Purple

Just to answer the question, how does my favourite colour make me feel?

Here into mystery, without finality
Dim rich uncertainty, where I find rest.
Not in false confidence, arrogant impudence
Trusting truth’s immanence, waiting is best.

Fast through the dark’ning storm, keeping cold courage warm
‘Gainst the devouring swarm, here I shall stand;
Not knowing everything, under the shelt’ring wing
Where even sorrows sing, held by His hand.

Beauty is promise rare, silencing old despair,
His touch is everywhere, taking death’s sting.
For all eternity, freed from iniquity
In my entirety loved by my king.

Morning light

And every atom dances in the light
And every leaf is beautiful and whole
And every naked branch is waiting grace
And all breathes wonder in the morning’s dole.

Was yesterday so dull, so grey, so drear?
Today is benison enough for me,
Enough to know that freshness ever springs,
Enough to marvel at transparency.

Enough to know that light beyond all worlds
Shall one day shine, transfiguring all things
And while I wait, beneath this world’s cold rain,
My heart, with wild anticipation, sings.

Sunset on a bleak day

Because today grew grey and cold, and then became transfigured ..

God, send such glory at the end of days!

So long bleak greyness, cold and unfulfilled
Lurched with unloveliness across our skies
And damped the spirit as it dulled the day.

So much I longed to find a brighter way!

Here, winter’s nadir breathed its misery
Season of shortened days and leafless tree
Night seemed to settle on the daytime skies

Then, at the dearth of dusk, a bright surprise!

Light, pink and golden, glorious and rare,
Shone underneath the clouds, transformed the air!
Beauty for ashes, joy when hope was dead,

May this be true for greater things instead!

May this poor life, so battered small and cold,
Not find the darkness deepen, growing old,
To stumble to such beauty, worth all praise

God, send such glory at the end of days!

Poem for Michael Jackson

No, I was never a fan (probably because I'm the wrong age group)but, as an icon of a broken world, he touched us all with his sad distorted life ..

Through the ice and bitter fire
Strangling heat of sad desire
Lay your heart upon the wire.

Yours the music that could soar
Snagged by the internal war:
While the vultures heaved and tore.

Torture self to seek relief
All unmade by misbelief.
Joy was stolen – who’s the thief?

All that knife and drug could do
Broken being to renew
Could not give love back to you.

Beauty with corruption dwells
Mirrored through a thousand hells
Thirsting deep for poisoned wells.

Only mercy, sharp and bright
Washes black and makes it white
Names the wrong and claims the right.

Now the pilgrimage is o’er,
Truth beyond the furthest door
Sifts the burdens that you bore.

You were tragedy writ strong
Truthlessness builds wrong on wrong
Bitter discord breaks the song.

worship!

The Moon Speaks

This is my response to the latest Random Acts of Poetry at High Callings Blog
http://highcallingblogs.com/blog/rap-coming-home-to-voice/2255/
It's an exercise in taking on another voice, so I am speaking as the Moon.

THE MOON SPEAKS

Moved by the rhythms of my bondage
I twist my face away
Lest you see my frozen tears
Forbidden in waterless wilderness.

Can I sulk across the sky?

The stars do not speak to me
In alien cold glory,
For I lie too close to earth:
The glorious seductress
In dazzling shades of life.

First I look, then turn away.

Yet while I dance my great ambivalence,
There is one from whom my face can never turn,
Glory bright and constant
Whose wonder holds me fast;
Beauty that enthrals me through the singing years.

This I must worship,
Offering my humble rock to light.

They tell me that I shine.

Loving on ..

Because, in this world, it sometimes hurts to love ..

I have loved you without hope in my mouth
While the cold winds tears the last remaining leaves
And the skies grow drearer;
While the small things scuttle from me
And misery, flat on a stretcher,
Rides in to take the town –
I have loved you.

I have loved you when reason metamorphosed
And played strange tricks on my heart;
When the shape of things was changed,
And I learned new words for sorrow;
When Night kissed my lips and I had no aching answer.
When blackbirds perched on skeleton trees
Commanding the songs of Zion
In a death-mask jester’s voice –
I have loved you.

I have loved you when the crowds spun bitter laughter
In a noose to ambush you, and I could not, could not reach ..
Beating my fists against perspex impossibilities:
The dull, transparent wall flavoured with damnation,
And nowhere left to go.
When the stinging rain beat down,
And my beauty was bedraggled
To a sodden lump of ugly truth –
I have loved you.

I have loved you when poetry reverts to prose
And our prayers are a litany of scrubbing,
Kneeling on cold stone, ridiculously tender of the dandelions.
Mercy in mourners’ weeds goes by,
And barbarians beat at the gates.
There is no laughter then,
But a small bird singing
Its elevated anthems
In the shade of the last curled leaf –
Still I have loved you.

I have loved you in the land of unpossession
Where our empty hands are scarred,
Where the leaving is the holding, and the trust stays unbetrayed.
Here, where there are no rainbows,
And the garbage must be swept;
Where the temples are all empty,
And the idols overturned..
There I have loved you.

In the beloved country,
Where tears become our balm
And beauty is unassailable,
Heart never hid from heart –
I shall love you still.