Category: Poetry

Night-drums

Drop-down cloud-drapes shining,
Wind-shaped dawn driven, riding
A-glow moon rides over weather-worn mount,
To deep valley less darkly grey-grim cold,
Where sun shines sharp in fickle sickle shape
And moon-lost sky burns brazen sun-god gold.

Plucked, parted, little lights of dark,
Peer out curious, caution-crowded sparks,
Fire of the sun and lesser light than moon,
Candle-flame flicker, death’s drum beat
Call life lifted, angel heart-heat
Bent – rent – recklessly rifted, diamond-stud sand
Through sky-peaks sifted, burned in black-charred sky
Hurling heights where they forever – dead – dance, die.

Star-struck

Walking the wandering woods,
A minstrel strode, humming,
Whistling a tune to the moon.
Nothing could harm him,
Careless he, from fear free,
Boldly thumping boots
O’er trees’ soil and roots.

Just humming a tune
To a new-strung verse
In the dark, when hark!
There! He heard a hiss
Through the mist – an arrow?
A bolt? A Faery?

Clutching hard his wooden mace,
He peered to the stars, the sky,
The tree-topped trunks and –
A falling star struck him in the face.

My Kingdom is Not of This World (II)

With great creaks and a groan, a giant stone,
By the very Sling of God was thrown –
Towards the Holy City hurled.
With it rose a riotous cheer,
That struck and frightened the Saracen ear.

There the Father looked down on his little boys,
For His honour fighting with their metal toys.
Smiling, He whispered through their clamour and fight,
While stars burst forward in the evening light,
And steel edge hissed and javelins twirled,
“My Kingdom, sons, is not of this world.”


Audio Version:

The Ressurection

As the first pulse of the world beat out in throbbing tones,
Fanning heat from the depths of the darkest regions,
In a blast more fearful than Lucifer’s fall
At which our globe still grievously groans,
Or Zeus’s rods of war now molten,
In a thunderous whiplash striking the earth
Opening a wound as a lance to a heart,
So casting himself from Heaven came the angel to God,
Calling for stones to yield and give birth,
Rending the barrier of men apart,
And the soldiers’ spirits retreated before the awful sight,
Falling as smitten with the spirit’s rod.
The messenger tore the iron chains and rock apart,
In a righteous fury and holy might,
Summoning Creation to salute its King,
Bowing to the One Who Lives.

Christus Surrexit!

Weep Not for Me

Weep not for me, children of God, but for yourselves,
Sinners, and for the sins yet to be by your children.
Rejoice that you see my suffering, for it is fitting that I –
So that all may know what sins have caused – should die.
Sorrow not for my wounds nor for the burdening beam,
Which heavy now, pushes further into my brow the thorns
Of pride that so numbly ride and rule the Head of God,
But for the transgressions that make My Blood stream.

Shed no tear for this Blood shed,
Let lamentations cease. Give peace instead,
And follow Me distantly to the death of your sins,
Mourn the lives lost, dear daughters – not Mine;
Rather each everlasting life spent spurning My Love.
Cry for the crimes convicting Me, Who now,
Obeying and willingly reach out to gather in all from the world.

When the earth is shadowed in darkness,
And the Light of the World seems unlit,
The unworthy dust, more worthy than man,
Will drink, and writhe at the cost of this Blood.
Weep then for your loss, and for your Mother’s grief
Who bore to you Me in no pain,
But now in receiving all as her new children,
Conceives this Conception, gives birth by My death.

Regret the cause of her sorrow,
And look on He Who you killed –
Not for My pain, My wounds, My death,
But hers, and theirs and yours,
And in this you will honour Me,
Remembering why –
I must die.


The Death of St. Joseph

O Lady of Stars, did you sorrow when
Your silent champion closed his eyes
After looking long on you,
Beauty which bore
God from the Highest to men,
And saw one like himself, yet more –
When you saw him gaze on the Mystery?

My Mother, did his steady eyes soften,
On leaving you behind in this deep night?
Or did he rejoice that he should wait to pass,
Beyond the hovering of soul near Paradise
In silence, for your Son to go before him as a light?
Did you give him to your Son, detached
In pure love, as Joseph gave himself to you?

Did he wait for you just in the Door;
Escort you as his once-cherished bride –
Now Queen,
And give to you the crown he’d made
From the Thorns of Christ now blossomed?

Winter’s Triumph

One quavering note of winded horn,
Was forced aloft, brazen and high, 
Lifted and on winter winds borne,
Upwards through the frozen sky.

It silver echoed from the moon,
Resounded into darkening gloom,
Passed through forests far below,
Tired then swiftly through the snow,
And by such cold was forced to die.

Again the Hunter sounded his call,
Summoning ice from skies to fall,
To sweep the earth with iron death,
With one silent, frosty breath.

One stroke and winter would be his,
The sun could offer no true hope –
Then was triumph of the cold,
That in one night transformed the gold,
To paler light, more blinding, steel.

The forest froze, no creatures sang,
Only the horn of the Hunter rang,
Despairing, the moon watched the sun fall
As Winter came, and conquered all.

Cross of the Rock-shelter River

In a somber light a man passed by
The lonely path which carried him
Through shadow’d gloom within his heart
Without, it shone around him dark.

In day or night there was no change,
For dwelling alone, turned within
Naught to be seen but dull, unending
Living – man’s death with his sin.

So round ensnared by mind and thought
He traveled days and down the hills,
Turning ’round the mystery
Of our enslavement to our wills.

Until there found him forest green
And shaded hollow filled within
Near mottled flecks of violet shade
In feath’ry air, a misty sheen

Where stilled a hushed echo
And little creatures fled
Away from Man as man fled God
The trees clear bled, and green turned grey.

He halted, hearing a new wind
And with the sun’s break in the leaves –
Or was it leaves that broke the light? –
A shiv’ring slice of thought came twining
Through a door outside his mind.

You care for the tree which held Me,
And work with  tools that pierced Me,
But sadness finds you when you look,
At yourself and the faults and failings,
Of the souls I saved through these.

Don’t seal closed the open door,
I stand without a-waiting.
You snare your thoughts in circles,
Bruising your soul with sin,
But find escape, this prison break
When you just let Me in.

Escape not from yourself
Run never from your nature
If God became as one of thee,
You flee – you flee from me.

Find not disgrace in wandering
Deliberations deep,
If you will turn out from within
‘Tis My truth that you seek.

You think you fear Eternity –
But think of it as time,
You trap yourself in creation
Forgetting it is Mine.

While men fight bitter battles,
Rivers of blood red spills,
But the Man alive brings comfort
To the lost soul in the hills.

And as the moon arched high that night,
As sun fled playfully,
In a final jest the great light gave
The flare of the Trinity.

*The photo was taken on the bank of the Androscoggin River at sunset.
Its name comes from the Abenaki or Penobscot dialects, and means ‘River of rock shelters’.




Seaside Battlefield

Oh tell, dark mud, stained and dyed in rivulets of blood,
Why scream harsh tones, the ravens and crows,
Amidst the ash and hellish cries, choking skies
Bone and flesh, metal-torn, bowing to the reaper’s horn?
 
What saw you fading to the years,
What said you against the deafened ears,
To still their hearts to cold hard death?
What wind you stole to take their breath,
How lie you silent, reeking mid-sun,
The first is finished, the war begun.
“Silence, mortal, I am but they
Who in late years have passed this way,
They died to fall and live in me,
Someday to fall into the sea,
Forever roaring battle song

Assaulting ships and wrecking wrong.

“I saw more blood than I can hold,
To them who fell as they faded I told,
Be now at peace, no war can find you
And with new fire their forms flew on,
Kindling stars with battle-song,
The body of old falls deep to me,
Each soul goes to where he would be.
No tempest shrieking moves them now,
Before no conqueror shall they bow.
I lie here famished, glutted in death,
Waiting the tide to cleanse me again,
To send the memory of these wretched men,
To the grave, to the fish, to the birds, to their rest.”
And their memory? is it to be lost
As changing to fog flies the frost?
 
“What matters it now, they know who they are!
Some are remembered for the deeds they achieved,
But remember this, you hot-hearted fool,
Not Achilles would be known if not for the thousands
Who perished before him and after his wake,
Though his victims be piled and burned in red mountains,
Pain and oblivion spurting black fountains,
Leaving behind them ten thousand to grieve!
Alone man is futile, in battle or peace,
Surely ’tis true that great men may come –
Not one, I tell you, not a single one,
Has lived but for the weak who first raised him,
And if dying in violence and heat of Hell’s hate
Is action held worthy of memory and song,
Then hold still in closer the hope of each tide,
The flow of life and peace and war,
Each birth and death, every drop of rain,
Which over history cleans and renews
The ill or good fortune all nations shall choose.”