From the miles of flatness and the fens

Comes the hill where this Cathedral stands

Everyone can see this floodlit site

When the moon is out and there is night.

I saw it through the window as I turned

It’l struck me down with beauty never earned.

As I lay surprised upon the stair

I absorbed the beauty I saw there.

Should we worship beauty such as this?

It strikes us with a hammer not a kiss

“One thinks of Isaiah — ”Thou hast drunken the dregs of the cup of trembling” — and of Psalm 137: ”By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat, sat and wept as we thought of Zion.” The great poems remind us that grief cannot be avoided, nor forgotten, but can be incorporated into a deeper understanding of the human condition, as in Emily Dickinson’s ”After great pain, a formal feeling comes”:

This is the Hour of Lead —

Remembered, if outlived,

As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow —

First — Chill — then Stupor — then the letting go —

It is that union of experience, insight and the simple beauty of language that helps us to give our own grief a name, that gives us a kind of company, that extends a wise hand. Many experiencing intense, even unbearable personal loss have found redemptive meaning in the famous poem Ben Jonson wrote in 1603 at the death of his son, the one in which he declares, ”My sin was too much hope of thee, loved boy.” There is no full consolation for a parent who loses a child, and indeed Jonson does not offer consolation. But he at least gives a form to what most of us only dimly understand: that the source of grief is the intensity of the hopes that have been lost, and that without the possibility of grief there would have been no joy.”

I

Oh holy light that held me in your gaze

That spoke to me in words without a sound

A holy light, a person hidden away

I did not seek and yet I have been found.

When I was trapped alone with my  numbed heart

When nobody could touch me with their hand

When in bleak despair I sat apart

By your holy light I have been found.

Although you did not speak I heard your words

I heard them all and yet there was no noise

How did you convey them so I heard?

The senses were conjoined, became one voice

I thought I was near death and yet I lived

Despair is long yet graceful are its gifts.

Sometimes sunshine makes us feel bereft
Rain and shadowed clouds would suit our mood
When we are the warp without the weft

As if we are the pen and no ink’s left
As if we hunger yet there is no food
Sometimes sunshine makes us feel bereft

Our mind slows down and all we do is drift
Evil thoughts into the soul intrude
Like we are the warp without the weft

Let the eye and all its muscles rest
With wider focus we may cease to brood
Sometimes sunshine makes us feel bereft

Do not try with will power nor it test
Relaxation brings back knowledge of the good
We take it in like babies at the breast

We must not test the will but let it go
Trust the ocean and eternal flow
Sometimes sunshine makes us feel bereft
Sometimes sunshine brings its golden gifts

.  From time and place and season I feel lost,

Disorientated , missing tracks well worn.

Do not suppose I’m unaware of cost,

Nor label me with adjectives of scorn.

For usual paths lead to the usual place

. The safest way to live and perhaps to die.

But wandering through the woods I find new space

And in wild grasses with the fox I lie.

Through distant trees, i see a way to go

as narrow as a slit in pallid stonm

This is my destined way, I seem to know

And courage rises even as I moan.

Remember when we’re lost , we may then find

Another way,a place,another mind

 

https://wordpress.com/read/feeds/1018466/posts/2628020068

 

“As much as we might admire what is fresh and innovative, we all learn by imitating patterns,” writes Irina Dumitrescu in The Times Literary Supplement. “To be called ‘formulaic’ is no compliment, but whenever people express themselves or take action in the world, they rely on familiar formulas.” It’s true. For her review-essay, Dumitrescu reads 5 books about writing and explores how writing advice is caught in a paradox: to get people to communicate clearly, logically, and find their own voices, instruction must first teach them rules and provide enough room to learn by copying. This is why most of us writers begin by imitating established writers. We find someone whose style or subject reflects our own – someone in whom we hear our ideal selves, someone who sounds like we want to sound one day – and we mimic them. This could start with a parent, move to a cool friend, then end with a famous novelist or memoirst, before we emerge from the pupae of literary infancy. In other words, to facilitate originality, we must teach formula, encourage imitation, and push for eventual independence. She explores the value of craft, structure, exploration, and formula, and the way sticking to rules erodes a writer’s style, their character, even the essence of the art. She contrasts John Warner’s book Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities with the book Writing to Persuade, by The New York Times‘ previous op-ed editor, Trish Hall.

Click the link at the top

The space between Eternity and loss
Shows in a long wave when someone dies
With inner eye, we see past the abyss

With human hearts we fear whom we shall miss
Tell ourselves strange stories,even lies
Of gaps between Eternity and loss

Our education was a mite remiss
The rules are pressed, the truth may well just fly
With inner eye, we see past the abyss

As the life we had come down to this,
When love rolled like the tide in a great sigh
No gap between eternity and bliss

My imagination you dismiss
For as a golden horse, you leapt so high
The inner eye, will see past the abyss

So now we stumble on without a cry
Yet one day all mankind must say ,Goodbye
What grace between Eternity and loss
Shows us how to cross the great abyss?

There were three of us on this motorbike,
Father Dan with me,
And he had Jesus in his bag.
That makes the total three.

Transubstantiation, oh my Lord
I looked at his black bag.
Is Jesus inside there, I thought?
Should it have a tag?

It’s a secret never told
Father Dan gave it me to hold.
So I had Jesus in my lap,
No wonder now I feel a gap.

We zoomed off up an unmade road
As fast as Dan could go.
I felt bewildered and bemused,
I loved my Daddy so.

Father Dan took back his bag,
And went inside our house.
I got my marbles out to roll,
I feared I’d see a mouse.

So Three of had taken a ride
And after that, my Dad had died.
Father Dan said Mass today
Still with Jesus, so I cried.

While the priest annointed him with oils
I played in the gutter all alone
I hoped to find the marbles we had lost
Or from the melted tar to pluck a stone

The summer was so hot the cobbles baked
Looking like a row of fresh made loaves
There were no fishes in the millstream’s rush
Nor a place where bread and Saviour rose

I found a florin in the cobbled street
I found two marbles lying near a grid
I found a daisy squashed in a wide crack
I saw a spider hanged in its own web

To summarise ,my father went away
The Queen was crowned and we just tried to play

Ode to a lightbulb

Oh,light bulb foreseen by our God
Save us all from darkness’ rod
You are our Saviour as foretold
In prophecy by ancients bold.
We will worship you at night
When sunken is the sun so bright.
We’ll watch TV and Kindle fire
No more to play shall we aspire.
We’ll wear ourselves out watching screens,
As from a can we eat baked beans
We’ll send for pizzas with our phones
With which we never feel alone.
We might talk to our partner dear
Though to text is easier.
We see the neon street lights gleam
Where once we saw the moon’s cold beams
And in bed we read our books
With a kindle or a nook
We put beneath out pillows fair
I phones which we long to hear
Can one have too much new light?
From technology some take flight
For gone are seasons, and their fruit
As our computer we reboot.
New potatoes all year round
Avocados once quite rare
Now are seem ‘most everywhere.
Melons,grapes and fresh green peas
As the birds sing,life’s a breeze.
Oh light bulbs,fluorescent tubes
Electric candle, light is cubed.
We thank you for extended days
Maybe we’ll find time for prayers.
God is great in mystery
No light bulb can help us see.
In silence,darkness, meditate
Wonder what will be our fate.
As retribution for our wrong
Satan stabs us with his prongs
He needs no more light in hell
The fiery furnace cooks as well.

I’ll write a sonnet it’s not hard, is it

The hardest thing is how to begin it.

Once you start, it’s hard to stop.

One sonnet might be, in fact, a crop.

I used to write five poems a day.

I seemed to know just what to say

Yet too much talking can disturb.

The gentle angels are perturbed

In Suffolk is an ancient church

Above the altar small birds perch

The angels hang down from the roof

The faces grave convey the truth.

I tried to write but did it work?

Wisdom dwells where angels lurk

Your face is etched upon my heart.

I knew you in the morning light

Love is wise but never smart.

We have no need of others charts

In the mornings and the night

Your face is etched upon my heart.

As we waken sleep departs

To see your face is my delight

Love is wise and sometimes smart

Intuition, craft is art

Love is silent, hatred fights

Your face is etched upon my heart

Human Love can see in part

Face to face we’ll see aright

Love is wise love is not smart

Your face is etched upon my heart.

Love is wise but never smart

Is love blind? Who etched the lines?

Sacred, human, love is kind

Climbing up the hill  with a great Cross
The tortured God recalls his childhood days
Now he faces death and total loss

Did  Jesus  fear his  mission  and its cost
Would humans  ever learn to see his way
Climbing up the hill  with a great Cross

Crucified, beheaded, killed by us
John  the Baptist,Jesus,Jews  have paid
Did Jesus fear his Mission and its cost

How we love the baby, yet we’re lost
Was it ever true that we are saved?
Climbing up the hills  with our own cross

Where is God’s great spirit, Holy Ghost
Alienated from the human race?
Did Jesus fear his Mission and its cost

Shall we ever see that Holy Face
Onto  refugees it has been placed
Climbing up the hill  like Sisyphus
He repeats his actions, feels  his loss

 

 

Thanks for all those calls and letters
Thanks for caring that I’m here.
In my darkest, lonesome moments
These replies will keep you near.

Thanks for answering all my emails
Thank you for the hours you give.
Thanks for sharing heartfelt thoughts
And being so generous with your love.

Thank you for your wit and grace,
Thank for your funny face.
Thank you for your deep blue gaze and
Thank you for your warm embrace.

Thank you,thank you,thank you,thank.
Love you,love you,love you,Love.
Thank you,thank you,thanks to you,
Because,because,because.

Because

10th of March 2026

You have got an appointment with the consultant on Friday 3rd of April 11am

March12 

please confirm your ability to come to the appointment or rebook or cancel cancel using the following code numbers

March 13th

thank you for confirming

March the 20th don’t forget you have an appointment third April

April the first don’t forget you have an appointment Friday the 3rd of April

April 1st you have a letter from the hospital please click this link

1st of April dear madam we are sorry to tell you that your appointment has been cancelled

April the first later in the day

Don’t forget you have an appointment Friday 3rd of April

2 April

Notification you have got another letter from the hospital

You have got an appointment with the consultant

Notification

you have got a text message from the hospital please confirm your ability to come to your appointment to rebook or cancel

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

In spring it gives us joy, in fall we’re glum.

And so we play on in our little games.

The inbetween is hard to give a name.

Transitions, changes, fear of what’s to come.

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

Have the gods deserted, who’s to blame?

If we cannot share our hearts go numb.

So we play on in our little games.

The human heart and mind are often lame.

Angered by the movements of the sun

The sky in spring in autumn looks the same

Can the spirits of our hearts be tamed?

Obsessive thoughts will linger and rerub

So we play on in our little game’s 

In spring life starts again, then what’s to come

But summer heat the flowers the bees that hum

The sky in spring and autumn looks the same

Round and round we go, for life’s a game

The tulips pushed the primroses away

They took the pot from these innocuous plants Nature is not kind in such display The powerful plants can do just what they want. However, I admire their flowers of red

The shape is elegant, the colour clear.

And had they been in a much bigger bed.

Both flowers would give us pleasure without fear.

And now magnolias pink my eyes adore

Two of them I see from off the bus.

A visual parable, a story for

The short sweet life of all including us.

We deceive ourselves in order to survive.

But shallowness makes trivia of our lives

https://www.theurologyfoundation.org/urology-health/bladder-conditions/urinary-tract-infections-uti/

The flowers you brought me one day died.

And you died.

I am here alone.

Oh, where are you?

My tears are watering the grass.

The ants dance about in intricate movements

The flowers will die again

How insecure I feel now I’m bereft .

How grief feels more like fear than I had known

What can this world mean when you have left?

That panic grips the heart, I’d never guessed.

I wish my suffering  heart would turn to stone

How insecure I feel now I’m  bereft.

Through these awful thoughts my mind will drift

Alone, alone, unloved, alone alone.

What can this just world mean, when you have left?

The nonsense and the sense flow by me swift

How insecure I feel now I’m bereft.

In this my writing there is not much craft.

My fingers  shrink  and feel like corpse’s bones

What does this sombre world mean since you’ve left?

How can we live when all we love is gone?

We create it, live until we’re done

How insecure we feel when we’re bereft

The pillars of our world have fallen, demons laughed.