1: The Answer

Age 24

At Taize, Burgundy

On the edge of decision

Facing the question:

          Do I love God above all others and for life

          Or because of good times given?

On the edge of the tent of prayer

Where so much love is given and received

I wept

The question so unflinching

How to know I love?

How to answer forever ?

And yet I found

An aching answer yes

A yes ‘with the help of God’

A yes as ‘a sign and witness’

To the truth of God, loving in the world

Through my yes

Through many another yes.

To anyone who loves me

I offer that ‘yes’

The yes which is God’s alone

The answer wrung from me

To offer me

To his beloved

You

My joy.

23 Jan 1998

2. Place Taken

That self-control

An asset or obstacle?

Did it hold you back

From better things now regretted?

Or did it bind you

Together?

Does it keep you armslength away

From abandonment?

Or does it knit you to the One

To whom you’re given?

You are yourself

(Beyond self-control)

Joker played

On your giving day.

Asset or obstacle?

Answer every (giving) day

Accepting in return

December 1997

Sidekick, second string

Escape from being ‘secondary’ ?

How?

Chase the chaser,

Confront?

Escape?

How?

Never to be central.

Looks like being led by You

To ever, never, find?

Bromley, 1990

The assistant priest’s irrelevance to the head teacher made me reflect on insignificance as a spiritual value.

Fragments

The bread’s the stuff of say and do

The graded grain of time and life

The slender slice that’s given you

The slice that’s yours, the price you give.

The wine’s the life you yearn to live

Away beyond the day-to-day

A tie to hope, a time to dream,

The loving cup that’s poured away

The bread’s enough to fill today

Enough to keep the wolf away

The cup above, beyond the pale,

It’s spirit’s high, it soars away

          The wine the sign of sorrow too

          A death that leaves no pain unfelt

          The broken bread His hanging head

         The glass is dry, no cheer good health.

Feel the joy and feel the pain

Feed the lively, feed the lame.

Share the cup that’s given up

Take the life that’s yours again.

April 1991

A meditation, breaking open the Eucharist.

St Augustine’s festival day

Shaken by emotion
Stirred by a medley
(Holy oldies sweet,
How come you taste so good?)

The shot knocked back,
The sudden kick,
Knowing this is mine.

A remnant rejoicing
Mild but rousing
More than a tear.

UnEnglish.
Excessive.
Roman.

My emotional response to a medley of Catholic hymns at a Mass held in the ruins of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury. Perhaps it gives an inkling of what it felt like for me to be a ‘Roman’ Catholic on that day (The Mass gathered Catholics from Kent and South London to mark the 1400 years since Augustine’s arrival).

Springsummer

Summer sunshine bank holiday
Workers playtime with the windows wide
Luvverble eastenders chas’ndaving in the Centre
Hooch of human kindness makes them kids again.
Harryoke at the mike,
Cardiojumpstarting
That familiar wartime earache.

While granny has her knees-up
Father, adjacent, groans
Grateful for the trade
Looks towards the day
He’ll join his generation
Misty-eyed and tongue-loosened
Punks unplugged.

Written within earshot of a Bank Holiday party held in my Greenwich Parish Community Centre.  As I sat working for hours at my desk a few yards away, I reflected on the partygoers singing WW2 songs and wondered what my generation would sing years hence.

‘Rivers of Water’

‘Rivers of Water’ on New Cross Road,
Travel shop
Or prophecy?

‘Rivers of Water’
Thanks world wanderers!
You show me
What to write.

Let the world know
Rivers of water woke me up.
Like the
    fountains of Florence
    and driving drizzle
Ebb will ever flow.

So will I,
    freshening
    flattening
    thrilling
    chilling,
    sleeping during drought.

Yes, world,
In our inertia
Rivers flow on

So wash me away
Again,
Never the same
Twice.

The name of a south London shop encourages me swirl on, in the cascade of earthly existence.

Ever Available?

Glad to have you near

But grateful when you stop

Ringing, singing, knocking, shocking, longing,

Belonging, beguiling, whiling away your time

“One person! In that big house mum?”

The Big House on the corner

Looming like St Bates of the Psychos,

Isn’t lonely

Even with a single soul within.

It throbs with the lives of thousands

Present here from time to time,

Present in His Presence

Present to the one who encloses you in his embrace

But needs to breathe.

Left Reeling by Abuse

Adam sinned and all suffered.

Priests like me abused,

So I am tarred.

Feel my rage

Tainted,

Judged by shrugging masses,

 “Who’d believe one of that lot?”

Judged fairly

Through fear.

Frustrated,

My smiling warmth suspicious.

Accused by adults confused

By youngsters in the know,

Beginning to accuse myself.

Hear me

While the jury’s out

Know this:

I know myself,

I love

I respect trust

I honour innocence.

Without permission

I will smile

True,

I need to learn.

Learn too

About me.

January 1998, Melbourne.