Poetry from March to September '97

20/3/97

I cry out into the night,
Into the impenetrable sixth hour darkness.
A mother clutches her still born baby.
A soldier kneels beside a fallen friend
sinking in mud and blood.
Help me! Help me.
I'm blind and stupid,
I can hardly think or feel.
You can hear my call,
I know You listen to my wail.
Draw near to me Abba,
wrap me in Your gentle titan arms.
Despite all my words I'm a hairless baby.
Naked, vulnerable.
I know you. I know Your love and embrace.
More than food and water,
than light and air,
Your warm touch is what I desire, what I need.
Do not leave me in this darkness any longer.
Help me Jesus!

Too much work to do,
so I watch daytime TV.
Too many friends to call,
so I skim through books.
Too much to pray about,
so I have a snack and a slash
and say ‘tomorrow, early!’
Too many poems to write,
cluttering my head,
jostling for time online.
I cast them out onto a thousand
paper scraps which pile up
with my other tasks,
waiting to be forgotten.

How is it that our pleasure
is the bedfellow of our pain?
How that which hurts the most
has the sweetest sounding name?

We were bred for this chase,
our wits and bodies optimized
to run this wild terrain.
Noses to the ground detect
the rich and pungent
blood-wine scent.
The line is strong and
we speak in joyous union
for the quarry is almost tangible.
Then suddenly comes a check.
Some give up hunting hope
and riot off on misleading trails.
Others cast on, expectant,
since experience reminds that the line
is always there to be found,
through senses and emotion  deny it.
As the day stretches on the horn
no longer excites and invigorates weary limbs.
‘The quarry is long gone and
out of reach’, claims Reason,
yet Scent lingers to oppose this.
Indeed an observer might note:
the quarry keeps an even lead,
not slipping way at check but
settling a little way ahead
and eyeing the pursuers.
This chase is no mere metaphor,
but a real and lifelong quest,
to seek first not a darting hare,
but His kingdom and his righteousness.

I've hardly spoken to you
over these past two years.
I haven't dared,
afraid to blunder yet again.
One day - I kid myself -
Ill be kinder,
stronger, fitter,
friendlier, funnier;
maybe you'll like me,
maybe you'll love me.
But I'm kidding myself,
Ill never be worthy - whatever that means.
I think,
"I should forget you.
The most loving thing to do
is spare you my grime."
But I can't live like that.
I've tried, but it hurts.
No torture ever devised
compares to a minute away from you.
Your voice sings in my head,
to fill any silence.
This will seem strange,
but I love you.
I don't really know what that means.
I just know -
since I first heard you,
felt your smile,
I have loved you.
I don't know what to do,
what would be right or wrong,
but I must say it again.
I love you.

Is the desire to love You any different
To love itself?
Or am I just in love with the idea of love?
But aren't You that very idea?

I lift my arms and voice,
And I long to praise You with my all,
Every inch and ounce that I am.
But where has my passion gone?

Perhaps, please let is be so,
That very desire, that longing is passion,
Is love.
For Love, You have made yourself known,
So that even my selfishness may give way to love.
 

In the bustle of Broad street
you're the only one in no hurry.
I'm afraid I was so deep in thought then,
I almost didn't notice you.
To you I'm probably just another figure in the crowd,
but, I wonder, do we share a common purpose?
For 800 years people have studied in this place, I'm sure you know,
here are vast repositories of knowledge and truth,
mankind's collective mental triumph!
Here we can both find the things we seek.

Stepping into Blackwells,
warmth and books cocoon around me.
At first my browsing is playful and immature,
then suddenly the immensity strikes home.
Here row on row, shelf on shelf
are a thousand thousand books Ill never read.
Intense and frantic I grab and skim book after book,
like a child with a bag of sweets stuffing in more and more
though his mouth is full.
Ideas here have far more mass than the
tones of ink and paper that support them,
they twist and stretch reality,
engulf me, crush me.

I burst out onto Broad street again.
With a shock, the cold relieves me,
and I see you haven't moved.
Can physics and epistemology bind your wounds?
Will psychology loose the chains of injustice,
and logic break every yoke?
Out here in the daylight they seem like wasted words,
you are beyond their embrace,
beyond their event horizon.
 

Ware my son, ware.
Ware the peacock feather
        that tickles to death.
Ware the sweetest honey
        that hides the sharpest poison.
Ware the beautiful face
        that covers a rotten heart.
 

Words and graphs,
figures and formulas feed a growing frustration.
Weariness builds and builds.
My jaded mind rebels at reason,
and suddenly is torn helplessly from it.
Instinct long dormant strains at its chains.
It lets out a terrible roar,
a groan too deep for words.
The beast swings its mighty paw
at the one who has held it captive so long.
Fire, passion, blood red clarity.
I am the beast,
I batter my cell and leap to engulf the old self
which had me subdued.
Kireskitana.
The chains catch and hold.
The beast drops down exhausted,
and I am still sitting at my desk
with a pile of paper still to fill.
 

Walking in the fields below my house,
and now sitting at my desk,
I write the screenplay of our romance.
Threads from half-remembered books,
from films, plays and a dreamer's mind,
compete, collide and combine.
I lose myself in a thousand perfect sound bites.
Effortlessly scenes and plots unfold
- human, yet somehow flawless.
Gradually all dross and distractions fade,
leaving only your eyes.
Drifting. Calm and secure in an ocean of purest blue.
But this is all a daydream.
I'm here at my desk,
composing a pipe dream script
(when I should be working),
and you're six thousand mile away.
But someday, perhaps,
if only in one of Everett's many-worlds,
our world lines may join and pass that very way.
 

I want to live as best I can,
not as a millionaire or a wunderkind,
or wasting my effort chasing wind,
but according to you perfect plan.
 

My dearest Lord when we do meet,
May my tears wash your dusty feet.
Feet which have travelled earth and hell,
To rescue us from where we fell.

Tears of sorrow at my heart so rotten,
And tears of joy at sin now forgotten.
Feet wearing holes where nails were driven,
To suffer wounds I should've been given.

To wash the feet of my precious king,
Is an honour of which I shall always sing.
To sit at your feet is my delight,
More wondrous than the sun's own light.
 

I'm lazy and I'm useless,
and I ain't got no excuse.
I recognize my failings,
and I want to be set loose.
I come to you Lord Jesus,
and ask, "Please set me free,
from this sluggishness that binds me,
and this wasteful apathy."
 

All the poets now are dead,
and nothing is that has not been
already said.

The prophet procession now is done,
and there isn't one thing new
beneath the sun.

All nine Muses now are gone,
and left behind are only tapes
repeating on and on.
 

"Don't call me a stranger
for indeed I am a ranger,
and my forest is the whole earth,"
said the man with kebab-meat for a heart.
"I am the film unmade,
the story untold.
I am your mind gone numb,
your spirit gone cold.
Ask me your questions and I will reply.
Be bold my son.
My child, be bold."
 

Creatures of the sunshine
and a summers day.
Rejoicing with all creation
in happy gleaming rays.
 

A home for the homeless,
A friend for the friendless,
A father for the orphan,
A peace for the anxious,
All this and more.
Wholeness for the broken,
Fullness for the empty,
Hope for the hopeless,
Rest for the restless,
All this and more.
A kind ear for the unheard,
A tender lover for the unloved,
A jewel for the ugly,
Drawing forth inner beauty,
All this and more.
Sight for the sightless,
A voice for the speechless,
A balm for the wounded,
New life for dead limbs,
All this and more.
A bright star for travellers,
Bright eyes for the lonely,
A shoulder to cry on,
Arms to die in,
All this and more.
Unspeakably more,
Jesus,
Jesus,
Jesus!
 

Silence.   Silence.

not an absence of sound
not an empty void

but a doorway.

a doorway to deeper music
to the clockwork of creation.

Elegant songs and fragile cords
gentle ripples only visible on a  still ocean.
 

In the quite meeting room,
a guide dog whines for its master's attention.
It misses the silence,
misses the beauty.

I cry into the darkness,
the silence,
"Where are you Lord?!
Why won't you speak?"
I miss the holy silence
miss the beauty you intend for me.

Lord, in those times,
please caress my ears,
hold me close at your feet,
reassure me,
so we may enjoy the silence together.
 

Can the grasshoppers stop playing?
Can the birds stop singing?
From sunrise to evening,
From morning to sunset,
They play and sing,
The life inside them bubbling up!

When we see face to face,
When we understand,
As all along we have been understood,
We shall sing and play,
We shall not pause for night,
We shall not pause for breath,
But shall praise the Praiseworthy,
Shall sing for love of the Lover.
 

Double quickstep dodging rabble.
 Beauteous.
Eyes on target never wandering.
 Mysterious.
Chasing hair along a busy street.

From behind so enigmatic.
Five steps back still anomynic.

The, suspense, the face revealed;
Would that still it was concealed!

For the elements have cut and battered,
Beauty broken, simplicity shattered.
Wind and rain
and pain and sorrow,
rejection and loneliness
failure and fallenness.

Disappointment does run deeply,
Yet still when scent drifts down the street,
I must chase hair unerringly.
 

I speak the logic of our love.
For my heart has this consistency:
It's all enduring love for thee.
And this world will be one day complete
iff our two hearts meet.

[note ‘iff’ spoken as ‘if and only if’ in logicese]
 

No more closing eyes,
for corruption will be gone;
everywhere will be marked with glory,
the glory of the Lamb.
No more raising hands,
for God will be with man;
in front, among, beside,
arm in arm in arms.
Every moment,
if there be moments,
will be beauty unspeakable,
dancing, singing, unimagined joy.
Men and angles,
God of mercy, God of might,
In everlasting carnivals of delight.
 

Lost in laughing, mocking lights
loosing the fight to breath
unable to leave
hyper-abyss
paralysis.
 

Self-consumed consumers
take money from the hole in my head,
filling boxes beneath their beds.
You cant smell blood on TV,
or hear the flies
gorging on my eyes.

Someone's to blame.
Don't mention our names.
We believe the Market Economy.
Our hands are clean.
Our consciences are free.
(plus £30 discounts at HMV)
 

After all these words
could it merely be
some sort of
silly dream?
No reality,
but only empty eddies
in my world-line's stream.
Could I deceive myself
so long?
Could a poet spirit
lead me wrong?
If so,
where to,
from here?
What but love
can see such distance
near?
 

Virgil, where would you seek solace
        in this place?
And how, Catulus, could you find
        a resting space?
This city built by men
is now a home for cars.
Your marble, wood and grass
is now plasticmetaltar.
Pliny, is I escape to Como
will I find the same thing there?
Have I missed the world I long for?
Born to late to catch it, too early not to care.
 

I sing of science's glories
fertilizer, pesticide,
genetically boosted yields
cease hunger famine strife.
Transplants and dialysis
antibiotic healing pills
soothe pain sickness disability.
From the womb you hand
protects us and preserves us
through our days.
Because of you our bodies function
beyond the 3 score 10.
But what is this life
you give us?
Tarmac, pylons, litter
pollute our the land we see.
Our rivers choke
and we choke.
The drone of road and planes
pollute our ears,
TV pollutes our brains.
Everywhere your finger touches
nature's beauty shrinks away.
 

Why Atlantis speak doom?
Not yet watery tomb.
Eyes reveal Plato wrong,
Or Poseidon held not long.
Now no glory or name,
prostitute tourist fame.
 

When you hear of shrinking forests,
deserts growing, species dying,
polluted river bleeding Terra's blood,
do not ask for whom
the bell is tolling -
for you,
for me,
for us all.
 

Can I opt out of this madness,
call it modern cyber-life.
Tend some fields and bother no one,
make no money little strife.
 

My eyes, Jesus
My eyes of love,
My eyes are only for you.

My song, Jesus
My song of joy,
My song is only for you.

My prayers, Jesus
My prayers of need,
My prayers are only for you.

My life, Jesus
My mind my all,
My life is only for you.

All only for you,
All only for you,
For you are all for me.

#

Not some lonely relationship or philosophers' ideal,
But at the heart of heaven a loving Trinity.
The first, the last relationship - beloved, friends and kin.
Now we are one as You are one, and ever more shall be.
 

I don't know any longer what to think,
After shedding so much blood and ink.
My heart's no clearer than two years past,
And I fear our lives are diverging fast.
 

You are my song of songs,
The heart my heart desires.
You are my mountain spring,
My everything,
My summer's night lit by countless fires.
 

The Earth remembers none so fair
As you arrayed in morning light.
Bright stars reflecting on your hair
Reveal the final cause of night.
I thought such beauty vanished before the Flood,
But for sure you must have elven blood.
 

How many times can I say "I love you",
And mean it with all my heart.
How many times can I say "I need you",
And need you from the depth of my heart.
How many eternities
Can I spend upon my knees,
Nothing else upon my heart
But you?
 

I'm overwhelmed by the beauty,
I'm overwhelmed.

I'm overwhelmed by the beauty,
By the beauty of you
By that look in your eyes
By the things that you do.
I'm overwhelmed by the beauty
Of the people I meet
By the story behind
Every face in the street.

I'm engulfed in the beauty, I am engulfed.