Restoration

It’s the things that aren’t said that hurt the most.

I can hear the tower clock chime from my pillow

It is the only constant I hear.

But even this clock;

I envy the care and attention

it receives for its restoration.

I hope to have its constancy at heart.

Spiritus Sanctus:

‘O Holy Spirit, as the sun is full of light, the ocean full of water,

Heaven full of glory, so may my heart be full of thee.’

The Valley of Vision

The Year of the Nottingham

Image

The lights confuse us in the night

Tracking right to left and left to right

Steady beacon constant on the bow

Torch flashing sail; waves on metal plough

 

All eyes front, gazing at the steady stream

Of fishermen, leisure yachts passing near abeam

Pitch black warrior of steel, cruising twenty knots

Through a minefield of coral reef and sandy spots

 

In the dead of night watch, that steady light ahead

Lost our nerve, our confidence, woke captain from his bed

Stop all engines, reassess, ignore the fuming Nav

No saving face, or gold of rank, sleeping sailors we have

 

Keep them safe, secure in racks dreaming of their home

On the bridge the young watchkeeper has eyes like radar dome

It was the year I did execute the perfect come ’round

Aft of the Nottingham, the day before it ran aground

Soundings

 

Barstools, beers and lonely cheers

Sideways glances, sound and fears

Top of the loft, corner of the street

Just dropping off, by chance again we meet

 

Perched high above on a leather bus seat

Looking down on you as sun and horizon meet

Living through pictures on your wall

Passing on paper cranes, love and all

 

Resonating strings and sings around

Searching for words unspoken sound

Fathom feeling depths unknown

Silence falls like shell shock tone

 

Rivers of lyrical, satirical rhymes

Flood down the mount of eternal time

A single vase of living water, blooms

Tapped from the source in our living rooms

 

 

 

 

Illuminate

It is not a situation where

what you emanate

reaches me unchanged,

to reflect what you radiate.

It is the essence of my being

to take in and absorb

the streams of mercy

that flow out from your source;

feed me and make me whole,

make me grow beyond my limits –

strong, broad, I tower over all.

You give your all to me,

I soak up your energy

preoccupied with you

Until the fall..

Ego

thistle balls

‘Tis a weed in the garden

Do nothing to make it grow

Some think it’s just a flower

Daring where it shouldn’t go

Through many will multiply

And choke the others dry

Some, worse are hurtful

Prick your fingers till you cry

Just to show how incessant

cursed ground, set apart, they are

I plucked out a whole garden full

here, you see my scars.