Dec 2nd 2015 Evening

December 2^nd 2015 Evening.

Barbican Theatre, London: Shakespeare’s ‘Henry 5^th’

Parliament, London:  Should Britain use Air strikes against Syria?

   On stage, Henry queries, ‘Is it legal to go to war’?

   In Parliament, Cameron urges airstrikes on Syria:

War by another name, a fight from distant skies.

Henry leads his men, encouraging, determined,

Fighting for land, for victory over old enemies.

It’s defence of France today, to support victims

Of honourless slaughter, bombed by fanatics

   With aims buried in bloodlust, nurtured far away.

The Chorus begs us to use ‘imaginary forces’

     To see the ‘vasty fields of France’ on a bare stage;

      We do, but with ravaged lands, refugees, evil, also.

    Henry’s past fight entwines with current choices,

The safety of the play, of known triumph

 Lets us wonder at past decisions, ponder glory,

But all the while, irony stalks our thoughts -

To what will air strikes lead?

Glasgow

Filling the void

Grayson Perry Reflection

A Billboard!

A Green Bottle Blue Tarantula from Venezuela at Butterfly World!

The Sunflower Head Harvest

The Sunflower Harvest

There is beauty in decay.

The sunflower's yellow cartwheel

Of summer is only a memory,

The heads bow now with seed,

Arching to scatter before

The harvesters' guillotine ends them.

The heads are sculptural,

A maze of chambers of precious

Progeny; brown, protective,

Muted in design, but generous.

A Gynandromorph Butterfly (exactly half male and half female)

The full name of this butterfly is a Papilionidae Lowii

- an Asian Swallowtail. It has  been 'born' exactly half male 

and half female ( a gynandromorph). The female half

is the more colourful half on the right hand side and

although it is difficult to see even the body is half black

 (male) and half yellow-ish.This very rare occurrence took

 place at Butterfly World, St Albans. 

"Where the bee sucks...."

Moon Eclipse

Chicory

Abbaye de Beauport Bretagne

High arches of lost grandeur

Remain, unattached to roofs,

Empty of glass but enough:

Imagination fills the holes.

Medicinal plants grow with vigour

Through traces of cloister,

Wind sighs through leaves

Bringing sound to stones

Imbibed with deep tranquillity.

Our modern minds feel a peace

We seek. Were the monks at ease?

Did their faith, care of souls,

Husbanding the soil,

Give sufficient purpose?

Four wooden sheds edge the garden

Insignificant at first amongst

The quadrants of flowers, herbs

And wild grasses. They stand

With no symmetry or clear design:

Only as symbols of human needs.

One shows tools which tilled the earth

Another, a saint's shrine for wonder;

The door opens of the third to luxury,

Satin cushions, gold framed pictures

And a book left idly by: our desire

Made manifest for ease and beauty.

The final door remains shut

With only peep holes, to glimpse

Objects, shapes, forms, of secret

Thoughts, of darker possibilities. 

Palmyra

                                                                 
                                                                   Palmyra 2010

Palmyra August 2015

The barrels of explosives are laid.

Callous indifference to the destruction

About to take place marks the workers.

Boyish glee, jokes and hardly a qualm

As the match, flame and fuse unite

To unbuild the ancient temple.

A few days before, the eighty years

Of scholarship amassed in one man,

The lover, the guardian, the sage

Of Palmyra were erased

With the swipe of an axe. Beheaded.

 People have little worth,

A temple still less: a cluster of stones

Which used to be a city: so what?

For what effect were they hoping?

Fame? No. Page 44 in The Times

Is hardly that. Notoriety, perhaps.

That we care, that the old crossroads

Of trade was unique and loved

That is enough, to destroy.

The Temple of Baal was blown up on Aug 23^rd 2015

Khaled al_ Asaad was killed August 22nd 2015 at the Palmyra site

The Salema Shoal

Teddy bears' parachute jump

Tulip Light

Grape Hyacinth

Dover in the fog

Final week of Lent Challenge

Wednesday April 1st

Art lies in a box

Ignored - then

someone looks.....

Light

Purpose is restored.

Maundy Thursday Day

Nobility lost,

The old oak lies rotting,

Its fibres breaking down,

Bark and branches gone,

Its history in cross section

Exposed. A home and banquet

Now for insects, its new life

Is humbler but still relevant.

Maundy Thursday evening

I looked up and saw the angel,

Normally a faded blur in a small alcove,

 but

Vibrant tonight, shadows and light

Fused in making the ascetic

head seem fresh.

As if this ancient painted figure

Was given life while our

feet were washed

And blessed us in our uncertainty.

Good Friday

Caught in a hollow of the rocks

A stone is harried and pounded

Tide by tide. With no escape,

The hard walls of the niche

Are its prison. Pain, like the stone

Worries its way round and round,

A gyre of anguish, bent on repetition.

Nailed, mocked, betrayed,

Love trampled in the dust,

Jesus bore his pain, for us,

For a world which cares little,

But he offers the chance

that 'our  stone' could.....

        ....... find a way out.

Easter Saturday

The Day after the Crucifixion

Three empty crosses stand

Empty now, the agony is

Yesterday's memory. The sign

'King of Jews' lies abandoned

Half hidden in a muddle of rocks.

What does it all mean:

The testimony, miracles, promises,

Message of love one another, now?

Jesus is dead, his body is buried.

Our eyes will not meet his,

We will not hear him speak,

Touch him, Again.

It is a death, an end.

How we will miss him.

Two days after the Crucifixion

I was wrong, horribly wrong

My faith wavered and I doubted.

I went to the tomb this morning

And the stone was rolled aside -

Jesus had gone.

He told us to trust,

that he would rise again,

And I didn't see how it could be done.

All that he promised has come true,

It is not the end.

I don't know what will happen now,

Where to start to tell what we've seen

But my fragile faith has learnt a bit:

I have to trust more.

Lent Challenge Week 6

Wednesday March 25th

Quails eat spiders

Stopping killer webs

Saving butterflies...

Who drink!

Thursday March 26th

The 60s pulsed with

'Twisting and shouting'

Now it's used for keeping fit.

Friday March 27th

Making someone happy,

Kindness freely given,

Are roses without thorns.

Saturday March 28th

Time has us in thrall,

It plays us like an oboe

But often goes too fast.

Sunday March 29th

From a clear sky comes a storm,

A telephone is answered,

A pilot makes a fatal decision,

Jesus is kissed by Judas.

Tranquillity is shattered and

Our lives are twisted to fall

In a different pattern.

Faith gives us an anchor point.

Monday March 30th

Crossing the desert,

Sharing a camel

Would mean learning

Harmony.

Tuesday March 31^st

Last night wind waged war

Roaring its destruction

            And

Daffodils lie snapped.

Lent Challenge Week 5

Wednesday March 18th

Plants tucked into soil

Feed our hopes for growth, bees, moths,

Beauty in the wings.

Thursday March19th

Consider blossom

It brings light to dark places

How can we do that?

Friday March 20th

Loss

Sometimes the mind plays tricks,

Anniversaries slip away

Almost unheeded, then

As if to make up time

Loss swoops in

Shattering sturdy barricades.

Babies who should have been,

Should now be grown with lives

Being lived, part of their own

And our, families:

Identities, characters,

loved and cherished

But weren't able to gain life,

Lost in the word, 'miscarriage'.

'What might have been.....'

sterile thoughts, but they

peep out sometimes.

Love which didn't happen

Was channelled elsewhere.

Loss has been aired today

Looked at, valued, but even so

I think I'll rebuild the barricade.

Saturday March 21st

Londonderry

One God, two beliefs:

Division

But old foes burn their past

To begin friendship.

Sunday March 22nd Monday March 23rd

Richard 111rd's re-burial.

Bones betray our past:

Curvature of the spine

Sword cuts, axe swipes,

Richard's mortal blow perhaps.

All tell their tale to those

Who can read the clues.

Once a man, a king, whose skull

Once held memories of the deeds

We debate so hard now.

Grey-friars Priory held his bones

But walls fell, stones 'borrowed',

Monks dispersed, graves were lost,

Til a car park hid all

Plantagenet traces.

Crowds stand in awed hush as

The bier moves through modern streets,

White roses arc to rest beside

His coffin on his last ceremonial journey.

The University give him to the Church

The Church blesses his soul and

God's gift, if given, will bring him peace.

Death in 1485 is honoured now.

As witnesses our sense of time

Flickers between realities,

His discovered bones

in their curve of death

Makes the past a present

But his truth remains obscured.

Tuesday March 24th

Deadly silken threads

Woven round leaves lure their prey

With evil beauty.

Lent Challenge Week 4

Wednesday March 11th

A butterfly moves,

Eyes and hearts

lift in wonder

beyond the funeral.

Thursday March 12th

Syria

Four years of war,

Sides unclear, reasons muddled

Purpose lost in rubble.

Friday March 13th

Working together

For each other and their queen

Leaf cutter ants thrive.

Saturday March 14th

Across centuries

A Chinese horse laughs

We smile too - a mood is caught.

Sunday March 15th

I woke up listening:

The plaintive cries of lambs,

Sounding like desperate babies

muddled my responses;

the deep notes of the cuckoo

Sounded after breakfast,

Distant but the first of Spring.

Wind blustered around our walking

With accompanying birdsong

Indecipherable but lyrical

Except for squawking pheasants;

A natural soundscape,

Shattered by a gunshot.

Monday March 16th

Gradations of grey

Swallow up views

Like brain murk

Which hides a choice name.

Tuesday March 17th

Slowly, with great care

The stained glass is slotted back

Christ replaces trees.

Lent Challenge Week 3

Glass at Baddesley Clinton 

Wednesday March 4th

A rich, weathered wall,

Wrinkles,

Patina,

Snowdrops drooping,

Time plays randomly!

Thursday March 5th

Simple pencil lines

Shape a child's head,

They make quiet sadness real.

Friday March 6th

As bees seek nectar,

Primroses smile in the sun,

Hope is in the air.

Saturday March 7th

Fundamental words:

'The English Church shall be free'

Magna Carta now.

Sunday March 8th Monday March 9th

A brief blaze of sun

Outlines the Malvern Hills:

A flash of the past flicks in....

Tramping the ancient paths

Over the skyline heights,

Gazing down, along, outwards,

God's hills, bedrock of our land:
 Then

The snapshot of sun-flare goes

The spotlight has been switched off,

Black clouds assert themselves

Drizzle and fog in tow

The intense moment’s gone.

Tuesday March 10th

Stealthily, a shape

Moves in the darkness,

A badger and I fix eyes.

Elgar looking at Hereford Cathedral

Lent Challenge Week 2

Wednesday Feb 25th

Three Spitfire engines

Purred through the war thanks to Cath,

Don't knock the old!

Thursday Feb 26^th

Kites circle grey skies,

On damp, grey land, nothing stirs,

Sunset's a surprise.

Friday/ Saturday Feb 27^th 28^th

Betrayed again,

Greedy MPs accept

Money for introductions;

Squandering trust,

Entrenching cynicism

Bruising the electorate

Again.

In Russia bullets

Eliminate opposition,

Ravening greed to keep power,

Gorging on the 'me' ideology.

There is another way:

'Neighbour’ could replace 'I'.

Sunday March 1st

Gurgles of laughter,

Loved faces, minds in accord:

Treasured spots of time.

Monday March 2nd

Bounding hares, munching

Leeks, wearing daffodils, give

March its imagery!

Tuesday March 3rd

Slowly the boa shrugs off

Its old skin like sins

Which have been forgiven.