To be so sure of what one means by ‘love’,
The depthless feelings and lessons unmatched
That Time has not described nor got hold of,
The heady heat of lust that in our hearts dispatched,
The calming comfort of being best known
And held in turmoil by accepting gaze,
To be possessed and not to be on loan
By another, complete and for all days,
Is foolish madness and arrogant pride.
Oh, to comprehend or depict in full
This eternal power, so high, so wide,
Would be to capture, to coerce and pull.
But in love’s seeming loss it is evolved
To godlike call where fear is all resolved.

Written on 9th January 2020.

I
Do not
Believe in
Lucky numbers.
Numbers are numbers
And have no potency
Over freedom and our will.
These signs have no ability
To influence our lives with wonders
Or, at best, their agency slumbers.
It is folly to suppose there is, within
These mere markers of quantity and size, a shot
At lauding power of us, destiny defied.

Written on 8th January 2020.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol,
Nor bow down and give them adoration,
For I am,” says the Lord, “a jealous God.
I am your groom and you, my love, bridal,
I honour you with endless devotion
And I am,” says the Lord, “a zealous God.”
He does not envy what he does not own.
He does not desire what is not his.
His passion is for us and for our good
“We belong together and us alone.
My love is life and that is what it is,
I share it with you in hope that you would.”
Jealousy’s green eye, adjusted looks odd,
No longer petty envy but our God.

Written on 7th January 2020.

You all like me expressing my grief
In poignant phrase and heartfelt form.
I respond by playing my part
Feeding my need as I perform
The stalwart widow struggling along,
Forever trapped, begging for love.
Why do I write but to appease
The empty void and lack thereof.

Oh no, not lack of love per se
But lack of wife who gives me all
The time and watches of the night,
Who stops me succumbing before I fall
Once more in temptation to be
That thing I loathe and must escape:
To be a desperate mourner still
And not seek out a new found shape.

Written on 6th January 2020.

A general sweep of knowledge,
The imitations act as homage,
Swirling clouds of violet haze,
The punctured colour and the greys.
Bright daffodils of yellow hues,
His face, his eyes of china blue.
All these I knew in separate part
But never composed the work of art
That was his life in palette mixed
And was contained in eyes transfixed.

Vincent is captured contrast
Painting flowers when downcast,
Capturing joy in depths of pain
He could not rend the two in twain.
In his night the stars shine bright,
Despair his darkness, hope his light.
There his flowers burn the sky
And heaven drops its glory by,
His God reaching down to faces unknown,
Strangers met by him and honour shown.

Written on 4th January 2020.

High on a hill or mountain pass,
Up where the breath is hard and sharp,
Life is firm, solid, real.

Adrift from the meadows or luscious plains,
Off in the wind, forceful and fierce,
Existence is teetering, vicarious, rough. 

High mountains are for wild goats,
The crags our refuge and shelter sure.
Footing the ledges over the heights.

He has lifted me out of the mud
And placed me on the rock and solid ground.
Breaking in the desolate home.

Written on 3rd January 2020.

You told me once my paranoia was
No safeguard that they do not speak my ill.
Some people hate me, this is true because
I am not them, they are not me and still
We can but live in this small world entwined
So how to stop the stranger fearing me;
The strange for them, to me, myself defined.
To take their grievance and to disagree.
But then the faceless mob of one mind preys
Upon my many failures and my faults
Condemns in silent fictions all my ways,
And I am without a voice that exalts.
I will, at last, alone and undone be,
No trial and no justice will I see.

But then arise a visaged bloc to fight
On my behalf with unasked truths declare
My gift and worth however small or slight.
My witnesses and my defence that swear
To tell my whole truth and speak nothing but,
Still stand unmoved before me in support
Despite my failures and my faults that shut
Out tributes, unwanted ways to extort.
For strange I am but just as strange as them
And God is stranger still and shunned me not.
Their grievance now unable to condemn,
For he agrees that my sins are forgot.
Their praises and their quibbles are all one
As God looks upon me and sees his son.

Written on 2nd January 2020.

The night has passed
And the year lies open before me.
Late we reflected
And early I slipped into apathy.
Alone I sobbed
To end the year closed behind me
And alone I woke
To start the year, with hope to blind me.

Open thou my lips,
And my mournful mouth shall shew forth thy praise.
Join the song thrush
When heart and mind are stuck in malaise.
Lift the rolling mist
That in early morning covers the ground,
Release my tongue
To speak fresh peace and a new joyful sound.

Written on 1st January 2020.

O, take me back to that old Beth’lem stall
When Creator and His creation mesh
In fragile form and new born baby fresh
To save the world corrupt in greed withal.
Take me back to see him three kings enthral
And yet a borrowed stable was his creche
And simple shepherds first to see the flesh
Of God most High in manger, weak and small.
History tells of man’s great sin and shame;
The darkness spreads through all our vital veins
Infecting us with complicity and blame.
To us he came, with us to feel our pains
To live that perfect life in human frame.
Take me back to see when Earth got heaven’s gains.

Written on 5th December 2019.

How many angels we know not and yet
We name a few and tasks are charged to some.
Like Gabriel, the messenger who set
Young Mary, to carry our Lord to come
And Micael, defender and fighter fit
Who wars against old Satan in cosmic fray.
As for the rest we humbly admit
Their mystery is hidden from display.
But there is one for whom I pray exists;
Azriel, the godly angel of death
Who soothes the grief and turmoil that persists
In those who mourn and will to final breath.
It’s he I want when God’s all needed grace
Is far from real and I long for his face.

Written on 1st December 2019 for a ‘Service of Light and Hope’ at Greenhill Methodist Church.