Poetry up to April '96

1/4/95

The world around me and the time before me is dark,
I see not where I place my feet.
But You clasp me hand and hold me, safe in Your arms.
You are my perfect Guide.
My Friend, my Saviour, my God.
I know now where I’m truly headed,
And every step on this road with You is JOY!

I hunger Lord,
Yes I hunger Lord,
I hunger Lord for You.

Though my thirst is quenched.
Though my stomach is full.
Still I hunger Lord,
I hunger for You.

I hunger Lord,
Yes I hunger Lord,
I hunger Lord for You.

Though my heart is glad.
Though my soul renewed.
Still I hunger Lord,
I hunger for You.

Oh how her eyes glisten
With laughter and love beyond compare.
Her smile, like the desert sun,
Leaves me dazed and faint.
Her voice is as sweet as a thrush
or a darting finch.
Oh to wake to that birdsong!
She moves like a fawn;
A young deer, steady now on newly born legs,
running and prancing with Joy!
Her hair flows like woven gold thread,
The crowning work of some great Celtic craftsman.
She carries light and freshness with her,
Like an Alpine morning, also the smell or mown grass.
She fills my mind to busting,
My heart such that it creaks.
How can I describe her?
Fearfully and wonderfully made.

May I be a Beowulf (Prince of the Geats)
With arms as strong as thirty men,
Faith yet stronger.
When evil troubles my friends,
may I put aside mail-coat,
And slashing sword.
Unarmed may I face my Grendel,
saying ‘The Father in His wisdom shall
apportion the honours’.

As Beowulf fought Grendel,
Likewise may I go,
To confront on Earth, the evils of Hell.

He tackled demons without mail or arms,
Trusting in God alone,
To see that he came to no harm.

We share the same hope, the same Lord.
As he triumphed for good,
So will I receive my own giant’s sword.

Glistening like ice,
thawing at midday.
Gleaming bright jewels,
in a golden array.
Such gentle eyes!

But to gaze into them,
for a day and a night.
I would renounce all pleasures
for that great delight.
Such gentle eyes!

They must see my soul,
cancerous and ill.
Yet they don’t turn away,
but remain so still.
Such gentle eyes!

‘Have you been slain by the Spirit!’
Yes.
And my heart’s been slain by the Son.
By His love, as He was
By my hate.

Back and forth,
forth and back.
Duelling parries of a thunderstorm.
Lighting flashes,
Ocean roars,
Social barriers ripped and torn.

So tell me straight,
This is getting out of hand
Who is better?
Ian Wright or Les Ferdinand.

Build not your cathedrals,
Carve not your statues,
Paint not your windows.
They do God no honour.

Your magnificence is dull,
To His glory.
Your craftsmanship but a footnote,
To His creation.

Can your spires compare,
To the mountains?
Do your bells resound,
Like birdsong?

So while the lost are lost;
The hungry are hungry;
The crippled are crippled.
While the blind do not see -
Lay aside your buildings.
Go to them. That is your worship.

When the boy-with-no-hair-cut walked into town,
No one noticed
No face even frowned.

When the boy-with-no-hair-cut walked his beat,
No one passed on by
Or crossed over the street.

When the boy-with-no-hair-cut spoke,
No one heard
No one took note.

When the boy-with-no-hair-cut died,
He had no funeral
And no one cried.
 

Did I really do that?
  I’m not that cunning.
Did I really say that?
  I’m not that sharp.
Did I really think that?
  I’m not that clever.
Did you really take my words to heart?

Misunderstanding;
  Caught on fire.
Misunderstanding;
  In the dark.
Misunderstanding;
  Needless heartache.
Misunderstanding’s made its mark.

If you can hear what I’m saying,
Then say what you’re hearing.
‘Cos I’m standing here,
Misunderstanding you
Misunderstanding me.

Bang!
Onetwoonetwoonetwoone…..
A cheetah on steroids.
No! Wake up - I’m not a cheetah.
Steady….
Fire,
Lungs soaked in hydrazine.
Inoutinoutinoutin…..
Gen-tly, dee-ply.
In out, in out, in. Out.
Where am I?
Not far
Find the rhythm.
Pain, boredom, pain, boredom, pain
Boredom.
No one ahead,
No one behind.
Rhythm, the rhythm is everything.
More pain; sharp pain, dull pain.
No end in sight…..
There! Finished! Over!
Is that all?

A single drop forms on an unnatural branch.
Gathering weight it stretches and falls.
A pure crimson sphere,
Invisible in the dark land.

A pool gathers at the foot of the tree.
Some seeps into the cold earth.
Flies buzz like vultures,
Drinking the blood of Christ.

A trickle turns into a roaring stream.
A torrent of tears and blood,
The river of life,
Running swift and straight.

Mysterious love wrought from hate,
Healing from bitter anguish.
The river grows and trees grow by it.
Wounds are washed clean.
 

We’re two trains running on different tracks,
One pushing forwards the other going back.

We’re comets orbiting distant spheres,
Using our mouths but rarely our ears.

Don’t the things I say mean anything to you?
Why, oh why is nothing getting through?

I’ll repeat everything again and again,
I’ll speak real simple and plain.

Please understand me, please let me in,
‘Cos I can’t shout above this din.

Don’t the things I say mean anything to you?
Why, oh why is nothing getting through?

I’m quick to talk but slow to listen, it’s true;
So do you feel logically private too?
 

Brilliant morning light
Reflects into sleepy eyes.
Transforming pure white
Had fallen round about.

‘Come run with us,
Come run and play.
Don’t make a fuss,
There’s a snow fight on.’

The wrong kind of snow
Had settled that day.
It wasn’t fit to throw
So fists were instead.

Sharp evening light
Highlights gathering gloom.
Innocence died that night
In the transforming snowstorm.

When a bright light penetrates the gloom,
When a jewel is found among rocks,
When a butterfly, an audacious red admiral
appears amongst wasps,
When a cord is heard in a cacophony,
When a flower grows in a parched land,
When a proud stag rattles its antlers
and canters in the wilderness,
When a thrust sings in the city,
When form appears in a shapeless world,
When a smile is seen in
a room full of frowns,
When a rose grows in brambles,
Then my soul-horses grow wings and
Fly with Plato to the realm beyond
the sun.
The speed, the height is intoxicating, impulsive.
Beauty is manna in a land of endless sand.
I must have more, have it all, to reach the setting sun.
But once the light is engulfed the darkness returns.
Once the jewel is plucked from the rock it shatters.
Once the butterfly is locked in cupped hands it
can fly on more.
The chord goes flat in a silent room.
The captured stag bows its solemn head in defeat.
The thrush sings no more.
Form dissolves.
The smile turns down.
The rose shrivels and fades.
Rather let the light shine on.
Let the stag run swift.
Let the rose grown towards the sun.
Then the pegasae will reach that distant land,
And many others will follow them.
A numberless flock outrunning the evening.
For to love is to break chains,
To love is to warm the world with beauty,
To love is to take wing alongside dodos.
 

Around me wraps a
great tapestry of sound.
Numerous footsteps echo
through the building,
the raw pattern and thread.
The hum of distant roads
does not disturb
the tranquillity;
Rather frames it, as a boarder.
The warm music of birdsong,
is like gold thread.
Close up the deep and
rhythmic rumble of breathing,
forms the centrepiece.
Numerous noises,
mere fleeting quanta,
build up the whole.
There,
unfolded,
the complete tapestry,
set on a wall of silence.

I’m sitting alone,
No one’s in,
No one’s at home.

Even a dessert has lizards,
Even caves have bats,
Even the Arctic has bears,
Even ghost towns have ghosts.

But its not like that here,
‘Cos here’s where I’m at,
And there’s no one near.

Intense and fiery red represents love,
Compassion is a deep soothing blue,
The expectant yellow sunrise is hope.
These primary emotions are lucid and free,
A human heart imitating immortality.

It’s too much bother to write this line,
Too much effort to earn a dime.

There’s to much hassle in making poetry,
Far too much work for me.

‘Cos I’m lazy at heart,
And slothful from the start.

But I’ve managed these rhymes,
So maybe I can find the time.

It’s the Lenten fast,
So don’t go slow.
If you want to make it last,
You’ve gotta learn to say no.

In self-denial,
You’ll find a warmer smile.
By taking less of what you need,
You’ll hunger for the Lord indeed.

Oh my heart aspires,
With such intense fire,
To exalt the Lord Jesus,
My one true desire.

If only I could pray,
Follow in every way,
Know Your presence close,
Each minute of the day.

The call of wild savannah sounds,
As I go about my daily rounds;
And I picture that dark continent,
As paradise and heaven-sent.
Maybe I am being too utopian,
But that is just the nature of man.

Leopards can be spotted if you try,
Cheetas are rarely the ones who lie.
Elephants (unlike at zoos) range free,
While lions sleep beneath the trees.
Gazelles and antelopes are seen,
Feasting on a bed of pale green.

‘Jambo’ calls a friendly farming lad,
Digging in a field alongside his dad.
Wearing homespun shorts thick with dirt,
And, proudly, a Michael Jackson T-shirt.
Soon his mum will have her workers fed,
Warm bread in hand and water jar on head.

In England the morning has just begun,
But in that distant land the work is done.
Families gather around the hearth,
And elders conjure stories of the past,
Where man and beast become as one,
In myths of long ago and ventures won.

Maybe this isn’t the real Africa you know,
But it’s the best I can do, so there you go!
Relish your time there while you can,
Free from deadlines, essays and exams.
It’s back to work for me, so keep safe Tess,
All my love to you and God bless.

I wonder what life is like.
Really - I mean beneath the
Pretence and confusion.
Sometimes I’m tossed about
Like driftwood on stormy seas.
Dazed, disorientated, information overload.
Then life is complicated.
But sometimes I feel inspired
And witness to some divine jigsaw.
When a plan comes together and a deed is done.
Then life is simple.
So what’s the answer?
Maybe it’s just simply too complicated.
Or too complicatedly simple.
 

I might compare you eyes to diamonds,
And your skin to softest Arabian silk.
Your hair to richest peacock plume.
But these are far too mean comparisons.
For truly, nature’s glories of that ilk,
Seem withered when you are abloom.

I hear the rattle of the railway tracks,
As I wave goodbye I let out a sigh.
When are you coming back?
Will you be gone for long?
 

I’m a metic to my country,
I’m a drop out to my team.
I’m a loser to my classmates,
I’m a strange one and a freak.

I’m the black sheep of my family,
I’m the failure of the year.
I’m the one-born-every-minute,
I’m the good-for-nothing creep.

I’m a white man to the Negro,
I’m a Niger to the whites.
I’m the heathen of religion,
And spat on in the street.

I’m the one you jeer at,
But not the one you seek.
‘Cos just around the corner,
I am you and you are me.
 

I do not understand how I,
can laugh and play,
just like any other day;
can have no need to cry.

When elsewhere in this land,
beneath the same blue sky,
are faces that will never dry;
people who will always weep.

I can no understand how I,
can lose no sleep,
have no need to weep.
Why Dunblane, oh why?
 

I shall never understand the cross,
To think I did would be to lie.
Beyond all pain the mind can comprehend,
Still waits the question, why our Lord should dare to die.

Our God knows we could never stand,
To learn such agonies of man and hell.
Still darkness shrouds that lonely hill,
And gracious love, on which my heart shall ever dwell.
 

Yeah,
I buy into dreams,
Fairy-tail princesses and paladins,
The odds-off outsider always wins.
But also,
I picture tragedy,
Courtly lovers drown in tears,
Cupid’s shot down by Shakespeare.
So,
How will it be for me?
I guess we’ll have to wait.
Yeah, just wait and see.
 

My heart cries for you,
My soul weeps for you.
My mind is numb as if anaesthetised,
And I just don’t know what to do.

I want to talk to you,
I need to hug you.
I wish your arrows pieced me instead,
But I just don’t know what to do.

You are far from here,
I can’t wipe away one tear.
I know you aren’t suffering alone,
Yet still I wish I could hold you near.
 

Love is not a temporary creature,
Like a summer flower that grows, blooms and withers.
And in its very blooming lurks the shadow of its death,
For the seasons race on pursued by fierce lionesses.
In truth love is like a jewel,
A ruby, amethyst or most brilliant diamond.
Fashioned in fires deep within the earth,
It does not sparkle for a day, but forever.
 

All that glistens isn’t gold,
BUT! Not all gold glistens.
The brightest gemstones do not lie on the surface.
And the richest veins run deepest.

So to find the pearls life holds,
HUSH! Slow down and listen.
Unicorns graze in silent glades known only to Artemis,
And the greatest secrets yield to the quietest.
 

Love only comes once,
So don’t be a dunce.
Seize the day,
Don’t let it fade away.
 

He came down from the mountainside,
And round him clung the crowd till eventide.
A thousand faces stood and on him stared,
And jostled lest their view was impaired.
Yet on each and each his eyes alit,
And met for countless ages in a moment alit,
For in each monumental gaze,
A life sprung free from Satan’s haze.
And in each lonely heart a seed was sown,
From which in time a tree of life was grown.
The eyes passed on and day returned,
And ‘twas for Jesus that each soul yearned.
 

The first things you notice are the rough features,
The smooth regions of colour and their bounding lines.
Quickly the focus changes to the details;
Irregularities and incongruities,
Speckles like islands in a sea of primary tones.
The view shifts again, subtlety and unconsciously.
The simple world of forms, colours and details is gone,
Swallowed in the bottomless pupil wells.
The physical has dissolved because, in essence, eyes are boundaries.
A thin line separates mind and body;
A grey zone, not properly defined, that touches soul.
In an eye can lurk great beauty or ugliness,
A gateway to Elysium or Tartarus.
Across this portal flows a constant data stream.
A paved highway running arrow straight in both directions.
A highway without by-laws slowing the passage of traffic.
When two pairs of eyes lock together,
The highway hits rush hour.
Opposing lanes compete for flux.
The process amplifies in a feedback loop gone wild,
Dum animus tangit animum.
Blink.
 

Last night I was a butterfly,
Surveying the world through insect eyes
I felt the breeze beneath my wings,
And sampled flowers like a king.

This morning I woke upon my bed,
And sensed creation with a human head.
I rose and dressed to greet another day,
Of talk and rest and work and play.

But was that flight in truth the fantasy it seems,
Or am I just a poet in my insect dreams?

"Once upon a time I dreamed I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. Suddenly I awakened. There I lay, myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming that I was a butterfly or whether I am now a butterfly dreaming I am a man."
 - Chuang Tsu   (Chinese Philosopher)