Ways With Paper

I too have declared war

2011-09-15T10:36:00.000+01:00

(in memory of Salamo Arouch)

I will live and survive and answer

why I took up the fight.

Why, delegated, I fight to the death.

(Dancing away from darkness,

wrapped up tight into fists

Dancing with the flames,

boxing clever)

I will tell all the people on earth

how ghosts say farewell,

going without saying.

In my head I hear my being dance from ear to ear

2011-09-15T10:34:00.000+01:00

You’re lost enough to find yourself, by now.

Slip down the cold chute of history

Even if there’s only the hollow wind

Even if nothing is there

At least there’ll be a draught

If there’s a fog it will clear.

The blue arches of morning will break.

Drink and be whole again beyond confusion

Slowly heal like a dent in dough.

I feel everything that happened

2011-09-15T10:32:00.002+01:00

I hear you calling in the night

And you were there, as well, a touch away

always about to pull the sound of ticking darkness back

The view is real enough

I cannot turn away

I stand like a stone - a hollow block of anguish -

facing down the vast landscape of a lament:

the valley overgrown with the words we took

that led nowhere

the tall trees of tears,

the herds of sorrow grazing

chewing fresh distractions

(everywhere the scrimmage of appetite);

and beyond them the fields of blossoming regret

shot through with Rue

When trapped history malignantly testifies luminescence and irrefutable levity

2011-09-15T10:31:00.000+01:00

My true love and I lie without touching

skeletoned in darkness

History glimmers the firelight on faces

The yawn of time not yet arrived

Back in a time made simply by the loss of detail,

burned, dissolved, broken off

in signs we would smooth out like imprints on a bed

a crack was moving down the wall

His sad ghost would aspire, free of my love,

to its own post, free of its careful body

Not doors, but their shadows, slam in the house of the wind

I waited for someone, who came, and wasn’t what I wanted for

I kiss a bone (a relic)

I ache from slow beauty.

Poem from an 83 year old

2011-08-15T14:41:00.001+01:00

We struggle to find a good example.

Her long-term memory remembers

Quadrupedante putrem sonitu quatit ungula campum.

She translates the line of Virgil’s Latin,

‘We hear the horses' hooves thumping the broken earth of the plain.’

“It combines sound with a galloping rhythm

mimicking in words the sound of horses he describes.”

This – our teacher tells us – is onomatopoeia.

Stand still

2011-08-08T08:40:00.004+01:00

The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost (David Wagoner)

Go outside, last thing.
Sit, still, on the back step.
Smoke for five lonely minutes.

Hush your incessant chatter.

Listen to the silence of the night.

Wait - for the garden to appear.

Negative spaces in the sky

- edges fogged -

whisper by moonlight.

Mantilla style lace.

The world crackles, settles, sighs.

A snail halts - barely

stirring a long neck at the refuse.

Dark earth, solitary pebble.

The undergrowth bristles, irritates, harries.

A pale cat has cleared a murky path.

Ink stained stubble, stones.

Fletched silvered spines. A hedgehog’s shadow

shifts over the rise of the lawn.

The scent of consolation rustles

out of a no longer black heaven.

Rinsed by glistening rainfall,

nostalgia hoists itself up.

Erasure

2011-07-30T11:50:00.001+01:00

When you go back

Unthink how the indifferent sea
Fingered with tidal persistence to rise by inches

Eased across helpless lowlands
Licked at villages, farmsteads and churches

Erased daisies, lime trees, bales of straw
Filled the throats of severed bridges

Stopped roads in mid-sentence
Discomfited mapmakers

As if by design

© Sophia Roberts
All rights reserved

Start with a line from someone else

2011-07-16T13:12:00.001+01:00

Dare you cuckold this line from somewhere else

to go where I have never been?

Can you promise to love, honour, cherish,

forsake it for no other?

Can you countenance fidelity

until you are parted by death?

Can you envisage obedience

in return for all its worldly goods?

Dare you muster courage to love this line deeply

with a faithful heart?

A Singular Recipe for a Just Desert (in fifty words)

2011-07-07T12:53:00.000+01:00

Cast salt over one shoulder.

Truss the bastard bird. Boil him

with a worn thumb, a fat worm

and the loose tooth of a horse

Wring in the juice of one lemon.

Simper till it come to a high past

that will not cleave. ‘Till it be enough.

Serve cold.

A Singular Recipe for a Just Desert (the Earl of Arundel’s way)

2011-07-07T12:47:00.000+01:00

Let your gut have lain in vinegar and brown paper half a day before you use it

Cast salt over one shoulder.

Well fricate and oil a calves’ cauldron.

Strike two tears to make fire.

Warm the horn of one devil ‘till hot.

Truss the bastard bird

and boil him by himself in fair water.

Put to him a worn thumb, a fat worm

the loose tooth of a horse and a peck of pepper.

Wring in the juice of half a Lemon.

Simper for three hours

till it come to a high past

that will not cleave.

‘Till it be enough.

Have a leer made for it.

When it is cold

pour away the black liquor that comes from it.

Take out the heart and dispose in seething water.

Mince or chop the flesh into little bits

- as small as grated bread - with half a pound of marrow.

(Be sure none of your lemon kernels be among your pie-meat).

With your hands stiff

work altogether like a pudding.

Divide the flesh up into forty pieces

as big as walnuts.

Toss them one or twice.

Put them into the gut.

Stand in a deep coffin

with fried garlic stuck upright lying on the walls.

Let it stay there a day and a night.

Take it out and open it.

Sauce with bitter moonshine

Serve your pie without a cover

Revenge is a dish

best served cold

The Damned and The Saved

2011-06-29T10:41:00.001+01:00

Bound up, faceless women

- crow-winged and windswept -

look for the unborn

(the pale serious child

with a chip on his shoulder)

marking X’s with pieces of chalk

on the backs of unsuspecting

hand-holding couples, homebound.

Will you tilt and fall on your side?

Lie there breathing; lie there as the moon rises?

So many of you, and yet never a trace

of your expirations. Where do you go to die?

Past sundown, members of the flock turn circles,

float above the treetops, fall silent as nightbirds.

In the morning, not a cloud in the sky.

A few crows preen themselves at the side of the road.

Shirts raise empty sleeves on the blind woman’s clothesline.

She opens the door and calls, “Entrez, mes enfants.”

Worcester Scribblings

2011-06-20T18:11:00.003+01:00

the long grass bristles

glow in the dark

large white trainers

on flat feet

a solitary bird

conducts the chorus

in the leafy wings

© Sophia Roberts

Dick the Unlucky

2011-06-15T11:02:00.000+01:00

I never win

at anything.

Your bingo and your slot machines.

You name it. Not even a raffle.

Not once in me life.

Not me. Never a thing.

I went to the dogs.

At Manchester.

I didn't even get a sniff.
They was off. No chance.

I didn’t even see them go.

Whoosh. Not a chance in hell.

No way. Not me.

I was born like it.

There was another man there
- with only the one arm.

Couldn’t believe me eyes.

(You’ve gotta be joking!)

He did alright - he did.

Made a packet.

It was all too quick for me.

Whoosh. Out the gate.

Gone in a split second.

Not a chance in hell.

You could say

I’ve always been like it.

Yeah, true. I got

all me faculties:

arms and legs and that.

But, when it comes to actually

winning anything. It’s like this,

see? I’m rubbish.

©Sophia Roberts

I’m a gannet

2011-06-15T10:57:00.002+01:00

I can’t help it.

If you like your food,

you like your food.

My mother told me that:

how I love everything that’s bad for me.

Especially my choice of husbands.

The latest one’s alright. A bit stern.

With learning me to eat healthy.

See a bit of sense.

I left him.

This morning.

Doing the ironing.

I’m a gannet

2011-06-06T13:03:00.003+01:00

I love everything that’s bad for me.

Especially my choice of wives.

The latest one’s a bit stern, really.

With learning me to eat healthy.

I can’t help it.

If you like your food,

you like your food.

I left her this morning.

Siphoning ale and docking lambs.

Women’s work.

INTANGIBLE HERDIDATABLES

2011-05-26T11:10:00.005+01:00

The ground beneath
creaking, breaking
crumpling, crumbling
subsiding.

Silenced.

Listening
to the glistening

resisting an urge to muster
master
the lustre of an iridescent bubble
French finished and Polish polished
abolished with a colloquial
“right?”

Left
beneath
behind the shed
beyond the hedge

apprehending

a trembling butterfly keeling over
- and under -
faltering, sauntering
scrumbling, tilting
doubling back
skimming

your feet, which
demurely declining dancing
prance, scamper, skip sway

(supicious? precious!)

surreptitiously
stubbornly suggesting,
“surely scrambling,”

senselessly staggering
tottering
thumping.

Suddenly

reclining

faint-hearted
heavy-hearted
heavy-handed

on the ground beneath

which troublingly
persistently rumbles.

Collapsing
sending
your feet
beneath

tumbling, plummeting

reconnoitring encountering
hurtling into -
head-first, head-over-heels -
one head-strong Caplet, André.

Difficult to overlook
a handsome devil
exhibiting in a short
half round
red silk-lined
cape

insinuating
an unusual talent for
collaborating
in a suicide pact

inviting, declaiming indeed
- in instrumentally innovative
poorly orchestrated half-rhymed couplets –

♪♫ “Follow me, follow me, come let us couple together. Have,
an orgy with oval-shaped sugar-coated caplets my love”♪♫

all the while wallowing
up to his neck in the rubble
lining the hollow
beneath your feet.

Hallucinating,
dreaming dumb bunnies above ground
break their fast, eat breakfast
served sunny side up,
with past their sale-by-date
- at the end of their shelf-life -
sorry apologies for spud(s)
supplied by speculative
shifty Squirrel Skrumshuss
(spelt Scrumptious)

sequestered and supplemented only
yesterday using a mechanical lever
(age old trick) serving merely to multiply
predictable losses tomorrow.
The Turf Accountants advise the handicap
- owing to the Cut in the Ground -
is anticipated hard going, despite watering down

and out.

Watch him go:
André Caplet’s off
disciplining his bicycle
with a slender flexible switch
swoosh, swoosh, swoosh

pedalling selectively
slowly homeward
gingerly avoiding the potholes
the pitfalls and the Land Mines

still wittering
assuming, optimistically,
there’ll be Tomatoes still for tea
that the tomahawk’s due still at three

but salad days won’t come again:
he’s late, he’s late for the tête-à-tête
with a Master Ram’s Fabulous Dancing Feet
who can’t wait, won’t wait

to scrap a plan
play it by the book
ensure this pupil can tell
his left foot from her right.

Preferring,
with sugar and straw
committal.

Sentencing a life-time’s
one-and-two and one-and-two;

to eternally, everlastingly
expediently, effortlessly

career and skitter
slither and slip-slide
with the coloured girl, June
and a dwarf, named Eustace

over the slippery ground
beneath their exhausted feet

© Sophia Roberts
All rights reserved

Grief has its uses

2011-05-15T12:49:00.003+01:00

Yes, remember the maps and how they were wrong?

There ought to be another language pinned to the grid.

A sudden downfall. Rods of bitter water barring

a slow cavalcade of long hearses howling at the sky.

Homeless spirits we hadn’t prepared for. No damage.

Only the mysteries of separation. We are never prepared.

An empty bed where someone should be sleeping.

Fruit in a bowl. Clouds on a yellowing field.

Fragments of blue and grey and the promise of amber.

The ochre of distance. A gull at the edge of vision.

We’re never prepared for the soul when it comes

stretches to the dark a voice about to speak the wishes

we never surrendered, the flesh we concealed. We are polluted

by our histories. We cannot predict the rate of decay.

There are no guarantees. Nothing should happen but time.

Pride, like a goldfish, flashed a sudden fin. A lid on the mud.

© Sophia Roberts

In York Minster’s shade

2011-05-08T09:30:00.003+01:00

Renewing our promise

(under the meanest table).

We are at it again.

During the interval

I step in and hold my breath.

I can only I dream I am swimming.

Inland. Further.

Limpet. Lapping. Lovely.

Beholding you I die.

Mandible.

I am filled in with social motion, a twist

towards yours in direction.

All anomalies have a practical value.

Our promise flashes off the crest

I have long wanted to write.

Post War

2011-04-12T07:49:00.001+01:00

The King is Dead, Long Live the Queen and in 1957
to David and Mary Rich, a daughter. My delighted father
concurs: the New Elizabethans have never had it so good.

My mother’s pride? The attention is not unwelcome.
And she can still wear the latest Bond Street fashions,
all the while making ends meet, unabashed, ‘on tick’.

But the bitter conflict rumbles on: when Mary names the
belligerent baby, Emma, (after David’s brown hen), not
Elizabeth. She declines to satisfy her mother-in-law’s

aspirations. This pretty dark-eyed pawn is not another Rich.

© Sophia Roberts
All rights reserved

Supporting Evidence

2011-03-30T09:43:00.001+01:00

An abandoned Manual of Orthodox Prayers,

a redundant Liturgical Calendar,

an idle dictionary of British Saints; and

an icon of the Assumption veiled in dust, all

manifest her sad response to Mary’s “yes”.

The mysteries of March unobserved. His only

once, and once for all, redeeming love, declined.

Christ, crucified, with a broken right wrist hangs

on in there over the bed, facing down His loss.

TOO MUCH INFORMATION

2011-03-13T10:16:00.006Z

All we need

is under the bed,

first drawer, on the right.

There are three catheters;

a dozen night bags;

a box of leg bags

a handful of flip-flos;

an abundance of G straps and leg straps;

Dressing Packs; Mepore; saline solution;

more than enough empty syringes;

Instillagel; barrier cream, Betnovate ointment,

Gabapentin; and a blue plastic Night Bag stand.

Bladder Washes are under the table,

next to the patient’s copious Notes.

Update in triplicate, please.

In case of emergency

If all hell breaks loose.

It happens.

In the morning, before we get up

the two litre drainage bag comes off.

Carry it carefully to the loo, and empty.

Use the special bin marked Clinical Waste.

Wash your hands. And before. Obviously.

Sorry. Teaching my granny how to suck eggs.

Force of habit – 40 years come this June.

Bladder Wash days are Mondays,

Wednesdays and Fridays. Before

our first cup of tea. Less mess. Trust me.

After our bath we’ll need a new G-strap

on our right thigh; and yesterday’s leg straps –

unless it’s change-over day. Every Thursday.

Twice a year we see the consultant. He only smiles,

like a little Buddha; repeats the same old, same old,

“I’m sorry, there’s no cure.” I mean. What is the point?

The Gaffe

2011-03-06T19:27:00.027Z

The old folks should know

it was foolish to move their

burnt-out city boy and his library

out here, to the back of beyond.

He only reads the Radio Times, now

from cover to cover - over and over;

repeatedly sighing when he carefully

rises up and out of a worn wing chair,

shuffles the two or so yards to the set;

and slowly, deliberately switches over.

No need to tell them how

these languid, attenuated days

have rendered me enervated:

like a fish too long out of water.

The Return

2011-02-28T14:23:00.007Z

A parcel arrives

in the midst of

uncharted territory

and I am, reunited

with a missing

solitary, earring.

You also send

two potent signals

chosen from out of

a vast selection:

a nightdress

and the bath hat

that used to hang

behind your

bathroom door.

The significance

is not lost on me.

I read you.

Hell

2011-02-20T11:31:00.004Z

Through picture windows
there’s an enormous sky,
higgledy roofs, a proud steeple
and fine views over the hills.

I catch sight of you too,
on a summer morning,
waiting for me in the garden
with a fresh fruit salad breakfast.

Hell is not this gilded cage.
Hell is your absence.

© Sophia Roberts
All rights reserved

Slippers

2011-02-12T18:31:00.003Z

I find you in a distressed gentlefolk’s

bungalow clad in a tartan dressing gown

wearing the soft, sad slippers of old age.

A shadow of the irascible man who only wore

shoes, as he trailed honest dirt and debris in

through back and front door, into the lounge.

My mother lives dangerously in her dotage:

she wears crimson high-heeled hostess mules,

replete with a tacky feather trim. We listen out for them:

clickety-clack, clickety-clack. It signals Scarlet O’ Hara

has made it down the stairs again: a perilous journey

from her bedroom to the relative safety of her hall.

They do not flatter her early morning attire:

a long sleeved, full length high-necked nightdress,

but the colour matches her hostess robe.
And her flaming aspirations are still red hot.

National Trust Volunteer

2011-02-06T10:39:00.007Z

The dead woman standing speaks.

For when she wordlessly suggests we

don’t touch the Louis sixteenth ormolu clock

(whilst silently reminding that our children

are not permitted to test a rather fine example

of a Queen Anne bed)

we beat an arrogant retreat,

to the sound of her muttering “jobsworth.”

© Sophia Roberts
all rights reserved

A Poet's Tool Kit

2010-11-19T21:07:00.007Z

I will wear it heart-side out;

I will slide it deftly into the pocket

of my jeans. It will be small.

It will be lightweight and strong

pliable as a paperback novella

waterproof and hard-wearing.

There will be space enough to carry

an A4 hard-backed spiral-bound

notebook, with plain and ruled paper,

a fountain pen filled with blue-black ink,

a dictionary, a packet of crayons,

a pencil sharpener, and a rubber eraser.

It will hold the whole company of poets.

There will be Solitude

for the ‘where I’m at’ space:

the place I hide, concealed, cocooned

held safe in a still womb.

There will be Silence

so I can I listen out for, try to

hear the rhythm of breathing

and the thrust of a heart-beat

There will be Room

to spread my precious hoard

of words out on the blanket I clutch

for comfort and temporary shelter.

And Nimble fingers

to manipulate their sound

and the shapes they make

as I arrange and rearrange

organise notes on manuscript paper

I will need a structure as I move towards

and alongside releasing and reframing

the something – neither rhetoric, nor prose.

An authentic style to convey the signals,

and communicate the evidence

to carry the message - the intentness and about-ness

over a fragile bridge – in order to tell

you and me both

what I have discovered.

I must have patience and time

to resist the lure of

commodification.

I need the right voice to sing out

or whisper soft into

night’s dark reaches

A tuning fork

to ensure my resonance

is true

A handbag mirror

to reflect

the epiphany

and test that this witness

of what is in the blood

can get up, stand unaided

and walk off the page.

Ashes

2010-10-29T22:59:00.011+01:00

Leaves spill, sway, stagger
Two steps forward, three steps back
Summer’s embers dance

© Sophia Roberts
all rights reserved

Towards Michaelmas

2010-10-13T18:43:00.019+01:00

Through the empty trees
summer's cygnets sashay past
Grey swans on the turn

© Sophia Roberts
all rights reserved

Ringing the changes

2010-08-19T12:10:00.009+01:00

These hard

fruit flavoured

tablet-shaped

sweets

coloured white,

yellow, orange,

green, purple

or red

still feature

a short message

written in capitals

(the clarity of which is

sometimes compromised)

So no change

since nineteen twenty-eight

save that ‘Love Hearts’

are found in supermarkets

embossed “Email Me”

and “Luv U

24/7”

In the end

2010-06-11T10:47:00.006+01:00

In these deserted rooms that gave us life,
though I summon the words of regret,
I cannot feel the pang.

Do not worry my husband.
My arms will come away empty
when I turn to leave.

I shall leave the husk
of my unrequited love
for our infant Thomas,

behind.

© Sophia Roberts
all rights reserved

Fingers do the talking

2009-10-26T14:24:00.003Z

stitching

piecing

placing

putting

together

making

words

phrases

arranging

sentences

dilatory

gradual

line by line

slow, real slow

row upon row

dithering, bothering,

uncertain, unsure

lost, finding, losing

undoing, unravelling,

scragging, tying up in knots

unpick the burden of eternity

take up the thread start afresh

go back where you left off

in a moment so sweet the most unlikely person

whilst knitting - not nattering, as was supposed to happen

but never had - began to talk

about her shed and another about the leopard, then we got

the artist’s way, King Arthur and the holy grail until finally

the story about Orlanda, Vita, Virginia and why university.

all on a midsummer evening, all self-affirmed, all changed

whilst pulling old clothes out of dusty drawers: inside out

confirming our sanity by Thoreau’s water, wearing worlds we had known

dressing up in other ways to be, alternatives, borrowed lives, putting on

trying for size, running fingers over, smoothing down

snagging, catching hold a different thread that takes, holds fast

makes a new pattern

a tractor crosses,

disturbs my line of vision

how beautiful

intense green

sky scrumbled grey

light hitting the blue cab

I decide not to talk about it

to keep silent

to meld into the moment

thank God

verses for 1000 verse renga

2009-10-26T14:18:00.001Z

a tractor crosses
disturbs my line of vision
a grey day transformed

shaft of light hits a blue cab
moving across intense green

I keep due silence
melding into the moment
reflecting, grateful

Pulling up the morning

2009-10-08T21:09:00.003+01:00

I see

shadows of trees fall tall as
three and a bit fields, dawn-lit
mismatched greige patches
soft-edged with fuzzy-felt braid.

I see

bulging, expectant cows, line up
form a patient queue as long as
Elm Lane - awaiting sweet relief
this fresh morning, deliverance

I am nostalgic

for restoration

for realignment

for order

My Drop Dead Mother

2009-08-27T18:44:00.003+01:00

They had a closed funeral for a wannabe woman
with no donations thank you, but flowers instead,
and an immediate family wake, where for the first time
in over twenty years all four siblings sat in the same room
together, united then, and a for a week or two thereafter,
by the narrative they shared, and a need to sort things out.

July 2009

The New Black

2009-07-31T17:07:00.003+01:00

As I lie dying please to remember these last requests:
I can cope with hunger, but I do not want to die thirsty.

Plus - should it be appropriate - do not resuscitate.
I would not wish to linger beyond any sell-by-date

or extend my shelf-life. But neither do I choose the new
black: suicide or elective death. So not me darling.

Then when I am quite, quite dead please to close my eyes,
place pennies on the lids and fold my arms across my chest.

No longer earth side, beyond caring, but dignity above all.

July 2009

Life Model

2009-07-14T17:07:00.004+01:00

after Cavafy and Don Paterson

This rolled up charcoal sketch -
it’s a good likeness.
It was drawn slowly, one long
late summer evening
at 43 Oxford Road. I’d say
it caught his strength –
though I have him more lithesome;
so much the prone David you’d say
he was almost perfect ... Yes, he looks
so much more lithesome,
now my body keens him
from this distance. From here.
All these things are very old – the sketch,
the green bedroom and the evening.

July 2009

Thanks for the devil I didn’t know

2009-06-19T11:50:00.006+01:00

after Alice Oswald -

A is for Angel,
fallen among equals in this devilish alphabet.

B is Brimstones and Burning
desire: much glowing, smoking, igniting, and combusting.

C is for both crypt and coffin
in which you place a person
as he puts forth beseeching hands into darkness.

D E F is the Deaf and Dumb finito silence of the quite dead.

Grace is for the intercessions
prayed by hearts and minds on earth as in heaven
that a soul may be saved from destruction and live.
Else it’s H for Hades and hell.

I, by far the most familiar and inward looking devil,
I is work for hands grown idle
that tried to toil and fold an origami devil but failed:
impossible to spread the thumb and fingers, then valley fold
(repeat other side):
neither paper (red, flimsy) and time (short) fit for purpose.

Whereas J and K both, for Jinn and Knave,
are mother’s ruin, maid’s downfall.

L M N is a lemon strung up high
together with seven red chillies bending back the Eye,
which malicious glance may mean a man withers and goes down to the pit.

O is “Oh my God, Other people”
for P and Q are the Prince and his mother, the Queen
issuing forth wearing Prada.

R is Rebellion personified,
who ruins and destroys by leading astray through many lies, deceptions,
temptations, enticements;
putting to proof, accusing, testing, then actuating to govern poor sinners.

And S is the salt other people throw over
left shoulders, backwards, to blind the devil, keep him at bay:
ensure a safe distance.
But T is for “Talk of the devil, he’s sure to appear;
speak of an angel you’ll hear wings.

Then U for Usurper is the illegitimate claimant
who already made himself king of the world, without he ascended the throne.

Plus you’ve V which is the Voice of the Devil (illumined by Blake)
and W for wisdom with a difference:
a palace no less, reached by roads of excess
whilst riding not horses of instruction, but tigers of Wrath.

Last X is for the eXorcist
whereby Y for Yaweh is restored
and the Z in BeelZebubb cast out.

All’s right. God’s in His heaven. But easy does it...

There’s an old devil called love.

June 2009

Double Take

2009-06-09T13:14:00.001+01:00

I saw fish farm breeding pools glint silver
down in the valley. I was mistaken.

I saw limed-oak silver ribbons festoon
early morning roadside fields. Wrong again.

Not rivers and lakes. A trick of first light:
sheets of food-grade cornstarch and polythene

tunnels litter, smother and wrap the hill sides.
A green and plastic fresh made-over land.

June 2009

Just show up, day after day

2009-06-06T16:26:00.000+01:00

I make the daily half hour offering:
tender in silence, with all due reverence,
here at the altar of long suffering.

Not pleading exactly, more like praying
how long Oh Muse, how long? Nevertheless
I make the daily half hour offering

after twenty plus years, still aspiring,
with all due humility, for success.
Here at the altar of long suffering.

I repeat the mantra again, yearning
to become a published poetess:
“I make the daily half hour offering.”

Without a result, nothing forthcoming
I doubt its power, its effectiveness,
here at the altar of long suffering.

Then eureka! I should have been writing
as well, when together with my presence
I make the daily half hour offering
here at the altar of long suffering.

May 2009

Let It Go

2009-05-20T11:17:00.002+01:00

When I was a little girl I thought I understood perfectly what my mother meant when she said life’s not fair. We were poor and endured misfortunes. But in retrospect I don’t recollect that we suffered that much, nor that I really minded my friends were better off.

I was probably cushioned by the knowledge that there were many who had far less than us and I suspect I understood the maxim: God helps those who help themselves. I never doubted that I could and would help myself; and I now see that life had been unfairly balanced - in my favour - because I had what it took to manage life’s vicissitudes and to succeed.

This philosophy served me well for many years. I even came up smiling when I was diagnosed with MS shortly after my fortieth birthday. Compared to many I was lucky: the progress of my illness was slow, I had a warm and caring husband, and we didn’t want for anything.

Fifty is the New Forty!

I wonder if I hadn’t been looking at life through rose-tinted spectacles. As I approached my fiftieth birthday two things hit home. Firstly I began to really mind that other people had a lot more than me and to realise it was unlikely – given my age and circumstances – that I’d improve on what I now perceived as an unsatisfactory lot. I had fancied I was destined to be special, and that everything comes to those who wait. I had been labouring under a misapprehension.

Secondly I saw, as if for the first time, what old age can mean. I encountered many elderly people who were depressed, uncomfortable and frightened. As I witnessed minds and bodies falling apart I began to appreciate how unpleasant the end of life and the process of dying might be.

I see now these observations were not unconnected. Further, that each of the crises which occur every ten years or so throughout our adult life come with attendant lessons, or – as Hamblin says – opportunities. The mid-life crisis, which for some doesn’t kick in until they approach retirement can seem particularly poignant: the best years are past and the rest is downhill all the way.

I came to myself

I began to pray for my own discovery: that I cease to be what I had always thought I wanted to be and find myself anew, in the Divine.

When, like the Prodigal Son I came to my senses, it ceased to matter that I would never see some places or do some things. I could let that go. But it did matter that I had been guilty of the sin of an unlived life: I had failed to enjoy the beauty of the earth because I had taken it too much for granted whilst bogged down by my petty anxieties. And I repented that I had sometimes loved in a false way and in too short a measure. In the words of Simone Weil, I had ‘turned my gaze in the wrong direction.’

I could have avoided all this, and much more. I had failed to pay attention to the details of my life. And I had allowed myself to be seduced by the glamour of this world: by the notion that I could copy someone else’s success (far easier to do that than to risk being true to myself).

My Hearts’ Desire

Thomas Merton maintains that intense busy-ness and the pursuit of a false self go hand in hand. Frantic self-expression had indeed become synonymous with my self-assertion - the opposite of loving behaviour. I had created an increasingly false self and become less able to love with a pure heart. In the midst of life I had forgotten about the need to seek out the agenda of my life.

To discover the agenda of our lives - which is set neither by others nor ourselves, but by the Divine – is a process that takes a whole lifetime. Confusion, uncertainty and doubt, which are a natural part of life, will prevail to distract us. But, depending on what we desire most in this life (and beyond it), our souls will either grow and blossom or shrivel up.

Our task is to discriminate amongst our longings and attachments and, if appropriate, to let go. For what we desire most in this life - what we really want and long for – shapes and judges us.

Accepted by Love

Whilst looking the other way I had become defined and tormented by what I desired and possessed. In so doing I had become blind to the infinite worth of who I am. I no longer believed and trusted that I was loved and valued for myself. I didn’t see that I was accepted by Love; love which is tested and proved in our ability to let go: of seeming securities, possessions, of our loved ones and, ultimately of life itself.

Mary Oliver tells us that to live in the world we must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against our bones knowing that our own life depends on it; and, when the time comes, ‘to let it go, to let it go.’

The inspiration for this article came from Learning to Dance by Michael Mayne and Finding Sanctuary by Abbot Christopher Jamison

Blind Man’s Buff

2009-04-16T09:45:00.002+01:00

Who’s there? I am.
Where from? A place dark in earth’s bed.
First wrapped, then sloughed,
coming away in fragile brown paper layers.

Then defused
swollen
silken
still-born.

I peeped out and saw myself:
a prize won at the coconut shy
resting between forms.
This, I surmised,

with its crocodile tears,
with its legless and bald old man’s pate, its rings,
its crescents and grudges and slices
this is onion. For the moment.

This is when the fork
nudges at my not-as-firm-as-it-looks flesh
and finds me yet
protesting my fate.

So I resisted and clung
clothed in leather in the teething allotment gardens
mournful being sown and grown
and eaten up and sown...

Make your own onion

2009-04-16T09:41:00.002+01:00

I

Glue two halves, four quarters,
or approximately eight
three-dimensional crescents

Decoupage crisp layers
of fragile brown paper.
Cherish, burnish with ochre.

Plug with string fibres
dust with dry earth
taper, make a wick

Do not
ignite

II

Inflate a small balloon with Plaster-of-Paris

glaze with crackle finish, hide underground.

Pull down chill of winter damp, introduce spring:

a ‘grow your own pearl’ sprung from the dark

19 March 2009

Knowing Onions

2009-04-16T09:39:00.000+01:00

We call this a leek -
we ditch the green, eat the white -
not a green onion.

Likewise this spring onion.

My American cousin

3rd February, 2009

Parting is such sweet sorrow

2008-10-22T09:02:00.003+01:00

The first thing I said on waking was, “Please ... let it not be spring when he leaves - a parting at a time of new beginnings. You must know it would break my heart to see gambolling lambs and cavorting daffodils, just then ... When the earth cracks open don’t let me be mocked by the portents of new life, and fresh beginnings. I would rather not live than see the fruits of the union twixt earth and heaven.”
I leant over and prodded Freddie awake. “You must know autumn would be much better; when the world has begun to ease off, before its descent into the things of darkness, into hibernation. That’s where I must be if I’m to survive this.”
“Yeah,” she muttered, “Where light will not be welcome, and no comfort at all. Grant me an inhospitable landscape, and short, short overcast days; dull skies, and no natural warmth.”
“That’s just what I would have said.”
“You already did,”she grunted. “We’ve been rehearsing this tired old speech for weeks now.”
“Not in so many words, we haven’t - Oh bless! You must have sneaked a look at the latest draft when you came in last night."
“When,” she asked as she unzipped her sleeping bag and clambered up off the floor, “Are you going to get us some decent coffee? Surely, it’s not unreasonable to ask you to do that much round here.”
“How do you know I haven’t already? You haven’t got as far as the kitchen yet.” Freddie put on a sock. “Don’t look like that,” I muttered, lying back in my sofa bed nest. “I’ve been so busy at work, this past month, as well as the rest. Writing the script, and getting everything ready for the big day.... Come on, darling, don’t sulk - we agreed - it needs to be perfect.” Freddie buckled her belt.
I sat up, stretched and considered what to wear. “I’ve been thinking. Green would be so much better for Tuesday.”
Freddie sat down, and smoothed my hair back from my face. “But we’d agreed, black, Sylvie. We agreed all this right from the start - months ago. Because she thinks it’s finished and that they’re never going to see each other again.”
“Hmm. But she knows he’ll be coming back, and that they’ll carry on like they always have.”
“She doesn’t know that.”
“Yes, she does.”
Freddie sighed. “Why are you doing this to me? You know it’s important that she’s distraught when he goes – for his sake.”
“OK, OK,” I placated, “She’ll wear black; I’ll do it just like you want - it’s just that I thought green was more positive; it’s – you know - the colour of growth.” I picked up Freddie’s hand and examined her nails. “It’s an idea isn’t it? How about her saying one thing and wearing another? It would keep an audience guessing. ‘Cause anything could happen, couldn’t it?”
“We’ve been through this a thousand times. It’s important to be consistent. He needs to be 100% focused on her needs, and worrying about how she’ll cope whilst he’s in the States. So it stops him from – look she won’t be wailing and carrying on if she doesn’t think he’s going away for ever; yeah?”
“She could be pretending, and about to do something positive with her life, like - a course in – I don’t know, Romanian.”
“That’s enough. You are not helping. Christ! Will you look at the time?” she said, shoving unwashed feet into her Birkenstocks, “I’ve got to get going; early seminar.”
I got up and pulled on jogging pants. “Jesus, I wish I’d never agreed to do this.”
Freddie, kissed me and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Come on, you know why we’re doing it like this. It’s important, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah. Treating it like a game will help you to cope.”
But, what, I thought - as I brushed my teeth - about me? Freddie going to see a shrink about her fear of flying was meant to help her with coping strategies. Not, I spat, drive me into the arms of the nearest sane man.

Life in its abundance

2008-10-02T12:24:00.000+01:00

During this summer – the wettest on record – we have been reminded that the weather is one of the things we can’t control. To that most would add that neither have they been able to control how they’ve been affected by it.

For many the weather will have been irrelevant. I am thinking of the terminally ill, their families, and of Fiona in particular. She is expecting her first child. And by the time it’s born she will have lost - in the space of six months – the two most significant men in her life: her father and her husband.

Where there’s life there’s hope

I cite Fiona’s example, because her courage in the face of tragic circumstances is remarkable. She owns neither religious faith, nor any particular hope in a life hereafter. What she does have is hope for her unborn child. Life for her, and her husband’s parents, will go on. Their grief, with its attendant anguish will have a focus. They will hold in their arms a tangible reminder of a loved one and the promise of a new future.

My friend’s profound loss, together with news of the Indian monsoon, has reminded me that most of us don’t have much to complain about. When it rains we don’t lose all our possessions, which only ever amounted to all that could carried in a handcart. And, it’s rare in this country, in this century, to lose a middle-aged parent and a young spouse in quick succession. We do well, therefore, to reflect on the gift of our lives, and to count our blessings.

Born Free

There will, of course, be times when we too will feel anything but blessed. Life is unpredictable, and the shards of life’s disappointments can wound. But we need not be damaged by them. We have been created free and intelligent people blessed with an ability to choose our response.

Accordingly we are not programmed automatons, for whom God arranges no suffering. It is inevitable that one’s person choice may mean suffering for another. God neither causes us to suffer nor desires it, but God is not going to remove the possibility. Instead God will be with us every step of the way, through our triumphs and disasters, making our lives bearable and also sharing in our joys.

Forgiveness

In Matthew 10:8 Christians, and others, are taught that our response to God’s amazing grace should be to freely give; to love as we are loved. If we strive constantly to forgive, we shall ourselves be forgiven.

Otherwise we distance ourselves from God; we fail to love one another, to treat others as we would wish to be treated and to understand others as we would wish to be understood. Thus we must overcome the bearing of grudges - against anyone, or anything - the desire for revenge and the wish to punish those who have offended us.

Prayer

If we ask we will be given the strength to bear the impact of whatever befalls us. God knows we are vulnerable and that we get hurt, but if we are to become fully human we cannot be protected from life. As such God rarely works to change the real world. Instead, everything that happens in our lives – good or bad - can be a means of deepening our capacity to become fully human and to enjoy life in its abundance.

Prayer ensures we can enjoy a loving relationship with the living God, no matter what. By it we will be granted the help to take what comes and grow through it; granted thereby the opportunity to become what God intends: ‘profitable servants’ who have realised the fullness of their potential.

published in New Vision

An old tablecloth

2008-07-21T08:16:00.002+01:00

She told me, definitely, French
(à couvrir une table) and très, très chic.

Quite risqué, when pink –
shocking, in fact - but reduced,
come her end, by the laundry
to palest strawberry blonde.

An Old Irish piece, the daughter said,
worn right through - beyond the pale.

When Word Gets Out

2008-07-13T10:40:00.000+01:00

When the Word gets out it’ll be all over Heard Land.
So it’s “Seal up your lips and give no words but mum.”

Word is the Word’s going straight. Yeay! Like a shot!
Straight through mini roundabouts; and over - without looking
- pelican crossings. Travelling wrong ways down one-way

highways and byways; up passages and alley ways. Sallying,
doing the Lambeth Walk (taking a piss!) in broad daylight
on walkways, ‘bus lanes, foot paths and ‘Old Bristol’ trails.

Way to go! But, time - all options spent – old Word wasn’t here.
Gotta travel back down a certain little lady’s corridor of power.
To meander, legless, up the old dead end. Go see the old woman.

Visit a bricked-up no-entry, no off-road, Five Towns terrace.
Hustle in at a blue gap-toothed door. Lay his head, below street level
in a thick-dusted lap. Test his own echo. Wait for the marks to show.

Meantime best lock up your daughters Mrs. Butter Wouldn’t Melt
in Yer Gob, word is Mum’s not the word; and Bob’s not your uncle.

July 2008

Something & Nothing

2008-06-30T08:49:00.001+01:00

A copy of Germinal, by Zola, dislodges a ghost
and I hold a trace of my mother. Incarnate,

come back a book mark, circa March 1990.
A 'Mother's Day' present sent with her love.

The text is ‘Come Let us Worship’: Mary, Jesus -
as he chats to Burne-Jones angels - and a lamb.

My mother, Mary's, token of remembrance:
a free gift from a Help the Aged Charity shop

Sunday Morning

2008-06-25T10:01:00.000+01:00

Gilded by a late, low-slung mid-winter sun,
we peer out through crazed, damp windows.
See a scrumble of slender, slow, yellow rivers.

We pause for a moment - long enough to listen
– and we hear it; the new-every-morning song:
wood pigeons, robins, thrushes, maybe, finches.

A peace, profound as soft fallen deep snow -
a protecting veil - drops, settles on our home.

January 2007

Caesar’s Wife

2008-04-29T18:54:00.003+01:00

Despite himself, any memory eternal
was owing to Pompeia’s fifteen minutes.
Not the cakewalk he’d hoped for, at all.

Come the end a politically expedient, barren,
second rate, second choice wife carried away a
small prize - her progeny; at Caesar’s expense.

Factory Stack

2008-04-07T13:34:00.002+01:00

Fresh, diaphanous, overblown grey mushroom steam
is upstaged by a heavy mob: a puffed-up, blew-in late
last night from the west, swollen-with menace, gang.

Massed, black-bruised, heavy with import, storm clouds.

Thank you, Pat

2008-03-19T16:00:00.005Z

Come, late spring, with
a tight fistful of flowers:
hedgerow jewels,
revived this morning, a
small kitchen god offering.

Shaking down the duvet

2008-03-19T15:33:00.001Z

A sharp crease like a herringbone spine
falls down the length of an unmade bed.

The veined imprint of a lancet leaf, the
press of a tulip embossed on white linen

Home Guard at Aberdaron

2008-03-18T20:19:00.007Z

I

They only left us in peace for one hundred and fifty years

It would have been for longer, see, but for Owen Owens. Only

He would go and lean too far the wrong way. And then the granite

and the marble mob were in, and next thing the show-offs up front arrived.

See old boys on a long, slow march to the front

tilt, tiptoe, totter, take a tumble, fall down flat.

Watch, as belly-down, they imperceptibly shift,

sidle, slide, slither, shunt forward. And over the top.

Safe. Back with the mother of all inventions.

Half Term in January

2008-03-18T20:06:00.003Z

In Powder Rooms all over the city swarms of
sexually explicit, pre-pubescent, girls attired in
next-to-nothing T-shirts, and short-short skirts
with shiny legs warm-clad in little fur bootees,

hold deep conversations about the state of their skin,
punctuated with "And then He said" and "You know,
He told me", and “He never” as they debate the merits
of the Great God, Boyfriend – He who must be obeyed.

She smiled

2008-03-11T10:32:00.011Z

After they’d strapped her mother down the four men wheeled the trolley across the car park; then half-carried it across stiff unwieldy furrows until they reached the graveside. There, without ceremony, but with the aid of wide canvas straps, they lowered her into the space already carved out of the frozen mud.

It would have been more fitting if just two of the undertakers, who were attired in morning dress, had carried Claire, all the way, and then buried her the old fashioned way. The tiny picnic hamper of a coffin was only a featherweight casket.

But, there could be nothing substantial about the internment, for - like a bird released - Claire had already flown, with new wings, through heaven’s trap-door. Up, up and away. Free at last.

Yet, left alone, without strangers in attendance, the family still said their pieces, wept, and made their peace; for if it beggared belief that they had buried Claire – decomposing or otherwise - the ritual confirmed it.

After the others had gone Anna took a last look in at the open wound, and at what festered there, and with her gesture of a single white rose, said goodbye to all that.

Dry-eyed, she turned and walked away. Grief wasn't an issue; her mother had died for her, years ago.

For Sarah

2008-03-07T10:58:00.000Z

Early one morning,
pick up your killim, walk out.
Illusion of choice.

An origami widower's lament

2008-02-27T10:30:00.003Z

Why’d you have to be spread over three desks, stashed
in the airing cupboard, two decommissioned wardrobes,
an obsolete sideboard and a broken down chest-of-drawers?

When it could be rolled right up –
not creased – or even soft-folded.

What about boxed, neat-stacked, floor to ceiling in the garage, or
kind of artfully wedged, crammed if you like, ether side of the boiler,
because its paper, paper everywhere, and – Honey - enough’s enough.

Not the dining room table. You know
a man’s gotta eat his dinner someplace.

Poetry and origami have a lot in common

2008-02-27T09:24:00.002Z

Always was a walk-over. Seduced, charmed
By the allure of another go, a fresh start
Begin again, with another piece of paper.

Thirty years on, long since midnight
Same old wastepaper basket chock-full
of screwed up, crumpled, failed models.

No change.

Blue Folded Bowl

2008-02-27T09:19:00.002Z

For Mary

It could have been blue,
yellow, pink, or black; but green.

Creased at my leisure
Pleated for your sweet pleasure.

Gather the dust of your life.

Anne's blanket

2008-02-27T09:17:00.005Z

a single white hair
a scrap of green/gold paper
ghost of Christmas past

Something understood

2007-10-28T07:49:00.001Z

I

Blind-sided

a capricious blink
the drift that beguiles
quick; arrested; near
on the edge of the rim

a wee fresh fragment
snapped-off; so sharp-edged
secure, confident,
dancing on the water

Gone-again

II

Pulling an old routine down over your head
it gets caught up, snags, catches at - a slip,
a sliver; a something: a snatch, a snippet.

Casual words not there – quite – but understood,
come back; they seep invidious, rise up through
stain all the surfaces. Leave a ring of dark water.

An obstinate face stares back last thing, first light,
over a crowded room; in amongst the crowds. Won’t
let up, take a short break; give it a rest. Not on your life.

III

Beyond the open window the beat of lonely
ill disguised grief lingers; it does not cease

neither does it falter; not for a moment

A light in February went out but life stretches
goes on; the baton now is yours – it passed.

Sunday, 28 October 2007

SPINDRIFT

2007-10-11T01:47:00.004+01:00

Invisible creatures in flight
hiss by on wet roads;
chill-brush a cheek,
touch damp a sleeve.

Open-ended possibilities,
swift as light, shape-shift,
dispel, disintegrate,
dissolve, and disappear.

II

In a quest for form & meaning a fictitious discourse is
fully extended, gone all out
to meet the demands of your art:
what could be written.

III

The Maiden Racer falters, stumbles - nowhere near the finish - veers left and right; begins to progress, then to regress again; meanders over playing fields and flood plains: infolding, unfolding; twisting, spiralling, looping, turning - back in on herself.

And when passé expectations of order and significance are randomly shot down
by brokenness; and the narrative structure - masked with unimaginative and
unhelpful opacity – is, at last, stripped of all meaning ‘The End’ can’t be far behind.

The story – grown out of and referring to an empty centre, generated by the ever receding object of its quest – was not told this evening, nor will it ever be. Ridden
out after a mile. Conditions unacceptable: going hard, jockey not light enough.

A Green Collar Party

2007-09-20T01:41:00.000+01:00

It was a range to simply die for, my dear.
Harvey Nicks, of course. Where else?
Oodles. Pastel green polka dot,
designer green Asian silk, designer
harlequin lime, lime green leather -
spiked! - and a sparkling green stud!
Divine Swarovski crystal rhinestone
with charm. Rather tasteless green
enamel T-bone, a somewhat OTT
number in flashing neon green…

Me? One discreet green lizard skin,
set with tiny studs – just the one row.
Without matching leash! No. Sadly,
not the greenest of them all that night.

It was ‘H’. Quite. The model of sartorial perfection.
Crawled in late dressed as a blue-collar lounge
lizard, if you please. No. Not sweet; not cute at all.

Upstaged me alright. Tired old queen got it so right.
Went dressed as the last endangered ugly thing. Tart.
Bitch! Wore just the right-on shade of PC Green.

WHAT GOD INTENDS

2007-05-21T23:10:00.000+01:00

We are made for goodness, we are made for love, we are made for laughter, we are made for joy, we are made for transcendence. (Desmond Tutu)

Making Sense of Non-sense

As I write this Gerry and Kate McCann, the parents of Madeleine are suffering unimaginable anguish following the abduction of their daughter. I doubt very much whether they and the countless others who are, and have been, the victims of undeserved suffering will readily agree that life is good. Many will also reject the sort of God who, on the face of it, is powerless to intervene and prevent suffering.

This will particularly apply if God has hitherto been perceived as a sort of cosmic Santa Claus who unfailingly looks after his own. At such times devotees are bound to be bitterly disappointed. Because God doesn’t promise to fix anything; neither can we expect to be rescued. Christians, or followers of any other faith, are not exempt from suffering. The only promise is the one made to Abraham: ‘I will be with you.’ We can know this for ourselves if we call out; and if we listen.

Beyond All Telling

If we want a wider view of life we must be brave. Only the mysterious God who embraces all things – light and dark, pain and joy, life and death and whom it is beyond our capacity to understand - can offer any sort of comfort.

If we have courage enough to meet this God in the prayer that arises from silence and emptiness we come to know that we are cherished by a God who loves us, and in whom we can dare to trust. The knowledge that we are valuable and valued is beyond thought or emotion; it is not found in books, or speech. If we are to know it in our guts, we must discover and experience it for ourselves, Thereby we will come to recognise that God’s Will for us is the better way and we will be able to pray: ‘My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.’

Let Go and Let God

How we pray is unimportant because God always listens - no matter what we have to say, or how we say it. What we must do, however, is to approach God with a spirit of utter openness, without preconceived notions about who or what and without anticipating the response.

The advantage of coming before God in meditation is that it necessarily precludes the view that we can only know courtesy of our thoughts or feelings. If we can cease to use language - giving, receiving and interpreting signals – we are better able to become what God intends.

Being-in Love

We are called to become fully ourselves. And in order to realise our unique potential as individuals we must enter into a living relationship with God. This will oblige us to receive a divine presence into our hearts with a generosity that is no less than God’s love for us. Only then we will uncover another way – an unconditional way - of knowing that is founded on being-in love. When we are rooted and utterly grounded in the love of God we come to know a peace that is beyond all understanding. Such that, when confronted with suffering, we can say, with Job, ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.’

This is not the passive response of a depressed person. This is the assertion of a man who has made the leap of faith to which we are all called. Job, having made his commitment to God, and kept it, has found for himself that there is a love that endures, no matter what befalls him. It is a reality. It is a truth sufficient unto itself.

Liberated

God’s ways are not concerned with worldly measures of success or failure. Instead we are required to accept who we really are, and not who we think we might be. When we walk humbly with God we are free to be our true selves.

If we are to enjoy the freedom that is to be found in God we must let go, and surrender the limitations of our ego-selves. For it is only when we are no longer planning or desiring that we make ourselves available to enjoy the steadfast presence of God - to be at one with God’s stability. If we can forgo the alluring novelty of the market place we learn to forget about ourselves and our concerns: our worries and our aspirations.

The Call

We learn to listen out for and to live in harmony with God’s energies if we make a space in which to be still and empty for twenty minutes, morning and evening, every day. We must be disciplined if we are to travel what Hamblin calls ‘the way of attainment.’

If we are to be led to a new reality that is rooted in the love of God we must become wholly open to the gifts of our creation. We are called – if we would but listen - to hear and respond to a ‘still small voice of calm.’ If we evade this call - to live by God’s Will alone - we will fail to discern for ourselves that life in God is good. [†]

Yes, the sky is the limit, and we are meant to reach for the stars and dream God's dream. (Desmond Tutu)

[†] Sources: ‘Made for Laughter’ by Sheila Cassidy and ‘The Way of Unknowing’ by John Main.

Published in 'New Vision' Summer 2007: http://www.thehamblintrust.org.uk/vision-july2007.htm)

The Way of Thomas

2007-05-18T00:41:00.000+01:00

Nine Insights for Enlightened Living from the Secret Sayings of Jesus by John R. Mabry, published by O Books, ISBN 1-84694-030-3. Price £10.99

New Age theologians, of whom Mabry is one, suggest we relocate our spiritual authority from without to within. And Thomas is the disciple with spiritual integrity - the one who owned that he had doubts. He reminds us that each one of must struggle to remake any received religion in terms of our history and experience. We must enter into our own relationship with the Mystery. The alternative is worshipping someone else’s image of God, for which read potential idolatry.

The Gospel of Thomas is composed of one hundred and fourteen short quotations from Jesus, often with little or no contextual information. Like Buddhist koans, they often appear nonsensical at first, but their function is to shock one into a state of greater awareness, or even enlightenment, in order to realise our unity with all things.
Accordingly heaven and earth are not separate, nor is there any real distinction between the Creator and the creature. There is no mention of a virgin birth, no account of a crucifixion and resurrection; and no elaborate promises about an after life. Because the Thomas school did not regard Jesus as divine their goal was not to fall down and worship him. Rather they aspired to become his twin and thereby to share in his mystical perspective.

Accordingly many members of the traditional Christian churches and, it must be said, some scholars will not enjoy this book. But credit where considerable credit’s due. Mabry holds a doctorate and is a leading light in his field. He has written many books, is co-pastor of a Californian church, and he also teaches: spiritual direction, world religions, and interfaith theology.

Mabry’s primary interest is best summed up as unitive consciousness and how we might attain it. This study comprises a short introduction to the Gospel of Thomas, a new translation, nine extensive complementary insights and a series of useful spiritual exercises. It will appeal to those seekers to whom a conflagration of Judaism, Buddhism and a smidgen of Christianity’s teaching is an attractive proposition.

21st March

2007-03-21T16:31:00.001Z

Spring Equinox dawn
Shines too brightly through the blind
Nature's own wake up call

Shadow-land

2007-03-20T16:06:00.000Z

On the hill early
Back lit stiff-fringed trees
Mohican haircut

WRITING

2007-03-20T01:35:00.000Z

A container, for the branches of my meanings:
Long or short-stemmed sentences edited, cut to fit,
Fill the vase - or not.

Hardy, fragile stems of green wood
Carry words that cascade, tumble, drop down
In a torrent of scent.

Delicate blooms surprise, take root, settle
In ill prepared dry as dust soil. Bear fruit.
Or at first sight, wither

Sweeping away an extravagant folly: a profusion of
Blighted petals – folly beyond redemption
I find one seed.

First thing belch

2007-03-16T16:02:00.001Z

Hoary break of day
Bolt upright presumptuous steam.
Factory breaks wind

Glass house morning

2007-03-15T15:52:00.000Z

Endless grey: mist, fog.
Distant horizons finished.
View from a jam jar

Coming up dawn

2007-03-13T15:46:00.000Z

Soft spring morning
Shaft of diffuse grey light
A protecting veil

Tulips

2007-03-12T00:48:00.000Z

Good Morning Tulips
Become pink, purple, yellow
Once blind now you see

Sunday, 11 March 2007

Lunch, Bristol

2007-03-05T15:39:00.001Z

I sit opposite
see beyond a boat travel
in, then out, your head

A SNAIL GOES BACK INDOORS

2007-02-07T01:33:00.000Z

Another warm, wet night well spent
tenderly circling a favourite beat
in real slow motion as is my bent.

I played it real cool, casual, diffident,
and time I finished I was well replete.
Another warm, wet night well spent.

‘cause it weren’t without incident,
when we went down on the concrete,
in real slow motion as is my bent.

Certain little lady told me heaven sent.
Me? I say yup, pretty darned neat:
another warm, wet night well spent.

Nope; neither mishap nor an accident.
Though I say it myself; that were a treat:
another warm, wet night well spent
in real slow motion as is my bent.

Lead kindly light

2006-11-10T00:36:00.000Z

amid th'encircling gloom, lead Thou me on!

The Spiritual Focus

The traditional ways to adjust impaired spiritual vision are to clear the glass - through which we now see darkly - by the use of meditation, prayer, and contemplation. But there are times when our windows are so dirty we can no longer see out at all, let alone sense that there’s anything beyond the murk before our eyes. We feel nothing; absolutely nothing at all. To all intents and purposes we are spiritually dead.

But just because we don’t feel the presence of God doesn’t mean that God has ceased to exist. Most of us will, at least once in our lives, experience doubt so profoundly that we cannot be sure we so much as believe in the possibility of God anymore – let alone that He’s a reality. But whilst, we might not believe in God any more, He will always continue to believe in us. Our feelings, or our faith in the Divine, don’t enter into it.

Adjusting Our Sets

If the outer life – the one we can see – is a reflection of the inner life then we do well to remember that when our vision is occluded we are only seeing a projection of our shadow self. It is always open to us to choose perfection over imperfection - the light over the darkness. “The only reality is perfection. If evil and imperfection possessed any reality, they could never be overcome, for what is real is permanent and co-exists eternally with God: neither could it be overcome by God, for it, being Real, would be co-equal with God."

But merely choosing to change may not be enough. When the things of this world have worn us down beyond endurance it’s not always sufficient to understand that - in theory - God will not let us suffer beyond that which we can bear.

A Fresh Vision of Reality

What can help is a shift in focus, by turning to the things that have always given comfort. For some it is reading the Psalms or observing the sight and sound of running water; others find a brisk walk over open country on a clear day helpful.

For Phoebe it was a tree: rooted and standing firm with arms reaching upward to touch the sky. When she was going through a time of turmoil (two adult sons and an elderly mother all diagnosed with cancer within the space of six months) the oak tree at the bottom of Phoebe’s drive was the only positive thing left in her world view.

At a friend’s suggestion she spent several hours painting a watercolour of this tree. She then made a number of copies, which she posted in various locations where she knew she was bound to see it at least once every hour: over her desk, on the dashboard of her car, in her wallet, and next to the telephone. She needed something to help her see things differently; to rekindle her love of God, and His Creation, and to believe that He cared for her, no matter what befell her.

No Pain, No Gain?

Phoebe’s tree was the only thing that helped and even then everything – spiritually speaking – was shadowy for a long time. But when her mother died, within 9 months of the initial diagnosis, Phoebe didn’t hesitate to choose a woodland burial site, and to specifically request that an oak tree be planted in her memory. Then during the funeral service, as she looked up at the empty snow-covered fields beyond, she knew, for sure, that God was with her, and that He had been all along.

She now likens that time of utter darkness to a need to lie fallow, in order to grow. To all intents and purposes her faith had looked dead, but her pain hadn’t been in vain. Without that experience she wouldn’t have grown and her understanding and beliefs about God changed, such that they matured into a more adult faith. Up until that time prayer had always ‘worked’ for Phoebe, and the results had often been spectacular. But this time round God allowed her to suffer, and she’s profoundly glad He did.

Onwards and Upwards

Whilst Phoebe had understood full well that there’s more to life than meets the eye it had unwittingly become her all consuming reality. The irony is that it was her sensory perception – as an artist – that gave her what she needed when she was at her most despondent. She used what was to hand - the raw materials of who she was, and where she found herself – and transformed them into a tangible reminder of God’s abiding love for her. And thereby she transcended the cares of this world.

Our perception of the outer material world is but a projection of our inner mental life. However, we can choose to recognise that Reality is more than just Matter and Mind; it is also Spirit. Further, that by choosing to expand our consciousness we can begin to participate, in this life, in the perfection to which we are called in the hereafter.

The night is dark, and I am far from home; lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to seeThe distant scene; one step enough for me.

Printed in 'New Vision'

Colours of the Soul:

2006-11-02T00:24:00.000Z

Transform Your Life Through Colour Therapy, by June McLeod. Published by O Books, John Hunt Publishing Ltd. ISBN 1-905047-25-8. Available from all good bookshops, price £11.99

The best and the most beautiful things in the word cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. (Helen Keller)

Colour therapists use the medium of colour to balance the whole being - mind, body and spirit. They work towards empowering others to become aware of their own innate knowledge of colour, to trust their own inner knowledge and their ability to help themselves with the power of colour.

At first glance this looks like yet another New Age book on something only the superstitious would buy into. Not so, it would seem. Although the thrust of this book is largely commonsense – like every mother knows about arranging junior’s food on his plate in such a way that the artful, and colourful display is appetising – there’s more to it than meets the eye. “Colour does not have to be seen to affect us – every cell in the body is light-sensitive and responds to the vibration of colour … No one is immune to colour – it reaches deep into our psyche, developing our awareness of ourselves, and of others, the world and the universe as a whole”.

Colour therapy has been around for a very long time indeed. Colour has influenced man from ancient times. Early civilizations used colour for ceremony, healing, religious purposes and rights of passage. Then, following Newton’s findings in 1670s – verifying the existence of colour – the study of colour took a scientific turn, away from those strong spiritual roots that had previously predominated. We are now bridging the gap between science and intuition, and harnessing scientific findings with the deeper meaning and full effect of colour. Colour therapy is fast becoming a field that is rapidly growing in importance and acceptance in today’s world. Kylie Monogue used it in her fight against cancer.

Specifically this book enables readers to experience colour therapy for themselves. It is an introductory guide to colour and its properties, and, in particular, it’s application as a therapy. It is not, nor does it aspire to be, an academic authority. It comes with a basic set of colour cards, exercises for stress busting, and directions for work with coloured light, scarves and crystals. There are instructions on how to set up a personal colour karmagraph. The book is best described as a ‘taster’ to enable the most basic of personal colour readings, together with plenty of evidence for the power of colour - as illustrated by the numerous case histories throughout.

One can’t help but feel that there’s something in it, and in particular the author’s work with blind children, using coloured scarves. “Blind children love colour and sensations. They are wonderful, clear souls who verify the existence of the unseen … they describe the feelings of different colours easily. Some even tell me they have a different smell … they can tell the difference between the warm magnetic colours and the cool electrical ones. They actually feel the electrical colours as being cool to the touch and tingly whereas the magnetic colours feel warm and comforting.”

This book is best described as a ‘taster’; because, the full benefits to be derived from colour therapy are doubtless best experienced in the context of a hands-on workshop. Further details, and other good links are available here at the author’s website: http://www.junemcleod.com/

Published in New Vision

The Sound of Paper:

2006-09-14T00:13:00.000+01:00

Inspiration and Practical Guidance for Starting the Creative Process, by Julia Cameron

Published by Michael Joseph, Penguin Group. ISBN 0-718-14755-3. Available from good bookshops, price £12.99

A cynic might say of Cameron’s books, “read one, and you’ve read them all.” If she’s guilty as charged - obsessed with writing - it’s hardly surprising: it probably saved her life. But The Sound of Paper is not yet another rehash of her seminal book, The Artist’s Way; it’s different. For the first time in decades she’s fresh again. She’s left behind the bullying, didactic tone of her earlier tomes and she’s gentle on herself, and by the same token, her readers. Now in her 50s, and single again, Cameron’s mellowed.

Cameron literally takes us on her journey, begun in a green eastern spring and completed at the end of a parched New Mexico summer. She illustrates how she uses the stuff of her daily life to feed her work and, thereby, to ‘right’ herself. At her best, Cameron has always been blessed with an ability to inspire enthusiasm for the process of writing: the doing and not the done. Here she suggests we also let go and pay attention to the present moment: the way things are unfolding, or are trying to, if only we would let them. And to count our blessings by focusing on our ‘founds’ and not on our losses.

Cameron reminds us that that the reason we often fail to get anywhere, at all, in our creative endeavours is down to being too frightened to start. We want to know, in advance, what exactly we will see on the trip, and to have prior warning of any obstacles and difficulties we can expect to confront. We forget to just surrender to the mystery of the creative journey. As she says, the only certainty is that we will change: from who and what we are. Further, because creative, spiritual beings are travellers at their core, the refusal to do so much as begin doesn’t prevent us from stepping out anyway. But we can choose whether we serve out our days like prisoners, merely making the daily rounds within the confines of our walls – it’s up to us.

Many readers will recognise the old Cameron tool kit. It’s here, again, with new suggestions for writing tasks and more on the philosophy that underpins her beliefs: on why the Morning Pages, Artist’s Dates and Walks do work. For newbies, and for old hands this book is highly recommended. Buy it!

Published in 'New Vision'

MY FRIEND MY ENEMY

2006-02-01T09:58:00.000Z

Of course right from the start I was what you call a black and white baby. And I don’t mean I had a touch of the tar brush, neither; nor that I was a half-caste. No, nothing like that; nothing as straightforward.

No, I had a curse laid on me right from the beginning. My grandmother used to say if I’d been black and white and RED all over I’d have been a newspaper. Ha, bloody ha! These days your average man in the street wouldn’t know what you was talking about would he?

I digress, I was telling you about the difficulties that have plagued me all me life; all because of the affliction I was born with. (Where it came from I do not know). All that’s ever happened has been because of an inability to see anything other than black OR white.

True, the passing of time has meant a certain amount of grey has seeped in to blur and fudge the edges of my very polarised vision, but I am still – and doubtless always will be – handicapped by an inability to just sit on the fence. Not for me the joys of just watching the world go by and taking a neutral couldn’t care-less stance. Oh no! I have to jump right off and plunge in; in order to take sides. I can’t just admire the view for what it is; that’s for woolly liberals that is. I HAVE to park my ass firmly on one side of the fence, or the other.

The disadvantages are obvious, but there’s something else – another trait I was born with – that makes everything TEN times worse: a tendency to indecisiveness. How, you might ask, does that work? Not like a treat I can tell you. It just muddies the waters and makes my life hell; right complicated.

See, no sooner am I embedded, settled in and quite at home on one side of the fence then I fancy I’ve made a mistake and begin to hanker for what might have been - had I landed on the other side. So, after some lengthy deliberation – and remember I’m indecisive, so it takes me an age to decide about anything (even deciding that I’ve made a mistake) – I pack my bags.

Once I have made my mind up its business as usual and I’m quite convinced I’m right, so I don’t hang about. After I’ve apologised profusely for the error of my ways, and for any inconvenience I may have caused; I’m off. Off back to where I fancy the grass is greener to persuade the opposition that I was always meant to join THEM, and not the other lot – foolish of me not to have seen that months ago. And then, given time, we’re the best of buddies and its like I was never anywhere else; I’ve found my home.

Only, of course, I know that I’ve got a past (like where I was before) and – as is the nature of these things – I begin to remember. Memories bubble up to haunt me, and it starts all over again. Before much longer I’m quite convinced I’ve made a mistake and that I’d be better off back where I came from – where I really belong. There’s not a shadow of a doubt – I’m quite convinced, actually – that I’m in the wrong camp. Of course, I should have known; how could I be so stupid?

And before too long its back and over the top and I’m on the other side persuading those guys that I’ve made a terrible mistake and that I belong there, after all.

Only give it a couple of weeks, maybe longer, and I’m off again, which situation – the yo-yoing back and forth - might persist for ever, given that I’ve got the patience of Job (one of my virtues!), only that other people haven’t; not really; on the whole. Plus I get bored with me-self, actually.

I get to thinking I fancy a complete change of view, to stop picking the either-or option; something quite unlike the two camp scenario that I have been oscillating between for the best part of however many months it’s been – usually five, give or take a week or two. And before you know it, I’m out there: I’m charging full steam ahead - like a bull in a china shop in the direction of a new beginning, headed for fresh fields and pastures, new. Metaphorically I mean; give me some credit!

But bang in the middle of this throng of camps (either side of all the fences) there’s somewhere else. It’s a grey area, a sort of No Mans Land and occasionally when even I’ve had enough, and I seem to have exhausted all the possibilities, to say nothing of everyone’s goodwill, I pitch my tent there. It’s a space where I’m obliged to do nothing much at all really, bar resting. To start with I don’t do the usual thing: I don’t set myself up as a Project Manager and thus don’t do so much as attempt to sell anything to anyone. I give it a break - partly because the commercial take doesn’t really figure in that domain. No mean feat I can tell you; I sometimes think I was born to sell.

It’s not my natural habitat, you understand, but sometimes we need a rest from each other – the world and me – so when it feels like I’ve exhausted all the possibilities, for the time being, that’s where I end up. Of course, I haven’t exhausted all the possibilities, I’m the eternal optimist me, but it’s good to take some time out: just to be. What’s more, because I’m not courting new friends (in order to cajole or convince) – who, lets face it, I will inevitably ditch when it suits - I make no enemies neither. I merely bask in a bit of peace and quiet whilst I take a kind of holiday: from me-self.

A peacock looks into the void

2005-12-14T10:04:00.000Z

The peacock has lost it, again. It was there somewhere, but it’s gone. The more he searches the worse the mess becomes: first the desk, then his study is strewn with paper. In desperation he upends the wastepaper basket and straightens out every piece of screwed up paper he’s ever hurled in its direction. And then just when he’s got a grip on his loss, and he’s worked out what he’s going to do about it, his wife puts her head around the door to tell him that it’s no use running around like a headless chicken; he’s going to be late, really late if he doesn’t leave at once.

A bit below the belt that, he considers as he admires his reflection in the hall mirror. But he’ll ignore her - for the moment. In the meantime he’s still the bright-eyed bushy-tailed bird he once was, and the show must go. Remarkable, he muses, how he can still blind them with his dazzling good looks – even in this day and age, when people are supposed to be so spiritual, and not at all material.

Even so, it was she who suggested he try the Three Sisters when his dissatisfaction at busking, night after night, began to really get to him. His stupid audience might not know the difference, but he did. His sham of an act had becoming nothing more than that: a travesty, considering the man he could be. He peered out through the windscreen into the darkness - into the void of Fen country on an overcast night - and imagined how it was going to be. He wouldn’t hang about; he’d clear his throat (to show all due reverence) and to tell them what the problem was, and what he wanted them to do. There is something I must say, he rehearsed. Yes, yes, that’s right it only needs to be uttered, and out there, and all his difficulties will dissolve. He could see his problem cast off as it were, set adrift, falling into the silence and falling down, down to the bottom of the pit; then bouncing back up again, and the gift of himself restored. Then the silence will no longer be silent. There will be a voice, and an echo of it will come back to sound and sound. He’s not keen, but it’s his best chance if he’s going to enjoy what’s left of his career.

___________

“Stupid bugger; doesn’t he know? He needs the silence. Without the silence his world would be made up of nothing but noise: sounds clustering and clambering over and above one another; shouting and yelling to make themselves heard. God, can’t he hear that much. He says it’s as silent as the grave out there, but that’s only because he’s forgotten how to listen.”

“I ask you; he thinks he needs to hear yet more sound. He says he’s looking for an answer. He’s looking in the right place I’ll give him that. But if he thinks he needs to hear yet more sound…”

“Stands to reason don’t it that he’s not a satisfied customer. He’s not looking in the right place if he wants to hear a noise.”

“He was looking in the right place though, weren’t he?”

“Yeah, but where he’s looking for an answer he won’t actually hear nothing. It’s a conundrum see; the answer is there is no answer – least not the sort he could hear, because he likes the noise too much: all them people clapping and applauding what a jolly good fellow he is. No wonder he can’t think, there’s too much noise going on. He needs to understand that he needs the silence; the spaces in between all them words.”

“Tell you what; he needs to get out of his own way he does.”

Not tonight, darling

2002-06-01T15:26:00.000+01:00

Not tonight, darling

On Saturday night
I trip the light fantastic
Dance until dawn

Tuesday’s much better

Early afternoon
About midway lunch and tea
Would suit much better

Tonight’s not the night

Not right now, darling
There’s a lot to do before
I’m good and ready

For adultery

We agreed Tuesday
To commit adultery
Not right now; tonight

Take one capsicum

1996-12-15T16:49:00.000Z

When I survey your firm
rounded flesh I marvel
at your weighty
verdant form.

You should be unwieldy
but surprisingly, crisp
when I slice through
reach pith

to discover a hollow
inner sanctum
a few white seeds.

An unexpected and
disappointing treasure
for one so heavy
with promise.

SILENCE

1996-07-01T01:38:00.000+01:00

Sometimes coming across her,
Unexpectedly,
She is like an oasis,
When there’s been no shade
Or let up
For days

Or else I seek her out.
She is like a mirage:
Promising all, but delivering nothing,
Save mile after endless mile,
Stretching invisible
As she runs, into eternity.

She is at her best
When I call, unannounced,
To find her sleeping;
Then she stirs, half-waking
And turns, as if to welcome me.

I lie down beside her, and
We are still, together,
As we contemplate
One another –
Like lovers –
For a while.

An old man gives up the ghost

1980-05-01T20:28:00.001+01:00

When your light goes out, at last,
they will unfurl your crumpled body,
lay you down to rest, and bear you away

But until then Hugh, how
slowly your time is halting
since first I found you dying.

Easter Vigil

1979-04-01T10:15:00.001+01:00

Coming to Light

Why in the lingering brightness of your light
that shines in ordinary things
can I not see in this quiet, dark church,
where I have come to kneel and pray?

For lately a luminous silence
has spread through my thoughts
and I would embrace your mystery.

But with hands clasped
in this temple to that light
I still cannot measure the meaning
of you, who are concealed in love.

Dear God
should the brightness suddenly flare
to reveal your truth
may the moment never grow less for me.