Albion’s Wheel of Suffering and Liberation

I. The Turning of the Wheel

The pilgrim walks with all who spin,
Bound by craving, loss and sin,
The wheel revolves, desire and fear,
~ Estrangement whispers, ever near.

II. Brigid’s Hearth – Ignorance to Flame

From childhood’s school, the fire is lit,
Ignorance breaks as wisdom sits,
Her Celtic hearth, a spark of sight,
The wheel turns slowly into light.

III. Lima’s Lantern – Aversion to Calm

Where sorrow bends, her lantern glows,
Aversion yields, compassion flows,
The pilgrim learns through Lima’s hand,
The wheel turns turns gently, makes a stand.

IV. Burial Grounds – Desire to Release

Among the graves, desire is stilled,
The pilgrim sees what time has killed,
Yet every name, a seed of peace,
The wheel turns onward, chains release.

V. Cathedrals and Castles – Pride to Humility

High articles fall to humble knees,
Grey towers bow to Albion’s seas,
The pilgrim learns that pride must fade,
The wheel turns soft, the path is made.

VI. Shree Geeta Bhawan – Dharma’s Song

Krishna’s chant, the mantra flows,
The pilgrim hears what Dharma knows,
The wheel turns true, the song is one,
Albion shines with India’s sun.

VII. Gabriels’s Door – Confession to Renewal

Estrangement hurled, a bitter stain,
Yet thresholds break, and doors can gain,
Confession seeds the pilgrim’s song,
The wheel turns right, estrangement gone.

VIII. The Djinn – Shadow to Insight

The Djinn may haunt with dear and night
But chanting breaks their shadow’s bite,
The pilgrim sees through darkness thin,
The wheel turns clear, the light within.

IX. Buddhist Dharma – Suffering Shared

The Buddha’s light turns Albion’s wheel,
Through suffering’s fire, the wounds can heal,
Estrangement bends, yet Dharma sings,
And Albion walks with liberated kings.

X. EnlightenNext – Evolutionary Awakening

Not mine alone, the path is shared,
A future calls, a world prepared,
Collective chant, the soul’s ascent,
The wheel turns forward, EnlightenNext.

XI. Liberation – Albion’s Chant

Through suffering’s fire, compassion grows
Through emptiness, the river flows,
The pilgrim walks, the wheel turns still,
Albion chants: the Dharma’s will.

XII. The Masters in English – Knowledge to Vision

Through Oxford’s halls the pilgrim read,
Texts of fire, words of bread,
The Masters’ ink, the scholar’s page,
Turned estrangement into sage.

XIII. The PhD – Depth to Circle

The wheel descended, deeper still,
Research carved by patient will,
Yet every thesis, every line,
Was Albion’s soil, a mythic sign.

XIV. The Return – Autobiographer’s Song

From scholar’s desk to pilgrim’s stage,
The circle closed, the mythic page,
No longer study, but living lore,
Albion speaks – estranged no more.

Our Lady of St Lima

In Northfield’s quiet heart she stands,
A lantern in the Midlands air,
Our Lady of St Lima calls
The weary pilgrim into prayer.

Her walls are stitched with whispered hymns,
Her alter breathes the green of spring,
And every candle lit within
Becomes a star, a living wing.

She gathers silence, folds it whole,
And offers it as healing balm,
Her voice is liturgy of soul,
Her presence is a steady calm.

O Lima, mother, saint, and guide,
You root the mythic soil of land,
Through you the estranged are sanctified,
Through you the broken learn to stand.

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.

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?

AI Summary

It’s a poem about a mind registering the textures of the world — wood, stone, lawns, teacups, calculators, galaxies — and feeling how everyday objects, domestic rituals, and cosmic forces all press in at once. The speaker moves through family, time, language, disorder, nature, technology, and the strange music of modern life, trying to hold meaning together as everything shifts and interrupts. It becomes a portrait of someone listening intensely to the world’s noise and asking who, if anyone, can defend the fragile and the weak against time’s relentless movement.