Pilgrimage Poem

At Five Ways I learned discipline,
Study became prayer,
Questions became scripture.
The classroom was my chapel,
The assembly my liturgy.
What began as grammar,
Became gospel,
Preparing me for pilgrimage.

At Oxford I walked among spires,
Philosophy became psalm,
Poetry became prophecy.
In cloisters of silence,
I wrestled with faith and doubt,
each essay a sermon
each lecture a hymn.
The scholar’s lamp burned,
yet beneath it,
the Spirit whispered.

At St Brigid’s I first learned hymns,
Childhood voices rising in chant,
Ritual shaping memory,
Catholic flame in Northfield’s soil.
Brigid watching me with healing eyes,
Preparing me for testimony,
For prophecy,
For Albion’s renewal.

And then I returned,
To Birmingham’s churches,
To Elim’s Pentecostal fire,
To Alpha’s questions,
To hymns remembered at St Brigid’s.
I read the Bible entire,
Guided by Got Questions,
East meets West,
Krishna’s chant met Christ’s gospel.
Renewal sang through me,
And I stood not as seeker,
But as guru,
Bearing light through rupture,
Chanting testimony into England’s soil.

Gay Con

It’s a gay consideration
It’s a warrior by your door
In the coldness of a winter day
To sell you smelly Dogs and nothing more.

It’s positively humorous
The lady in the lake of heavenly resonance
Who deals with the online poker taunts
To buy something so informant and keep us ticking along.

So many phone calls
So many books and cheese
On the dance floor where the angels fear to tred
And the murderers are an igloo of understanding in the red. Sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssso what, I hear you say
Where the money is on the table and deals are ahead with trays
In the Churches where I bought my wayward soul with Waylan Lewis
To go forth towards the

The Chagrin Church

Stark wooden interior corners
Examples of a stony coarse exterior
Neglected by traffic light affinity
Differences of apples
Muttering congregations dialogue
Vengeance before eating
Mature marriages motherly mould over misty cloudy longings for children’s breakfasts
Fathomable knowledge about the quintessence of dust
Young quotes,
Healing waters of garden ponds
The effortless shiny Sunday cut lawn –
We all strive to deal with life
And out of all of us is tomorrow’s hope.
Mottos survive word salad and alphabet spaghetti
So far so good on giving as good as you get.
Nobility, algebra and the rude calculator that spits back the remonstrations of modernity
“Why isn’t a phone good enough for me?”
It reviles the stability of irregular repetition
Imperceptible passing
Mothers and fathers splice
Lost words
Seconding dirty thieves
Monday morning’s walking stick.
#Mankind’s seriousness about words
A hoarded mention
A boarded up tension
A cold dark wooded estate by a bragging brook
Sullen berated lungs
Smoking too long
Snowy imbalance of impatient teacups
Watery indigestion not for my saucers
Ounces and the metric system
Condescension’s caste and credence.
Tanks too readily perceptible
Cloudy army solves the waiting list
Galactic times tables require
Solar astrology’s universal flair
Singular lunar unrepeatable glory
Feeling affairs of unsingle women
bored of frustration’s depth in the mingling of a week’s aftermath
~ (the disruption around me)
The heard sounding off of all that is around
Emanated quality of a nosey hawk that won’t leave the
Speaking alone to the tree soldier
Forbidden fruit to the disordered dossier.
Disclosed attacks on order, numeracy and polar bears
Revealed cupcake positions of private narratives
Open to elevation like a Birch tree heaving for trimming
Crowded notes of like winds
Imminent celebration falling everywhere
Crimson mistakes on clippings
Dominions remaining.
The computer is the hero next week
Mixing mysteries
Inner words
One more of me to know others
Who can defend the weak but time?