Sabbath

Take away noise

 Take away sound

Give me instead the sheep and the cows

Take away words

Take away hands

Hide me inside of the ancient lands

Take away excess

Take away lack

Hold me close to what brings me back

Take away fear

Take away loss

Lead me to the foot of the cross

That I may find that I am found 

That I may see that joy abounds

In giving it up and letting it all go

In trusting in your word that says no and yet says yes to more than we know or could dare to dream or imagine, that shows love beyond what we can fathom. That gathers and enfolds, where we are told, you are not forgotten or too old but you are new each day and free to say I trust you Lord. Have your way. 

This is a year that starts with You.

One Body

 You and I 

Are the sea and sky.

Our salty lips have mingled and met and yet 

how 

quickly we forget

as the distance we traversed 

is now 

rhythmically 

dis joint ed.

The Magic of Water

The sound of the water

leads where you must linger.

Follow it in its steady drip, in its heady grip, in its unrelenting hit.

Follow the smell of the rush,

of the crush,

of the crash, 

of the thrash, 

of the truth, 

of your youth.

Follow the noise that makes old men boys, that makes hearts ache and quake but not break.

Follow the path made by lost sheep and wandering feet, finding they stand in unseen lands.

Follow it because you may and because you must because in doing so you might

just

find again

that which has long been held in its pools and hold it at last in your own two hands, drinking it deep, you and it and the memories you keep drawn down down down. Hiding, hidden, home.

 

T

 

He threw off that which hindered

No longer entangled by sin

In royal robes, never not worn

A joy that never grew thin.

His eyes were fixed on Jesus

Looking full in His glorious face

He had run with perseverance 

It was time to finish his race.

MF

 

Who am I when who I am is dim

When it looks so much like him

Am I there inside, buried deep

I try to search, to burrow, keep

On going. 

Keep   on    g o i n g.

If I dig through the layers will I find myself

Will I get to the core? Will I wilt? Will I melt?

Is it easier to not even ask

To accept my fate, it’s late

Can I change or ingratiate

Anything new or anything gained

Or will I just remain the same 

Old

Man

But a boy lives in me too

Never quite allowed to bloom and so I chew 

Upon this misery and sink into my destiny

Je suis déjà terminé.

I am alone in the shadows of my mind 

But surrounded on all sides 

By those who need me to be better

Who can’t see that I am fettered

It is hard to answer questions about daisy chains when you need to hide

When you’re trying to find 

a way to say 

I am not ok 

that doesn’t end in shame.

What if that end of yourself

Is the start of something else

A place to see and be free

Where you can be held

And told and told again

You are loved 

You are loved 

You are loved my friend.

IWD 2024

 The Insurgence

He crushed

Brushed me

Aside 

Like crumbs on a table

Only he preferred the bread

He wanted me dead

He lanced me

A boil leaking

Unnoticed

Only my frame remained

Empty

A good place to begin

Before Him

To let the flow in

Rush deep 

Into the seas I swim

A gathering of pieces lost

A space you cannot win.

Resolution

 Fully. Wholly. Holy.

She took off being lonely.

Held. Heard. Unfurled.

She put on being lowly.

Community

 The net that holds

The arms that fold

Suffering into the centre

Turning it into pizza.

Him

 You slowly stripped 

our souls.

With fists that dripped

malevolence.

Words that chipped

holes.

Into our bones.

One 

disappointed 

sentence

at 

a 

 time.

A List poem on Grief

 Absence louder than presence

Pervasive pain

Ruining my egg sandwich

Tastes good with a red

A long held longing

For that forever gone

The dead and the dying

The fear and the flying

 Who am I without them

My edges shaped by loss

The thick of night before dawn

The day which never comes

Surprising laugher

Guiltily smothered

A hushed embrace

The silence of those

Who don't want to get it wrong

Carrying a quiet void

Not quite hidden by eyeliner

That ever shifting sand

Oh I think I'm ok now

And then I am drowning.

Fire

I am unafraid of the apocalypse

For it already lies within me.

The burning bush is no matter 

When my insides are aflame.

The destruction that abounds 

Is no match for the unceasing

Screaming of my soul. 

Goodbye

I AM NOT ENOUGH 

TO KEEP HIM 

HIS ABSENCE LOUDER 

THAN HIS

"I MISS YOU"

Cliffs

 I walked too close to the edge 

For far too many years

Obedience and pain the same

My friend the path of fear.

But my feet are planted now

My eyes are on the sea

Where safety was a far off dream

Is now a joy to me.

Birthday Beginnings

 She closed the gate on her worry

And shut the door on her fears.

She lay down with her Good Shepherd

Let Him whisper in her ears

"This year is yours for freedom love"

So she let the still waters in.

The tide that washed the pain away

Is the current that lets life begin.

Collioure

 Those streets that keep

My childhood sleep

With no record of the score

Where pain is lost and tossed

Like waves

While I ate cherries on the shore.

Sabbath

My tightly coiled mind unravels here,

A ribbon loosed by the breeze.

Untethered to the size of my thighs,

Woven instead among the trees.

A few days in the Oaken Fort and I am realigned.

Happy New Year

 

He is Home

 “When the ground around feels fragile

And your feet falter

Go slow then and know 

That Heaven’s rest is now his home

Where chaos meets perfect order 

and souls are made new.”

A French Revolution of My Own

In my heart’s home I am healed

By the land and Your hand as I stand 

Here.

I am a girl and grown all at once in this place

Trapped in the spaces of the past

And at once flung forward into a 

Free future not yet known.

Perhaps my day of glory has now arrived

Built on the years gone before

Wrought in my very own war

This is my liberty. Beloved liberty.

The value of a refugee

A serpent refugee

A person in need

Do you hate my skin

Blonde gets you in

In a wood in a tent

Welcome home have a bed

My wounds are unseen

Hotel showers make you clean

A lorry again tonight

Private jet, direct flight 

Does anyone there see us

Here have your visas 

Easier perhaps to be dead 

than 

to

inconvenience 

anyone 

by

p r o c e s s i n g

me.

I think that non-discriminate abundant care and extravagant generosity should be given to anyone who flees their home because of war, persecution or danger.

I don’t think our government have gone anywhere near far enough to accommodate and support the people of Ukraine and the other countries in Europe in assisting them.

It is clear that there is a massive need and it is right and just that those who have much and who are safe should want to afford that to those that don’t (through no fault of their own).

I cannot get the refugees stuck in Calais and Dunkirk out of my mind though. I keep imagining how it must feel to be so desperate to be humanised whilst being treated like dogs and rats, driven out of make-shift shelters again and again by the French police and ignored by the British government. What do they think when they see Ukrainian refugees (rightly) being given access to hotels and spare rooms in people’s homes? I can’t fathom the suffering of those who have already escaped war, travelled so far, risked everything only to find that somehow their exodus is less valid, that their torment is less traumatising.

I wrote a poem a couple of years ago from the ignorant and demeaning perspective unfortunately held by some people in Britain; those who view refugees as snakes to be stood upon. It’s in the old archives here if you’re bored and want something to read.