This year, the people behind Movember are having a particular focus on men’s mental health, a topic close to my heart. So, while I won’t be shaving off my beard to grow a new mo from scratch, I have decided to take a handful of my old poems on mental illness and give one ofContinue reading “Mental Health November Week 1: Anxiety”
Tag Archives: mental illness
#blessed
However it hits us – with sudden strike Or slow attrition – it hits all the same. Movements may be slower, tentative, like A creature not accustomed to the day; Or, paralysed, you might see the sun and Not know that it calls you to anything But sleep. If so, sleep deep. Tomorrow’s hand IsContinue reading “#blessed”
Lent: Man of Sorrows 2
My God, my God: head full of wounds, You cry. My God, my God: what rupture in the godhead makes perfect veins now burst? What depth of love plumbs so low that even earth shakes at impact? My God, my God, have mercy. I wound my head and choose these depths; yet, Man of Sorrows,Continue reading “Lent: Man of Sorrows 2”
OCD Prayer for the New Year
What lies behind corners can hurt or heal; What lurks in this heart can wound or bless. What triggers in mind can remind of the past; What future is clean is unknown. Whatever contaminates; whatever is sick; Whatever is broken, whatever will break; Whatever may lift and whatever may tarry: God give, God take, GodContinue reading “OCD Prayer for the New Year”
From Ashes 10: Søren Kierkegaard – Original Sin and the Fear of Possibility
“When you’re absolute beginners,” folk singer M. Ward tells us, “it’s a panoramic view, from her majesty Mount Zion, and the kingdom is for you.” What he seems to suggest here is that, at any beginning point, there appears an infinite potentiality to life, stretching out like a majestic panorama before us. W.H. Auden, in hisContinue reading “From Ashes 10: Søren Kierkegaard – Original Sin and the Fear of Possibility”
From Ashes: No glitch
No glitch in the creation plan and yet my mind skips and repeats over old tracks as though, as though in early days a scratch a fleck of dust crept in, crept in, upset the balance of it all. With every beat the tension in these ancient grooves – this wax – threatens now toContinue reading “From Ashes: No glitch”
From Ashes Part 8: No work for tinkers
It is autumn in my home town of Melbourne as I write these words, and outside the University library the streets are bathed in orange, golden and golden-brown leaves. It is a glorious sight, one of those moments where something seemingly hopeless – the dying of leaves – can be simultaneously so beautiful. I wasContinue reading “From Ashes Part 8: No work for tinkers”
From Ashes: The Crushed Flower (For Therese of Lisieux)
The flower that is me, Crushed – in crushing, free. Yet still I wilt here to see This dying beauty. Until You tread in victory, I languish in me. Crushed by foot, by sea Of crowd’s apathy, I will Yet trust, Christ, in Thee, Thorn-crowned on a tree, Your will Crushed; in crushing, free TheContinue reading “From Ashes: The Crushed Flower (For Therese of Lisieux)”
From Ashes: Sonnet
Though fearfully and wonderfully made, There are abscesses where my dirt is stored: See here, the time I learnt to cry, to wade In mud and mire, and hurt of my own accord. Though Grace has breathed its breath in me, I still Retain the sick fruit of Adam’s broken soil; In pain, in guilt,Continue reading “From Ashes: Sonnet”
Psalm 131: Humility and Submission
Yesterday I posted a poem based on the beautiful Psalm 131. It is one of the shortest psalms in the Bible, yet one which I have found particularly comforting at times of emotional and psychological distress. Today I am posting a recording I have made of a new musical setting of Isaac Watts’ hymn basedContinue reading “Psalm 131: Humility and Submission”
The Consolations of Writing 