HOPE

Hope
Distant drums beat.
Choirs burst into song.
Don’t get me wrong…..
But I’ve no hope.

Next door the woman cries.
Children have no clothes.
Her man
He looks for work….desperate to fill his kids
But…Next door the woman still cries……

Distant drums beat.
Choirs burst into song.
Don’t get me wrong……
But you can’t give me hope.

Our doors barred, locked in dreaded fear
love our neighbour
Does it really matter.
Let them in out of their cold.
The inn-keeper’s blood runs within our veins

Distant drums beat.
Choirs burst into song.
Don’t get me wrong……
But you can’t tell me there’s hope.

He died all nailed to a cross…..
then we in fear locked Him in the dark
So, where is your wisdom
Where is your tent?
Hope….what is there to tell about.

Distant drums beat..…Mea culpa…..
Choirs burst into song….. Mea culpa….
Forgive me, I am sorry.
Mea maxima culpa,
Spes ut nos liberare …. Hope will free us,
‘cos He resurrected and in communion
’tis All the glory that abounds in HOPE.

Rope the religion not the people

Rope the Religion and free the people
I am like a child as I look at the face of God
I stand relaxed in awe with love so naked that my soul
does do battle with my belly to protrude
and with eyes of simplicity having lost all memory
of such a grating guilt that ran amuck without me

All I could do was gaze at Christ on the cross
and with such a swelling sickness I just had to flee
as such the cruelty inflicted mirrored the world today.
Ah! running, I was chased by my shadow a grotesque
mixture of sin and innocence all sealed in the confusion
of my memory.

And so through those streets did I run
and into the people, and there I sat and stared at my
face reflected in my tear drops.
What sacrament can heal my guilt and free my memory
and what sacrament will give me eyes to look at Him
so nailed to a cross.

In The Rubbish

In The Rubbish
I was in a park. I was walking.
It didn’t occur to me where I was
nor what I was doing……I was too myself.
In thought. I was walking on grass,
and passing young and old trees.
I was moving in and out of shadow and sunlight.
It was symbolic of my very life.
My past and my present.
Hazy in darkness and dazzling in sunlight.
My sins and graces.
I was reflecting on my life.
I paused myself in thought
and stood gazing at a rubbish bin.
Such a glaring gaze of intense insight.
I could see the rubbish, the paper,
the bottles, the cans and…….. myself.
I was broken, twisted and doubled up like a trashed human.
I was severed and my spirit drained forth.
My scream, painful and intolerable.
Entombed in a rubbish bin. I could see it all.
just another a vision. My life…your life.

A Dream 1992

A Dream
Spiritlessly I sat silently quiet
as if I’d gone fishing without the tackle
no, without a line and arrived at the river
to find no water…where eagles flew with no heads
and trees grew upside down
Then I saw the people
and in darkness they lived
And then I saw faces void of life
and troops wandered the paths
ancient monuments all broken and steeples
stood naked and shivered with the dark
Lasers cut across imprisoning
the faceless people and from floating sheds
fluid is dispensed to dull the painful gasp of hunger.
In a quietness of an absolute sadness
the world had lost its axis and wobbled
shaking me from my sleep.

The Church

The Church
Oh dearest Mother Church what have we done?
did you bury us with St.Peter or did you drop the staff to grab
the throne when Rome fell and perhaps those few too poor
just wandered from your door confused and abandoned looking for other hospitality
to shelter from confusion and feel not betrayed
or was it to that puff of white smoke such secret years of time
when you twisted the compass of our rightful direction
and now what do we have but wand for an illusion
can’t you see we’re all bogged in honey and drowning in milk
so how can you lead us and know the right path
when you cut off your hands and poked out your eyes
then blessed all mothers of Eve who in sex allowed us to conceive
and yet you still keep trying to count God’s thoughts
not even noticing the water that washed those feet
splash into tears and flow to the wells of the desert fathers
Yet never has the Spirit faulted nor erred to flee

Oh dearest Mother Church what have we done?
Too much food and no bread to feed all those who hunger
and still those steeple bells do humbly crick and groan
pictures hang yet all unseen ‘cos He’s locked up and the
cup it got knocked so staining our doors we’ve ruined our yeast
and dampened our faith yet vineyards we’ve increased
with grapes aplenty now so few do tread and with such
the drunken thirst we’re wandering in a stupor looking for a refuge,
a room, to be held in true hospitality for a spiritual intimacy and
passion can’t be of one body, one mass ‘cos it’s in those lone crowds
that you’re bound to shift singing hosanna or shouting crucify then
only to dance to that beat of the golden calf a time when
we all turned our heads and lost God’s face in all its glitter
of fallen angels ever so bitter now the Prophet’s gentle rain
tenders to soothe such pain of yearning for that simple meal
Yet never has the Spirit faulted nor erred to flee

Oh dearest Mother Church what have we done?
Your earthy kingdom all trashed is being smashed
by the evil and with such a hell of whose possession
Awake, drink your laxative and let it purge
the deepest darkest bowels of your corridors
let it rid the rot that has shook the rock
and go back to the cross and take your new compass
drop out of your religious vortex and grasp onto soul and body
now good Mother Church quickly get on your knees
rewrite our pleas and open the doors, windows too
and remove all exits then go down to the basement
draw at the well and drink hearty that water of God
fill up your thirst and return to the upper room
and break that bread, hold onto that cup and share those keys
and to the Kingdom let us come, to celebrate, remembering why
All Three have never faulted nor erred to flee

Ah…. A Cup Of Tea

Ah, so tired I sat, waiting. The room began to fill as the sun shone high
I heard the rattle of crockery, hmmm…I knew and thought a cup of tea would be nice
and that beautiful lady from Bosnia smiled with her blue tireless eyes that reflected the echoes of a torturous war that had killed her loved ones but still with voice her accent smiled….as she softly asks, “cup of tea, dear”.
Yes, yes please.

Ah, that cup of tea did quench my thirst and my soul did leap when eyes of Christ filled all the room.

Yes, ‘twas sure a smile here, one there and soon on every face so fixed in pain acknowledged their neighbour in God’s waiting room.  And with a warming, shapeless breeze, ‘twas not a draft, but a glow of gentleness, was what I’d always feel when waiting in this room.

The walls were bright but faces white as snow somehow
melted and sent a hue that splashed upon the
walls and yet that colour it did speak but so insipidly as if all drained of hope.  I see that wall, that colour, it has stayed and often with my eyes dost play.

Magazines of age are stacked on tables
but who did read or turn a page except for those
who cared and so freely gave their time…perhaps a neighbour.

Yet ‘tis seen as if in mirrored reflection those eyes of others
Like lakes of water in heaven’s land, as she softly asks, “cup of tea dear”.
Yes, yes please.

Ah, that cup of tea did quench my thirst and my soul did leap when eyes of Christ filled all the room.  Now so tired I sat and waited, just waiting and only waiting to be called to rest in bed where plastic bags full of poison are delivered to a vein but ‘tis only I who knows it’s God’s good grace that sweetly feeds my soul.

Ah, and here comes that lovely lady, she knows I love her tea and the breeze is warm and to sleep I drift to dream of my next appointment, ah three more weeks. That piece of paper with dates and times.  Three more weeks, again my hope increases… for that cup of tea.

God Calling

What are these, these words I write?

What are these, these words I write
They are nothing yet they are gathered,
bound and read. I cannot write, not for
my soul. It has not a single word it is
nothingness, it is emptiness it is my deepest core.
Grace is all it understands as Grace is All.

A word is only your exterior. It dresses
your exterior. It is merely the extreme of your
exteriority and it can never taste the colour
that your exteriority extends because your word
in Truth is merely nothing but the clothes
of fashion you dearly don.

So then what are words if the interiority
has no voice to sound the Spirit of God.
A soul cannot be read just as Grace
cannot be written. So what are these,
these words I write. They are nothing.

Listening, Looking and Seeing

Listening, Looking and Seeing.

Like an old clock, ticking, ticking, ticking wilfully

and faltering not in determination.  Can’t stop, won’t

stop, can’t stop, won’t stop.  Ticking never to forget

the edge of time. Ticking a trapping remembrance,

the past. Presenting the present and sounding the future. 

Ticking tirelessly, continually, effortlessly and in all

manner ticking. Ticking, passing thru sleep as the silent

night sweeps to awake the dream.  Ticking to sculpt

the spirit. Time.  Hearing time saturates all desires,

to rush, to fall, to repent, to love, to forgive, to tend and

shape a vision, to listen and prepare to walk that gentle

walk so timelessly with All.  Looking up to see the face

that looks down without judgement.  A time to see.

In such a sight, the past is held within the ticking face

and to see the present is time to trust the future.  Hands

that hold All time. Looking up, looking down, looking all

around, ah, a time for All to be seen.

Swimming with All

Swimming with All

I’d swim the colours of life to be with God thru the paddocks, thru the trees, thru the muddy dams. I’d dive thru the rocks, thru the hills, to beneath the creeks and from the extreme interiority, the well of my soul, I’d breathe of Oneness, I would swimming the colours of life.

I’d swim the clouds and taste the colours of rain, the stars I’d swim like a butterfly and in milk I’d swim the warmth and drink the flavours of the Milky Way and of those distant red and dying stars I’d gently swim the surface to tend the wounds that have dipped me in my mourning colour. And in God’s pallet, there too, I’d swim of all the skies, blacks and blues.

I’d swim those strokes His colours, He paints those skies and splashing from sunset to sunrise I’d swim the colours of life to be with God. I would swim the invisible within the visible around within a rock, up and down inside a tree and in every flower I would swim the nectar and taste the colours and kiss the bees and swim on thru the feathers of wings, the colours of life.

I’d float on my back through my memory and blow bubbles the colours of life. I’d swim and slide and spin and splash down the colours of a rainbow then dive thru the colours of life to go beyond and float far into nothingness and it is there I’d tread.

Ah, love does become me as I swim the colours of life.