Tuesday 6 December 2016

God by Numbers

                       GOD BY NUMBERS

                   One is the greatest but,
(Two would be too small, too many, odd)
              Three is the simplest number
                                 God
                                              Wilf Nov 2016

Tuesday 20 September 2016

Different Light

In this 21st century light
You look like anyone else
From your time and place
In the Middle East.

In the half light of my half journey
Colours begin to sleep
Something else comes to life
The lines in your face like river beds
Compassion and Grief
Carved out for us.

When darkness comes
Timeless and
Inevitable this far down the road
I know by senses I do not know
That You are there smiling
Like a young moon
The light of unquenchable kindness
In your unseen eyes
                                           Wilf Sep 2016

Moses

Meek, fearful, murderer,
Friend of God soon to die
Looking back
From his last mountain path
Back over the forty year long desert
Every bush is burning
                                                      Wilf SEP 2016

Lullaby

Jesus come to me
The shadows are long and sharp
The night is not at rest
Wars rage and rage wars
Only you who never sleep are at rest
Sweet Jesus give me sleep
                                                       Wilf Sep 2016

Saturday 27 August 2016

You Are

                                YOU ARE

                                    Closer
                                   Simpler
                                  Stranger
                                 Less Lord
                               More Friend
                            But only because
                      I didn't fully understand
                  What a Lord was, or a friend
                  But now I know a little more
.                        You are no less Lord
                            And much more
                                   A Friend
                                    Strange
                                    Simple
                                     Close
       
                                           Wilf Aug 2016

Wednesday 20 July 2016

Pilgrim's Field

          Pilgrims' Field
I am walking up this hill
To a field of golden wheat
From which the sacred bread is made
That pilgrims long to eat

The morning sun is high
But this wood is dark and still
It is long, and hard, and food is scarce
But I am walking up this hill

Each time I fall or faint
There, is a healing tree
Planted by my great friend
To bring hope and strengthen me

As I rise to walk again
I am further up the road
Somehow carried by the healing
Closer now to God

It is the dream of that golden bread,
The embrace of those sacred hands
That keep my footsteps resolute
All up this dark green land

WILF 07/2016

Tuesday 12 July 2016

The Place to be

                           THE PLACE TO BE
   The correct and bestest place to be
   Speaking theologicalee, and politically
   Is the high moral ground
   It's all the rage, it's all around,

   But there is a dark and dirty tree
   That shakes with an anguished plea
    "Father forgive for they do not know"  
    Welcome to the ground where the high morals grow.

                                                Wilf July 2016                        

Wednesday 29 June 2016

Old Songs and Lovers

Songs of old lovers; dreams and adventures
Over and over my mind.
 Like an old piano playing
Out of tune and out of time
In a dark bar after hours.
I could be the piano or the fingers on the keys,
Either way it can be hard to stop the tune.

Sometimes in the dark hours that have no name
You are just a breath away and a spoken word would crack the intimacy
Then all I can do is whisper
Love, into Your ear, but at other times..
Old songs and  lovers barge in
Like a drunk that won't go home

I know that You were always pure
But on those cold hard mountain nights,
were you tempted
By what the girl from Magdala could have been, or John or Martha?
Was it easy to turn away from such thoughts of  tender warmth and talk to Father, the tenderest but sometimes farthest of all?
 It can be hard for us, was it hard for You?

Was it like a shepherd's flute or lyre for You?
Imaginary music trying to take you
Far from our Father.

Your past was in eternity
Mine was in a different place
You were tempted by things you never did and yet I know
You do not dispise our struggles
And when the piano plays soft and close
You are closer than the songs and the lovers.
                        Wilf Jun 2016

Tuesday 21 June 2016

Moon Walk

                                                 MOON WALK  
These colours 
Here in this dark shining
I wonder, do they have names?
In the morning sun I knew them well enough,
( I knew you )
But now the light has been to the moon
Something has changed
And as we walk together in its light
I see a change in you too.
Where have you been, does it have a name?
And would I have ears to understand
The dark shining road that has led you?

These colours
Maybe they are more than just dark colours
But my eyes cannot pierce this veil of moon mystery
To see what they signify.

They will change back with the sun's return
But not you,
I don't know how I know:
     The colour of your words?
     The glint of a new history in your eyes?

The path that you have trodden
Lit by a moon reflecting
The mysterious light of a dark sun;
Wherever you have been 
Wherever you go
You will never be the same again
                                                     Wilf June 2016



                 

Landscape

                                                             LANDSCAPE
The landscape of my world has become strange
If ever it was mine it is no longer
Maybe the sky still meets the earth
But I cannot always find that place
And there is too much earth.

You may not see the difference
But if you stare
Something will stare back, and you will know.
Don't stare unless you're prepared
And then you better pray.

There was once a call that told me who and where
I was
It whispered like a drawing sword.

The landscape has changed
The land moves like the sea
Is that call still true
Amidst the whispering of the waves?
                                                       Wilf June 2016

Thursday 24 March 2016

Old Sam

OLD SAM
‘Don't touch me, don't question me, don't talk to me ,stay with me ‘.
~ Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot.
Samuel Beckett. Greatest playwright of all time, in my view. Sam hated Becket’s stuff, for all kinds of philosophical reasons that I could never grasp. He used to say, ‘The only thing Mr. Beckett and I have in common is a first name.’ Funny that. Him being a staunch atheist at the time. Funnier still how he came to like him after he converted. But then – Sam always took some fathoming. Apart from Beckett we had pretty well everything else in common. I used to hold his hand until they put all the tubes in.
                      I first came across Sam in Spiro’s tobacconist's by the Haymarket. I asked for a packet of the same brand of Greek fags as he was about to buy. ‘Good grief,’ said a voice behind me, ‘we must be the only two people in London who smoke those.'Our paths crossed again when we were both working at the Old Vic. After that we became firm friends. He kept me from drinking myself to death after Janice left, and from killing the woman she left with. He was – there. I miss being able to hold his hand. Though it always felt that he was holding mine, even when he had no strength left                                                                 When Sam got religion, converted, whatever you call it (I didn't want to get involved so I didn't enquire too much) he wasn't like one of these weird happy creeps. I don't know what you’d call it, but he was different. And he started liking Beckett! Never understood that. I visited him three times a week as he just faded away. But every time I came it was like there was more of him there. He'd be able to explain it. It was awful seeing him there unable to talk. I'll never forget the last time I saw him. Something was cracking off in the ward: nurses
and porters flying about, someone screaming, but when I got within six feet of Sam’s bed everything went quiet. It was like we were in some kind of sanctuary. Sam couldn’t do anything and neither could I, just sit in silence. Sam died the next day. I miss him terribly: his friendship, kindness, that brilliant mind, no-one to pinch fags from (we really were the only two).                                                              I’ll never forget the feeling I had by his bed at the end. So – powerful. Often, when I think of him, it comes back to me. Like a blanket. l wonder what it means.