Tuesday 25 December 2007

Bethlehem

We went to Bethlehem for the first time this year just after Easter. Nothing had really prepared us for the shocking reality of the Wall. 20 foot high uglines and symbolic of so much more.
We had to go through a number of road blocks to get into the little town and then we found it deserted.
The Church of the Holy Nativity was beautiful but division echoed around the whole visit. Coming away I wrote the following haiku with the only difference being in the last word. Then I wrote: Shame.

Oh striken town of Bethlehem
How divided we see thee lie:
Pray.

Friday 21 December 2007

Books

Old friends and new charmers
in glossy hues,
lure and shackle the book worm.

Wednesday 19 December 2007

Stained glass haiku




A purple angel
comes to stay;
she smiles,
I smile,
The sun stirs.... and grins.

Sunday 16 December 2007

1913

What were they thinking?
Those Loved faces in youth's dress;
The truth is time's trick.

Tuesday 11 December 2007

Guantanamo cup poetry

The struggle to write
make nails into pens;
plastic cups, the paper
of creation.

Frostscape


Each twig frost defined;
A cold transcient beauty
Awesome while it lasts.



Saturday 8 December 2007

Haiku

Rosebuds in December;
Brave hope in winter winds -
A symbol perhaps!

Brave Living

Life confined,
Moves painful,
Muddled sometimes
But wondrous smiles of welcome.

Wednesday 28 November 2007

St Pancras Station: a tribute to Betjeman


Haiku

Geese cross the sky
with arrowhead symmetry;
Awe halts the ordinary.

Monday 26 November 2007

Haiku

Frost glistening in early sunshine
Sparkles and melts the cold,
Like kind words.

Saturday 24 November 2007

Thursday 15 November 2007

Dad - the 59 year gap

Fingers which worked
Oxford's first computer
Fumble to learn lap-top codes.

Sunday 11 November 2007

Remembrance day

Standing at the village cross
Yokes old and new battlefields:
If only........

Saturday 10 November 2007

Friday 9 November 2007

Time passes - a week later


Wind took the gold
diminishing the glory,
Revealing lines, like ageing.

Tuesday 6 November 2007

Sunday 4 November 2007

Rounds of glory!

Everyone in the Church wore halos,
Of tinsel;
Oh that that they were for real!

Autumn in the Churchyard


Friday 2 November 2007

Memory

Who?
The memory shuffles its files,
Shadows in a fog stay blurred.
Sorry!

Tuesday 30 October 2007

Duty

Duty is a test word
Of 'ought' not 'want'.
Selfish or sense to say 'No'?

The beckoning


Brancaster beach


Sunday 28 October 2007

Rejection

Rejection hurts;
It gnaws and destroys.
Our task ...
Turn it round and find light.

Tuesday 23 October 2007

haiku

Secret codes in Fair Isle wool,
Identity and island
through pattern.

Sunday 21 October 2007

Wedding


Tender blazing love
Trumpets the sharing of joy
Trumping darker strains.

Thursday 18 October 2007

haiku

Beached: the whale,
Like his hopes, surf dumped;
Dying through wrong turns.

Monday 15 October 2007

Observation

The acne of pavements
Out chewed,spat out,scraped off:
Gum...
Spots of our time.

Saturday 13 October 2007

Theatre history

The shocking becomes commonplace
becomes classic,
The joy of history.

View from a window in the National Theatre


Skylight from Sir John Soane's Museum


Words

Words are our currency
To connect, but they
Sip and skid and sometimes
....fail.