Jonah’s 3rd Day

I remember the past
But cannot tame its power
When coins had names:
A tanner, half-crown, and a shilling
When ten-bob notes were brown
Coal was black and coke was grey

An age of miracle and wonder
Rolling Rs, blowing gum bubbles
As big as your head,
Waggling ears and wood-pigeon coos,
And smiling girls perfecting handstands
With long straight hair

Early mornings full of swirling fog
The sound of cars sawing
Choke in and choke out
Of ice inside the windows and
Fighting for the three-bar-fire
Winter school in shorts

And family secrets
Dying with the pipe-smoke in the lounge
My hero demoted to decay
The strong so weak
Wretched mourning over the empty chair
And the failure of truth to hide

Making my way detached
From anyone who could know
The questions no-one had words to answer.
No-one I knew anyway
Until I, in the pub,
Spilt my beer – and my words:

‘Christ!’
And she said:
‘Why did you say that?’
That was the prodigal son
Coming to his senses
That was Jonah’s third day
The light guiding me home
O! I remember the past
But cannot tame its power

‘Christ!’ I say now
Kneeling with tears of joy

Steadfast

A poem for Ukraine inspired after walking past Antony Gormley’s one hundred iron statues on Crosby beach, unmoved, facing the wild waves and gale-force wind off the Irish Sea.

***

Who ignited this fire you must not see
Behind my sad stern eyes?
Impassive and unflinching I stand
Tight with resolve: 
I shall not be moved

Pack me in your ice floes 
From the east and from the north
And I will melt you
I may look cold as steel or as a statue of stone
Yet, you will find, I am too hot to touch

A day is coming when I will bend once more
When I will shed a tear
When I will again export wheat and rum and light
When my flames will brighten the night sky
And I will walk in Another Place

Keeping it simple

Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea

No publicity

Just sat on a beach

I like that

Mary left the kitchen, put down her knives

And sat at his feet

No fuss, no words

I like that

I need that

To keep it simple

---

Psalm 30

Eyes closing, I drift in time and watch my
Father counting rusty nails one by one
And dear Mother the gallons of water
Clear and cool in the hand-hewn cistern
But this morning I look down
And count my ribs in unceasing pain

I heave in air from the midday heavens
And remember the scripted and dark night:
Messiah bird caught in a fowlers net.
I, brought down to tears in a garden
And rough, soldier hands, wear a
Crown of thorns for the world to see

My friend, Iscariot, Judas, I see
His eyes in every skull gazing at me
Abandoned by God and man, darkness comes
To hold me between Heaven and Earth
To pour out the nothingness
I have, my blood and final breaths

The seed, I said, must fall into the ground
And now I am falling, falling so deep
Absent from Heaven I descend into Hell
I am weakness now, spent, beyond life
But it’s my aloneness that’s died.
In the cool of the dawn, the stone rolls…

…away! I breathe the stale tomb air in thanks
The angels and I sing songs and we dance
Then stop: the scent of spices makes us hide.
Like children disguised, we dig the rich earth
Leaking joy. Knowing the women can
Only hold a little, I say, ‘Mary!’