A Clipper's wing - detail

Splash

Oct 1st 2014 Baghdad

The killers are close,

Circling and threatening

Beleaguered Baghdad.

Inside the city

The shadows are defied:

Beside the Tigris

Eager crowds gather

For a dog show,

Simple, everyday, normal.

Convolvulus

Tony

The phone is silent now

Untroubled by your needs;

Its serenity mocks us

As your number will not show again.

The turbulent torments of your soul

Have been laid down,

Gathered, we trust,

under God's steel protection.

You'd be astonished Tony,

At the hole you leave;

But discuss carpentry

With God,  don't phone!

            (Tony died on  August 18th 2014)

Views of the Orwell

July 3rd 2014

                               July 3rd 2014                              

The country road unwinds

Along known contours,

Tree shadows stripe the way

While Bragg interviews academics,

Their learned radio voices discuss

‘Mrs Dalloway’, her party, her flowers.

The safety of the book’s past

Moulds a bubble of pastoral peace.

A fox with its kill in its jaws

Breaks from the undergrowth

Streaking in front of the car’s wheels,

A determined killing machine, seeking cover.

The tit for tat Middle Eastern murders

Haunting the morning news, returns,

Escape is not an option,

His nature, our nature, destroys.

The fox kills to survive,

Woolf’s party pooper commits suicide

Unable to live with WW1 memories,

But revenge is a poor motive,

Breathing hatred and self justification;

One murder is never enough,

Violence escalates, negotiation possibilities shrink

       Impotence and death are the only winners.                   

Gannets on Bass Rock

Lent Challenge Easter

Wednesday April 16th

Knock and I'll open the door,

When Christ knocks what happens?

Joy could come in.

Maundy Thursday

Washing friends' feet shows

Humble love, betraying that

A deep frailty.

Good Friday

It was the worst sort of death,

Undeserved and cruel.

Beware bigotry.

Easter Saturday

Dawn light strikes the dark,

Stained glass begins to glow

Lent is seeping away.

Easter Day

What is most precious?

Pearls? Gold? No, it is

Love truly given and held.

Lent Challenge Week 6

Wednesday April 9th

Colours of Spring are changing

Leaves unfurl, speckles

Vie with the yellow.

Thursday April 10th

Stone, knapped and placed,

Shaping walls of strength

A jigsaw of skill, like friendship.

       

Friday April 11th

The mine is closed now

The road to it a cart track,

Its traces now grassed.

Saturday April 12th

Bright, hard wastes of rape,

Softened by the green fields of wheat,

Landscape’s chequerboard.

Sunday April 13th Palm Sunday

A single bluebell

Jesus riding to his death,

Above a lark sings.

Monday April 14th

The dark of the night

Breeds black thoughts, old spectres rise

Like a Mary Rose.

Tuesday April 15th

Portsmouth

 Four forts of the sea

Stand in stubby majesty

En guard against invasion.

Rusty, in decline

But between towers and spires

on land, masts at sea

they're trusty bulldogs.