Fear and Faith

A potent wand does sorrow wield,

Repentance is a tender sprite,

But if by chance your faith should fail

regard the crescent moon so bright.

Whose voice can stop the nimble clouds

Or eye can see the wind?

which ear can hear the silent song,

whose touch has never sinned?

Whether among the winds we strive

that cuts along the hawthorn fence

in savage wildness, winter's ice,

We must rely on future tense.

The crab, the scorpion and the bull

along with scattered stars,

hidden behind mercury

the ruddy face of mars.

Temptation lurks among all words

while white dust sleeps along the lane,

Darklings among the boughs and leaves

account for the crimson stain.

Paths of wickedness and woe,

The noise of danger in your ears,

some ugly witchcraft might be about,

Perhaps the music of the spheres.

Yet man's heart is a holy place

among the lovely shades of things

Not given to sadness or to gloom,

Regal as palaces and kings.

And nature still will find a way

to bring us back to God,

by ferry of a flying horse,

no ghost more softly ever trod.

Asking Feelers.

 

I talk to my hands and ask them

to tell me what they have felt

in sixty years and more,

A million mugs of steaming tea

barrels of porter in pints

the handle on my fathers door,

and the grip of many a spade

shiny with spit and sweat

from biting the sticky clay

to find the golden wonders

and black champions,

the twine on bales of hay.

Footballs with laces

the reins on the stubborn ass,

diamonds, hearts and spades,

screwdrivers, saws and hammers

handlebars, saddles and pumps,

razors with throwaway blades.

Shakes with other hands

“I'm sorry for your loss”

countless hello's and goodbyes,

brylcreem and carbolic soap

Windsor knot propping Adams apple

buttons on schoolboy flies.

Ash plants on bullock backs

the mane of a white-eyed ass

foot stretched neck of a goose,

the profile of scratchy stubble

the slap of another wrist

twin fists turned loose.

The turning of calendar pages

and leaves of all those books

fiction of poetry and prose

the weight of the gravel earth

at the grave of parted friend

the ritual of putting on clothes.

The feel of my children's faces

the crossing at Angelus bell

pulling the belfry rope,

the fingers of a lovely woman

twining in a casual touch

delivering a message of hope.

The good the bad and the hopeless

they've felt, the sun and the rising damp,

the flick of a switch, then light.

The power of the beating pulse

at wrist, and heart still ticking over

when eyes won't work in the night.

The Irish Wake:

I went to the wake with Jim because

the man was dead that was,

now paddling across the great water.

He wasn't my favourite man

A 'cant do', 'wont do' man,

He wrote the text; the author.

Just another spoke in the sameness wheel

he was, a hollow tree-trunk still.

Mouth, a cave furnished with a few white chairs,

The living viewing the sockets of the dead

Denying that they were or went,

History guarded like scandalous affairs.

Eyes, battle- scarred scary marbles

Staring at the contrapuntal lines of life,

As much direction as a yolk broke egg,

He couldn't forsake his own distress

his repeated route, tedium crawl of the unreal,

Cup overflowing with draught, a dreg.

He tripped on the shadow of barbed wire

and fell into no man's sea of dark,

All cats are black in the night.

The valleys in his face were once cheeks

propping up his nose and brow,

He opened up the window to let out the light.

Ignorant of being ignorant, he was,

A grain of silt in Sahara's sand,

A squirrel spit on a petrified tree,

I went to the wake with Jim because

the man that was, was dead.

His life was cheap, his death was free.

(Tis said you should never speak ill of the dead; this doesn't mean you should abandon the truth)

December Five

Conscience of a nation to his children

olive tones and texture in his sallow skin

went to the God of all colours in winter

when the world is outside white.

And white hearts are black

living in skin stretched and mottled

by the sun of African skies

where his spirit flies.

Like Gandhi, a lawyer condemned

by the laws of his peer

he knew no fear of the dark

which was his manger

his refuge in danger.

They slapped the other cheek

and still he smiled

he knew they could not hurt him

with their wild accusation

they could not stop the rebirth of his nation.

Christened by his teacher on his first day at school

he had no paper or stool, no stub pen,

he could ask only why and when.

Accused of high treason; no reason,

Patience patented was his sword and shield

honed and polished on the penance field

of Robben Island's lime pits of the free

and Thatcher and Reagan held the key.

South Africa belongs to all who live in it,

black and white, genius and half wit.

“authority is based on the will of the people”,he said,

“this land is owned by the living and dead."

We have been brutalised by an invading nation

They dont know truth, or reconciliation.

He went gladly to his maker on December five

One of the chosen few; dead but still alive.

(in memory of Nelson Mandela, named after a pirate)