is the place of human
emptiness
which love in frail
flesh fills and
never leaves an
emptiness
that leads to a
time of homeless
wandering and a
bleak agonising
execution with
a borrowed
stone–cold tomb
emptiness
is all I have to offer
emptiness
is how we are filled
so the angels light
the darkness and
banish the silence
with their music
a boy is born
a saviour is given
peace is promised
not in the fulness
of our busy self–soaked
activities and
introspection but in
the eternal vista of
the strange and miraculous
emptiness
that is mine and
our ungraspable
joy of the midnight
void
that lies in my heart
and the world’s
gratia plena

punctuation

the marks that
make the
meaning
are found not
on the page
alone
these are the
rituals and
grace notes of
love
the touch
word
symbol
name
story
that caresses
one another
and so
all life
with that
gentle joy
of union
and belonging
it is unique
yet universal
beyond price
and slips away
and dissolves
over the horizon
when the sun
sets for the
last time on
us

can its pain
in loss and
absence
reach to a
new dawn

waiting is all
that is
left

mystery

the mystery
is the meaning
matter carries
spirit but its
limits are the
truth of creation
the darkness and
the negative sing
too of the mystery
which invites us
as one and all
into that
uncomprehending
nothingness
connecting
and redeeming
into the reality
beyond all
thought and
understanding
the realm of
affection passion
and love that
catches us
and fires us
and takes us
into all truth
mystery
takes
flesh

belonging

the root of being
is a far cry from
the transactions
of life
there is a union
a defining oneness
that penetrates and
binds into the soul
it can never let go
eternity is locked
in matter and mind
so spirit can soar
and imagination
liberate every moment
it is physical and
eternal unalloyed
and unallayed
pluming and cresting
into its paradoxical
depth and ascent
where humanity
encounters its
source and destiny
we belong not just
now and here
but beyond and above
where words and thoughts
fail and the music
alone makes us one

howl

the smirk of pain and death
when illness becomes our life

the breaking heart of helplessness
at my beloved’s plight
felled and stricken by the
unseen destroying foe

it is only the holy heart
that makes sense of this
dissolution and departing
that cries and howls at the
powerlessness of parting

set in time and destroyed by it
it is only release that
offers hope beyond all that
crumbles and deceives with
false promises of certitude

only the heart which both fails
and survives and conquers
leads us inwards and beyond
to a union which has no words

it is the music of which our fleeting notes
sing on and play a new dimension
where we soar and are taken
by the power of which
we only can glimpse

horizon

the solemn rites are over
my beloved’s frame is
reduced to ashes but
the hooks of love and
passion remain unfastened
in anguish and burning loss
here and not here
the presence of absence
the faulty glimpses through
memory and triggers of
experiences shared and
treasured now in a world
never in the present but
always over a horizon
is this evidence of life
the glowing embers of
a love so real and full
of a heady passion
deepest friendship
one flesh
the kingdom
of beyond
and the partial nothingness
of now
will it be sufficient for
the journey on or
is the horizon so close
that I am almost hid
and spent
yet that is always the
way ahead
one uncertain step
the hesitated leap
the impulsive
hurling into a future
where I must find you
forever

threshold

the step between
earth and
heaven the
entrance into
a new dimension
beyond embodiment
yet intimated
by every change
of level and
direction every
entry and
exit every
birth and death
each new year
we try again
yet do we see
the step the
invitation to
add vision and
adventure the
heart as well as
the mind to
endeavour so
effort and will
are more than
matched by the
power of mystery
and the
transformation
wrought by the
unknown
we are taken and
changed into the
unique newness
of every moment
as we step into
eternity

one step
takes us
over
as our
hand is
taken by
love
unmerited
unsought
and often
no always
unknown

three earths short

the sum of
our civilisation
is flawed
we live beyond
our means
and exhaust
the earth
that is never
ours just a
gift for a
while
if we dare
share our
present comfort
with the dying
needy world
we are three
earths short
of resources
the sum
cannot lie
however we
frame it
progress is
found in less
and wisdom
and compassion
in cost and
sacrifice
the time is
short and
there is only
one earth
imagine that
before it is
too late

we don’t
need this
so true
give away
give up
give

beached

formed in the day of a death and written in the night

The tide of my life
has gone out
never to return.

The waves that
floated my days
are no longer
crashing around
me with energy
and joy.

Instead, I list,
lop–sided
amidst the hard and sharp
ungiving shingle
of grief and the
damp sodden sands
of sorrow.

The topography of
my coast has been
eroded by loss
and the waters
have been turned
away.

Slowly, will I now
begin to change –
unknown to the
surge that brought
such delight.

O wind and weather
of life’s fortune
break into a storm
that will bring back
the magical waters
on which I bobbed
and whose surging
currents were the
grand passion of
my years!

O that they could.

teetering

the water laps
gently in my view
there is always
an edge
the difference of the
numinous
a crisis
an ending
seemingly secure
in body mind
society and
prospect
there is always
an edge
and we fall over
and into it
to discover the
dimension of
trust and otherness
a perpetual falling
with a new clarity
and purpose
of being found
and held
will it ever fail
complacency decides

reconstruction

the winter is so long
and spring just an
idea not even a
promise on the
surface the rebuild
looks good with a
smile and a
performance as
before yet inside
not even a wreckage
a strange unfamiliar
pervading intense
emptiness
the memories and
their signals promote
the tears and a
glimmering warmth
of all that is
lost
egged on by the kindness
or incomprehension
of others to get busy
be positive thankful
and all will be well
is not how things are
or ever can be
there is no recovery only
gradual change decay
into the oneness that
is lost only love
can reach out from
our nowhere and
retrieve a meaning
I have never possessed
but whose joy I glimpsed
beyond words

surrender

the word and the note
challenge us with meaning
it is in concert
that they speak
and confront
and transport
so that
the heart
can liberate
the mind
and beauty and
truth
permeate the
prison of
self

yield to time
for in its passing
unfolds another
world another
promise
unknown without
it and
deafened by
its absence
surrender

surrender to
a power that
brings a unique
joy
an unpossessable
truth and a
vision
that sees
beyond the fleeting
moment

so that we all
belong
to the mystery
we both long
for and fear
that all that is more
than anything
I or we
can know
as mine or ours
but the music
and the meaning
in which we drown
and breathe
and live –
pure love

shadows

the world is still
lit on the outside
but the shadows are now my home
I never thought
I would know this
that living is so
soft, ephemeral
and insubstantial
I never realised that this reality
is precious cast by
the love that leads
me from the physical
and sensual
from the intellectual and
aesthetic and moral
into the spirit
in which all triumphs
and glories
all time and pleasures
are dappled
dappled into a
new language
in which all is
provisional until
the shades lengthen
and we are taken
into the ecstasy
of perpetual light

erasure

traces remain
but the vitality
and presence
are underground
background music
to the activity
of the now
a remembrance
but only for some
all the effort
and energy of
writing a life
now rubbed out
as matter can
no longer carry
spirit and the
breath is beyond
capture and the
fire uncontained
by flesh and
thought
this span of
dust is rewritten
by the still
point
and the absence
is a truth that
reforms all earth
bound living
taking us all
out invisibly
and eternally
into the now
that can be
never and
always

A villanelle of beauty

Truth and beauty show us love’s intent:
Find and live this mystery of our sense.
Trust is all – in death and life’s assent.

Line and paint our lives can reinvent:
When art shatters fear and self’s defence
Truth and beauty show us love’s intent.

Dare I face the scorn of world’s dissent –
Risk creator’s view with no pretence?
Trust is all – in death and life’s assent.

The realm of light and heavenly scent
Transports our limits by art immense.
Truth and beauty show us love’s intent.

Reason’s chill is warmed by art’s ferment –
Brave the new untrammelled gift intense.
Trust is all – in death and life’s assent.

Heart and mind discover love’s consent,
Speaking out regardless of offence.
Truth and beauty show us love’s intent:
Trust is all – in death and life’s assent.

the ebb tide and the flood

unceasing save for
the brief slack water
the tideway reveals
and conceals taking
to itself the mystery
of passing time
its energy unabated
like a pulsing vein
it brings a wisdom
and a rhythm to
our troubled spirits
speaking of a universe
unpossessed and
unpossessable by self
informing us
of gain and loss as
equal gifts in a journey
of limits before the
sublime dying birth
when we are truly lost
and found on
eternity’s shore

tomorrow

what is the point of
tomorrow
it separates me and
us from all other
creatures
and when it comes
it has gone and
is replaced by
another
so we assume it
will always come
and be outs
what folly
and blindness
if all our planning
and dreaming
ignores the
truth
and its reality
that nothing is
mine or
ours
even the present
moment
we can only be
found and
possessed
it will make us
humble and
utterly different
in a now
whose tomorrow
is now
but never
mine

mancando

what is the
music that
has no time
to contain
it leaking
out beyond
the control
of the clock
where there is
no passing or
motion and
no control or
power but
mystery and
the overwhelming
all of nothingness
where joy and
fulfilment are
found in eternal
loss
beyond us yet all
gain
and before us as a
glimpse
as the music
plays

floating on my back

when I’m not
flailing and
floundering
panicking and drowning

I float
on my back
gazing
helplessly
at heaven
with no
earthly bearing
why am I here
what has toppled
my world
into the waters
of chaos
it is the lethe
the styx
the waters of death
no longer
together
riding the waves
as one
exhilaration
trust
adventure
daring
never alone
but one with
each and the ocean
of life

waiting now for rescue

37

yes thirty seven
years and five
days
of marriage
a belonging
fusion
passion
that made one
life two
people
with sparks of
joy and difference
extraordinary
depth
and an eternity
blessed in our
midst
and now its
gone
till death do us
part
so real
final
but god is
relationship
and this
absence
emptiness
so painful
and disfiguring
no longer
knowing who
I am
for I am
lost forever in
you
that is
the meaning
of love
and to it
there is no
end
each step
now is
beyond
comprehension
all thanks
for
37

The Choice ~ a question of faith

It could be just my opinion
My point of view
My prejudice

So dare I choose?
And will my choice be binding?
What if I get it wrong?

The whole of life can be frittered
Away
By worry
By fear of getting it wrong

If I choose life
If I choose love
Do I lose out on my freedom
On me?

The answer is hard
Love and life cost everything
There is a ‘me’ beyond price
And that is all that remains

It is a ‘me’ that is lost in us
In you
In eternity

If I risk this
I can have everything
But it may well look like nothing

That is where the truth lies
It is the future
And the meaning of both
The present and the past

Not choosing is no choice
Yet a choice as well
It goes nowhere but
Back on myself
Who has no lasting future
And a past and a present
That is already fading

Choose
And live without
Counting the cost

I dare
We dare
Love is all that matters

Human Weather

Bethlehem is cut off
angels shepherds and
wise men
may get there
but can the
rest of us

Bethlehem is cut off
being born isn’t enough
being reached
believed
is so hard when
the climate is
so harsh

Bethlehem is cut off
the snow drifts
formed by
habit familiarity
and prejudice
banked high by the
winds of fear insecurity
and rivalry

Bethlehem is cut off
what can we do
about the weather
our climate is
formed by our choices
choose love
let in the light
of faith
be formed
by hope

Bethlehem was cut off
the clouds of self
blew away
to reveal God’s world
in which we have
our place
and who embraces us in
the infant arms that
will span the cross
and bring us home
God’s son shines

Love's Depths ~ a villanelle of water and life

God stills the storms of waters’ might:
The spirit moves to set us free.
No sea can quench love’s fire and light.

Creation brings our day and night –
From chaos deep we’re brought to be.
God stills the storms of waters’ might.

Our hearts and minds beset by fright –
From war and want we’re never free.
No sea can quench love’s fire and light

Christ comes to save us from our plight,
His grace is our salvation’s key.
God stills the storms of waters’ might.

From depths of death to heaven’s height;
God’s life is nailed to hatred’s tree.
No sea can quench love’s fire and light

The dead are raised by Jesus’ right:
Call on his name – on bended knee.
God stills the storms of waters’ might:
No sea can quench love’s fire and light.

For Peter Futcher

Inside the silence

Music sweeps through us
And over us
Soaking our senses
Overwhelming reason
With the notated
Desire of the Spirit

But there is
Another music
Inside the silence
Behind the pulse
Of realisation
And performance

It has no beginning
Or end
Is always there
Within and outside
Everyone
Everything

All verities are silenced
By this beauty
And difference
Which reaches
Out to us
But can never
Be possessed

Enchanting
Transforming
Redeeming
And challenging
Demanding
Destroying
The certitude and gravity
Of self

Is this peace
Eternity
Love?

It calls through
The staves of
Every year
To sing our names
Take us
To Your heart

It won't add up

our sums don’t add up
when it comes to mystery
so when infinity leaps
into human years
the material world
uninformed by the spiritual
can’t cope

yet the Bethlehem birth
contracts everything
into the love and promise
of a baby
and expands our horizons
and possibilities
beyond all reckoning
and imagining

but it doesn’t stop there

it subverts all power
and every human choice
and value

seeing the same world
changing and growing
by love and purpose
means yielding and
dying
to belong to the realm
of which we are
neither creator nor controller
only inheritor

the Bethlehem gift
just doesn’t figure
for the powerful and mighty
for if we receive it
we find our world
invaded, taxed and
displaced from home
there is nowhere to stay
and we will have to flee
and innocents will die

you can’t make this up
when love is a brother
and dies before you
and for you
to take us all where
nothing figures
but truth and peace
and justice
and joy and love
his hand reaches out:
take it

Embedded God

out of sight
and deep within
the Word is formed
in flesh

like you and me
bathed in the waters
of the womb
the union grows
as life forms and
shapes a future
that comes from before
the beginning

ignored and irrelevant
to the consuming
pleasures of selfish flesh
it is the only flesh
that is formed from
and destined for
glory

the unlived living
the hidden glory
the unseen truth –
the growing saviour
is always present

beyond our understanding
yet deep within us
the advent of our God
is set in our unformed
strength and
blind dependency

he comes
to breathe our air and
cry our tears
into the courts of heaven

stop

stop and feel this heartbeat of love
– if you dare!

Waiting Room

Advent is a waiting room
in a world where there is
so little room for waiting.

disconnection
on hold
adrift
passive
done unto
…everything that is contrary
to the zeitgeist of
our egocentric gravity

Ignore the diversions of triviality
Listen
Be still

Love and truth and hope speak out
in the mists of prophets
discounted and marginalised – voices
that cut to the bone
of our fragile, arrogant flesh.

We miss the glory,
enchanted by the mirror
of importance and pleasure.

There is a greater joy and purer light
that lies in a different reflection:
we look but we do not see,
we hear but never resonate
with heaven’s promise and
simple treasure.

God is coming – and has come – in
fragility and vulnerability:
it is only in waiting,
in making room –
disarming the defences
of our ambient power –
that we can be free and be found
by the future
born in
Bethlehem.

Veni, veni Emmanuel.

Beyond comprehension

Below the lights and tinsel
lies another world
which we are keen to deny
and smother in any way we can.
Snow does it, our hearts and minds
long to…
Forget – as much as you can –
pretend, cover up and escape –
if only for a day or two.

The manger is rough and splintered,
the stable cold and bare,
the parents displaced
and far away from home.

The Christ comes to our dis–ease,
our pain and insecurity;
he is born amongst strangers
in a land invaded by a distant power.

Our hearts and minds are no different.

Yet love fills the vacuum of the interim
barrenness of meaninglessness, despair
and abandonment.

Fear is the fuel of our needy coldness
and there in its terrifying grip –
God is born
– to journey to your grave and mine.
Hope reaches out from tomorrow
and eternity.

This story is not to be understood
but to overcome every other
thought and certainty.
A distant birth is a present friend
– there is no moment or place but this one
which takes us beyond all that is
to all that shall be.

There is but one change, one response:
believe and trust – risk
that life is more than this
because love is born in the darkness.

And the darkness comprehends it not.

A Lenten gift

Lent is more than a season,
it is a gift:
the dark side of
our human living
is exposed to the light.
Inner darkness is confronted;
external hardship is allowed
to test our confidence
in our strengths and allow
humility and reality to
recalibrate our ego and our will
– alone.
It is a time when grace emerges
as our real consolation and hope;
on our own we will founder:
we are not self–sufficient
but utterly dependent
on the One who gives us life
and those among whom we exist.

a stone is not our bread
the pinnacle drop is not a source of wonder
the bended knee to evil does not win the Kingdom

Here is the gift of God in Jesus:
frail holiness made strong
by faith in Father’s will
and faithfulness in Word
– now made flesh.

We are the wilderness;
He is the bread,
the wonder
and the glory:
in forty days,
in human span,
in dying breath,
in all that is to come.

A Villanelle for Lent

Take now the path of love and truth to grow:
Find time and space, let go of self and pray;
Choose life and pass beyond the things you know.

Our love is but a bloom with seeds to sow –
Each life is frail and formed in mortal clay:
Take now the path of love and truth to grow.

Uneven days embrace both joy and woe,
Our thoughts and feelings change – they cannot stay.
Choose life and pass beyond the things you know.

When truth is found we needs must face the foe
And challenge wrong in moral cause and fray.
Take now the path of love and truth to grow.

No inner peace is found in comfort’s flow;
Alluring pleasure does not win the day;
Choose life and pass beyond the things you know.

The ‘yes to life’ involves our saying ‘no’ –
A line is drawn by living love’s true way.
Take now the path of love and truth to grow.
Choose life and pass beyond the things you know.

Easter +50

The inner and the outer worlds
blend and fuse and liberate
taking us beyond in the here
and into eternity in the now

Barriers fall and
we live in our limits
yet on the other side of
mortality and self

A new language never of
our own making possesses
and burns uniting us in a
meaning of mystery and many
when we know only because
we are fully known

Energy bursts and explodes
from the smallest thought or thing
and simultaneously there is an
inner calm and creative turmoil
beyond our understanding

This is a way of being alive
that is always new
but has existed for ever –
it comes as a gift and
costs everything and nothing

It is born in love
and borne on love:
it is never mine yet
always possessing –
holy, spirit, wisdom, life –
contradiction of reason and
paradox of possibilities

Breath that we draw
into the inner world
and fire that is exhaled
from the soul

Fusion of all fragments
fall flame flow
into the moment
and enter –
veni

Advent Waiting ~ an incomplete truth?

Is all our living a time of waiting?
Each moment incomplete and always borne
by time’s ceaseless flow?

We make ourselves complete in our incompleteness
by being at the centre and recalibrating all else.

The past is irretrievable and as good as fiction:
all that you need is me in the present moment
and the future can be mine…

But it’s not true. The future might not be mine
because I might not be the future.
If flesh and blood, the pulse of being,
passes away, what is left?

Does anything mean anything?
The meaning is hidden, beyond us,
and yet within us.

The other has made us:
the other is the mystery
that defies my mortality
and will come

in time
in humility
in birth
in love
in death.

Advent: the days of the year grow shorter
and the nights longer
yet in the dark a light has shone
and it comes always
now
and has a name
a hand to take us and lead us.

There is no waiting for this truth,
this completeness.

Hold out your hand;
open your mind and heart;
let go.
The waiting is filled
with hope
and faith
and love.

The Wedding at Cana

The empty jars at Cana’s feast
Surprise with joy when wine has ceased –
A mother’s plea to God’s own Son
Brings wonder when his will is done.
The wedding guests, the passing hour,
Must wait upon the Saviour’s power:
As servants trust, the jars are filled
With water plain – yet steward thrilled.
He hails the groom for richest wine;
The gift of love from guest divine.

Maranatha

The waiting is over
when Jesus is born
but time unfolds
and traps each of us
in each moment.
Our waiting now is
waiting on eternity
as we live each day
and interpret the past
and look to and
plan for the future.
The present moment
is infinite in its possibilities
as it lies in the manger,
dies on a cross,
is raised to new life
and claims all our living.
Maranatha

A Christmas lullaby for the soul

Metre: 88 88 88

Stella

This baby born in distant years
Is yet a brother to us all;
God’s love and joy – and pain and tears –
Begin in time in form so small.
Sing, sing all people of the earth –
For endless joy in Bethlem’s birth!

A helpless babe; th’Eternal Word:
This holy birth confounds all sense.
The angels sing – their music heard
By those whose love has no pretence.
Sing, sing all people of the earth –
For endless joy in Bethlem’s birth!

The keenest mind and simplest heart
Are taken to the stable bare
Where humble love eclipses art
And reason’s need to challenge prayer.
Sing, sing all people of the earth –
For endless joy in Bethlem’s birth!

The peace of every age lies here:
A child to grow and save each soul.
For we belong: God’s love so near –
Our broken selves made one and whole.
Sing, sing all people of the earth –
For endless joy in Bethlem’s birth!

Breath, beasts and straw

Another breath –
but this one is God’s
– his first
as a brother and saviour,
Jesus.

He comes to us on our own terms
but many say he can’t.
This birth is a fact of history
and also much more:
the refutation of human glory,
self seeking and personal triumph
whilst at the same time each and
every soul’s hope and the
promise of the unimaginable.

Without Him our lives
are but as straw;
without love we
are nothing but
brute beasts.
In our midst God is born.
Emmanuel.

Both then and now
and till the end of time,
our cold and poverty,
the beast and the straw
are filled and inhabited
by a glory we cannot see
– yet.

Dare to stop

Stop!
Look? Listen? No –
Wait!

Advent is the time of waiting.
We rarely choose it
for waiting teaches us
we are subject to time.

We invent the clock,
the measure
but the power is beyond us.

Time embodies mystery
and brings change
with glimpses of memory and expectation.
Stop and we might experience the beyond.

Advent is the threshold of God’s coming in time.
Am I too busy and important to stop?
It is control and complacency that
corrode our souls and darken the glimpse of glory.

The journey of wonder lies in the waiting;
we reach Bethlehem by stopping.
Even a heartbeat can drown out
the song of the angels.

Stop.
Think too much
and the world floods back in.
The everything of God
is born in the poverty
of Bethlehem and me.

Empty is

the altar;
the manger;
the cross

– until He comes.

Beyond Bethlehem

Bethlehem

Barely a breath has filled your lungs

You know nothing
and without another you cannot live

Absent from our human past
and promised death in the future

Is this hope? Is this wisdom?

Yes, for love is so simple
and truth so fragile

This is Jesus in time
Love unending in our midst

Beyond – the gift from afar

Beyond all knowledge and self
Here in this birth

Dust and Ashes

Dust.

That is what we are.
And spirit.

It is the ash that smothers and stifles
sight and sense
when we ignore the spirit.

Lent’s forty days
to see a different way
and feel a different gravity
when love and truth and pity
lighten our heavy dust–choked selves.

It is the road to Calvary
and the empty tomb.
There is no other.

Without spirit
there is only dust.

With God, Resurgam.

Verses accompanying the Seven Last Words from the Cross

Metre: 887

The seven last words from the Cross

1.
Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. (Luke 23.34)

Love in death breathes life for ever,
God forgives so hate can never
Triumph over Jesus’ cross.

2.
Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in paradise. (Luke 23.43)

Reaching out to lost and crying,
Takes our souls in hour of dying
To the Father’s heavenly home.

3.
Woman, behold thy son! Behold thy mother! (John 19.26)

Caring for his blessed Mother
Chooses John to be his brother:
Makes their home for coming days.

4.
Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27.46)

Darkness breaks the soul in bleakness;
Jesus carries all in weakness
Now abandoned – all alone.

5.
I thirst. (John 19.28)

Agony is life o’erturning,
Broken body’s thirst is burning:
Death draws near with every breath.

6.
It is finished. (John 19.30)

Life and death no more competing,
Love fulfils as God completing:
Giving all, so all is won.

7.
Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. (Luke 23.46)

Darkness joins in sorrow’s grieving
Father’s love his Son receiving
O’er the brink of death and time.

The kiss of God

Hush.

Stop. Be still.

What is it to be kissed?
Yes, think
...and then stop thinking.

The Christmas birth is the kiss of God.
God takes our humanity – and our lips
– he kisses and is kissed.
Is this real?
Is God in love with you and me?
Is he so close as to touch and kiss?

So many questions but a kiss is a kiss.
It is love and flesh combined.
It lasts yet is gone:
touched, blessed, ravished and set free.

God’s heartbeat is born:
a baby to be loved
and hidden until strong enough
to be kissed in the Garden
and abandoned to the Cross.

What is it to be kissed?
It is surrender – in the moment
and for eternity.

Did shepherds and kings kiss you
O little one of Bethlehem?
Can I?

If I can’t, can we ever be one?

You kiss me till my dying breath,
O love eternal –
use my lips to bring that truth
to life today.

Wind and Fire ~ A Sonnet for Pentecost

The power of nature flows through every day
– it lights and holds each moment’s thought and move
Yet humankind has walked illusion’s way
By making self the point of all to prove.
The winds bring change and life o’er all the earth
And fire ignites a danger rarely tamed;
For we are not the masters making worth
Creation’s life – by us forever framed.
The fiftieth day of Easter changes all
As fire and wind bring power of love by grace:
The spirit burns and blows to seek our hearts
And minds – so meaning’s purpose finds the place
In human wills inspired by nature’s arts.
We live beyond ourselves for evermore
In Spirit’s breath fulfilling every law.

Candlemas ~ A Sonnet

Two turtledoves are offered to the Lord
As firstborn son is given back by Law;
The ancient covenant brings lives outpoured
In simple gifts, the offering of the poor.
Through Temple courts the infant Jesus’ light
Is recognised by Simeon’s vigil eyes
Waiting for God to flood dark Israel’s night
With glory – and with light, the Gentiles’ prize.
Many will rise and fall in God’s new age
As Jesus, God’s anointed holy one,
Brings judgement as foretold in scripture’s page,
Salvation’s grace bestowed in Christ, the Son.
So take the flame of Jesus’ holy birth
And walk by faith God’s gift for days on earth!

A Christmas Sonnet of the Dispossessed

We know the place where Jesus Christ was born
As God took breath and laid his head on earth;
Yet power and people mixed their love with scorn –
And soon the babe takes flight from Bethlem’s birth
Escaping sword and jealous murderous fears
To find a refuge in a distant land.
We learn that joys of love are bathed in tears
As Christ our brother holds us by the hand:
The newly born becomes a man despised,
For living out the truth that conquers loss;
He wanders homeless, humbly – God–disguised –
And brought to shame and death on Calvary’s cross.
So, all displaced by war and want are one
With God – who shares all pain in Christ his Son.

A Contradiction of Sense

God’s Son is born as cattle low
and heaven’s silent trumpets blow:
the Christ arrives in darkest night
lit by love’s invisible light.

We know this story
but is it really true?
It strains our credibility –
thin on facts and
rich in poetry.

The Bethlehem scene tests us:
everything here
asks us questions
and searches us out
for the rest of time.

The smelly stable
Is now a part of heaven.
The munching beasts
and creaking beams
resound the music of the angels.
The flickering lamp
and pale moonbeams
are flooded by
celestial invisible glory.

Here, all human weakness is met;
all pain and loss is transformed:
by this collision
and these contradictions.

This baby takes us to the cross
and the grave
…but does not leave us there.

Christmas overcomes our power
and invites another.
Truth is never simpler
nor nearer:
the silent trumpets sound and
the darkest light streams in!

God’s Son is born as cattle low
and heaven’s silent trumpets blow:
the Christ arrives in darkest night
lit by love’s invisible light.

Summer somersaults of joy

Summer somersaults of joy!

Earth and sky, sky and earth –

head over heels in joy:

with the high sun we can tumble over and over

seeing one, both, the other

in brightness and in sudden shower,

in dazzling light and heady scent,

in steamy throbbing night.

Colour bursts before and in our eyes –

the very earth teems and oozes life and nectar –

intoxicating our senses and souls

into reels of ecstasy.

O happy apogee of sun,

you whose beguiling rays of light

undresses us and reveals

the desires of all

to be free,

to be me,

to be thee!

Clavis Christi

He came
and unlocked
every heart
and cell
and vault.

He left the key
for me and you
—and all.
In trust, in love
we’re free or fettered.
Can I choose?

Where then is the key
when all is locked
and blocked?
It lies close by
so small and hid
my pride can scarcely bend
to touch and reach it.

Amidst the cries of cruelties,
the screams of crucified life
there is the silence of my prison
and the comfort of my selfish cell.

My health, my wealth, my stealth
are the very bars of self.
Unlocked by Christmas Christ
and Friday’s Calvary friend
yet freedom’s risk
may still not be my choice.
I am the key, the lock, the grave:
sweet grace and life are Christ’s alone.

Oculus

We live in a world of beginnings and ends:
It shapes who we are and how we see.
Yet you O God are utterly other:
There is no beginning or end and you share this with us.

We choose to ignore it because it costs so much:
its price is all we are and all we do and all our lives.
The door of loss is the gate of gain;
The moment is eternity and that is all there is.
Come most holy and other spirit
to change us into what we might become:
darkness and light; beginning and end, all in one.

And then to find the path is still there; the days still before us
…but everything is different because of heaven
which breaks into time and personality and human–made truth.

It changes the shape of a church
and the direction of all living: our eyes cannot see
only the light which blinds can set us on the road
to the beyond of nothing which is all in all.

Sweet wounded Jesus, bound and nailed,
You are faith and hope and love
Find me, find your world and flood us with the light from above.

Two Sonnets of Faith

DUST

From dust through dust life’s miracle will pass:
Between each breath eternity can flow;
My life as frail and short as blade of grass
Is promised more than any mind can know.
Can bread be love as well as mortal food?
Can matter carry spirit with each breath?
Each hint, each gulf and void, when self subdued,
Makes answer over every sense of death.
There is a hope and truth in life alone
That makes us one and free in every hour:
Love lives and gives to rescue and atone –
In smile and word and sacrificial power.
This dust is bound for glory – in our doubt
Let feeble voice give rise to mighty shout!

16 June 2012

LABYRINTH

There always is a path beneath our feet:
We are not strangers cast adrift at birth.
Our hearts can echo love’s eternal beat,
Each foot can feel below the mortal earth.
There is a pattern formed by risk and death
On lonely hill at noontide’s darkest hour
That rescues us with cry and parting breath –
The edge’s wire is now the eternal bower –
The lost is found; the centre claims each heart.
All we who are set loose with choice when born
Find life a road that takes us from the start
With questions where the heart and will are torn.
Yet home is always here by love’s true grace:
The journey is our heavenly dwelling place.

25 June 2012

The Shard and the Heart

Shard – mighty tower like Babel built by human hands
and vaunting vanity –
yet a tiny crane assembled
this spike of glass and steel
down through the clouds and into the heart of London.

High above all life

hung

one

life attached by
bolts and puny girders.
No scream would ever be heard –
not even Edvard Munch’s despair
and the infinite scream he sensed passing through nature.

The crane or the scream?
The shard or the shriek of despair? –
belonging is so tenuous,
a mere breath away from oblivion.

So is there any point? And how could a vine help?

The heady fruit of ecstasy and eternity
flows from the gnarled branch
and the flimsy tendril yet
most of all from the
deep, deep heart
the heart
of love.
Abide.

The Lens

What can I see of Christmas?
Two thousand years or a party?
I’m not sure what I see at all.
There is a magic and a moment
but then it is gone.

Is there really a gift that lasts for you and me?
There is – but mostly we don’t want it
let alone dare to open it.

The baby with new born eyes
adds a lens to our selfish sight.
Love shares our life to set us free –
free to see the difference and the other:
to enjoy it and to die for it.
We have to die for something
and dust is all we are.

The lens of life transforms the clay of everyday
into the vision of unending joy.
It’s Christmas: yes, now I can see!

Two Church Sonnets

THE GARDEN

Where nature walks with humankind as one,
God’s tree of right and wrong is honoured there;
The town, the home and all our work is done –
Set free by love and faith and Spirit’s flair.
To find this garden takes us all our days
If we resist the gift and hope of Christ.
From leafless tree, nailed limbs and godless maze
His death redeems our riches overpriced.
Now is the time when human life can flower,
When will submits to love as germ and seed,
So toil and care will flourish in God’s bower
And moment’s prison from ourselves is freed.
The healing stream of Paradise can flow
When human cities like God’s garden grow.

FALLING MUSIC

Tumble down all sounds and notes of heaven
And rain your truth o’er all the faithless earth!
May music be the means, the end, the leaven
Of mortal clay whose life, whose death, whose birth
Is shared by God in Jesus Christ the Son –
His humble music reaches out to all
To bring us home when all our days are done
And saves us from the selfish curse, the Fall.
Sing, sing aloud with joy all dust and clay
For staves hold notes that shall for ever ring
And earthen pots resound the eternal day.
Night’s dark is ended when with Christ we sing:
The Spirit is the song which brings us home
To Father’s house, celestial music’s dome!

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

Poetry

Powerless Praise

substantiation (A Camino Quartet 4)

starlight express

Trivia

holed below the water

december caress

dare I ask

calibration

A villanelle of the broken heart

telling the difference

A sonnet of substance

Resentment

changing the points

A cinquain of sleep

d day eve 80

draining or feeding

seven days

like plastic (A Camino Quartet 2 ~ at the Pilgrims' Mass at Santiago de Compostela)

3 operas 1 poem

epiphany

signature

the step (A Camino Quartet 1 ~ a Camino truth)

before a pilgrimage

storms and teacups

metaphor and simile

soup of the day

head over heels

dark arts (an epiphany)

fast food

unframed

A villanelle of time

pilgrims

finisterre

la danse atomique

winter solstice

A vilanelle of the Camino (A Camino Quartet 3)

winding and unravelling

overcoat

the hook of reality

noel noel

canopy

seasons

the four winds

crucis

raw emotion

A Confirmation Acrostic for Benjamin

puzzling or dazzling

dark mystery

unction

shingle

looking east

Two acrostics of remembrance

flowing

the triumph of the moment

the golden string

Art's leaven

ascension

blowing in the wind

requiescat

the other

benison

redemption

heaven scent

sparkle

symphony ~ a poem of the incarnation

and its place will know it no more

lachrimae

come sweet death

unbound

a terrible beauty

drowning in love

Tutored Time ~ A Sonnet

under the shadow

relevance

injury time

the table

love is faith is hope

the miracle of music

antiphon