Love, sensing Self flex muscles,Circumvents the question, takes a detourAlong a Jericho road,A thoroughfare often taken, seldom observed.Love stretches the story out,Beyond expectation, beyond our trust,Defeats its stock of righteous men,Then surprises with a foe.Love befriends the enemy,Gives face and heart to the hated one.Love helps us up the donkey’s back,Carries us safe, far fromContinue reading “And who is my neighbour?”
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Holy Mess
Sanctify the compost heapwhere I trudge in dark with the day’s dank scraps.Sanctify the living stench,soil’s second chance,barren fig-tree’s friend.Sanctify the dishes piledon piles around the cluttered sink.Sanctify the time it takesto scrub and dry,to sort and stack.Sanctify numb fingers, iceon windscreen that delays the day,brittle tests when patience is small.Sanctify mess,sanctify time.Sanctify unholy pain;sanctifyContinue reading “Holy Mess”
Les Feuilles Mortes – digital copies available now!
The last couple of weeks have been a bit of a mad flurry of activity as I’ve worked on getting my new book Les Feuilles Mortes together and ready for you to have in your hands. The physical copy should be ready soon to buy from Lulu.com – by the end of May – but youContinue reading “Les Feuilles Mortes – digital copies available now!”
Man (Lent 37)
Other Ways to Practise Resurrection, Or, How to Beat a Pandemic: After Wendell Berry
When others horde, share. When others sneeze, do not be startled. When the numbers rise, take heart. For your life is more than your days on earth and your planet is more than a virus. When the shops are packed with people and the shelves are emptied of products, do not push and shove andContinue reading “Other Ways to Practise Resurrection, Or, How to Beat a Pandemic: After Wendell Berry”
Coronavirus, with OCD
Wash your hands; don’t touch your face. Did I wash my hands, and did I touch my face after? Before? Don’t be afraid but be aware. Wash your hands; don’t touch your face. These sightless microbes swim in air. Your nose is dripping. Touch your face. Wash your hands. Don’t be afraid. It all mayContinue reading “Coronavirus, with OCD”
Advent 9: No despair
…we are almost ready to fall in love with our own desolation. (Christina Rossetti, Seek and Find) Whether height of summer or bleak midwinter, there’s death: in bare-branched trees or brittle grass. Fire or frost, the end’s the same, both killers and destroyers alike. And the greatest foe of all’s despair, the sickness blighting notContinue reading “Advent 9: No despair”
Advent 4: Airport Christmas
We always move around and sofittingly our Christmas is mobile,each returning to their homes, like Josephand a heavily expectant Mary, carryingthe hope of the world in her womb. We depart carrying gifts in shopping bagsor catch up on forgotten things at airport stores.And when we arrive: reunion, butno birth, Messiah forgotten where we left HimandContinue reading “Advent 4: Airport Christmas”
“The Swelling Year” – a short film collaboration
Originally posted on The Swelling Year:
It was an absolute joy to work with my old friend and designer/video artist Lachlan Outhred to make a short film showcasing some of the poems from The Swelling Year and the locations that have inspired me. Check out the video here.
This Mess
I stubbed my toe on a London bus;it stood in the doorway, just under us. And by the door a bright Tonka trucklay just where an unsuspecting limb got stuck. And in the night a train might strayfar from its tracks into my way; and you, dear you, might show up rightwhen I would ratherContinue reading “This Mess”
The Consolations of Writing 