If you have stared into the abyss
And the abyss has stared back
If you have peered again
There starting on your way
Following all that you love;
Then I will listen to you.
If in the pursuit of your dreams
You have cowered under the gaze of despair
But risen again
To fall again to rise again
Knowing that one day you will
Stare into its eyes
And see your hunter become your prey.
Then I will share your dreams
If your journey takes you
Anywhere nearer
To the weak,wounded
Broken hearted,betrayed sinners,
And Saviour,I will walk with you.
If not.
Hold your peace
Keep your dreams
And go your way.
Wilf 12/2002
Monday, 30 June 2014
Stories in need of a happy ending
1. The Charcoal Man
Who am I? What is my permanence?
I am etched in charcoal
On a board that everyone else owns
They have smudged and rubbed
nudged and dubbed
judged and snubbed all that I am
In favour of what they want
Whoever I am now
I am their product.
2. Nearly
He's much like everyone else-unique,
Underneath the adhesions of his own choices
Which made him like everyone else.
You can tell someone who has killed himself
But not if they nearly did.
In a desert that only they feel
There are mirages that only they see
A palm full of pills,
A razor hovering over the wrist,
A gun neatly placed in the mouth.
And if he'd done it he could haunt all those
Who caused him so much pain.
But as it is he haunts himself, you see it sometimes
In his eyes
And he's not like anyone else, he's unique
And he's made his own choices.
Wilf 07/2003
Who am I? What is my permanence?
I am etched in charcoal
On a board that everyone else owns
They have smudged and rubbed
nudged and dubbed
judged and snubbed all that I am
In favour of what they want
Whoever I am now
I am their product.
2. Nearly
He's much like everyone else-unique,
Underneath the adhesions of his own choices
Which made him like everyone else.
You can tell someone who has killed himself
But not if they nearly did.
In a desert that only they feel
There are mirages that only they see
A palm full of pills,
A razor hovering over the wrist,
A gun neatly placed in the mouth.
And if he'd done it he could haunt all those
Who caused him so much pain.
But as it is he haunts himself, you see it sometimes
In his eyes
And he's not like anyone else, he's unique
And he's made his own choices.
Wilf 07/2003
Tuesday, 24 June 2014
Mid life
We are not old
We have not lived the years given to us
We have acknowledged them
But we have not embraced them
We have been their passengers
Not their lovers.
We are weary
Yet we have not gone very far
We have not sailed the thousand seas
We would not brave the terror of their waves
So we do not know the secrets
Of the lonely and far distant isles.
We have not climbed so high
As to see the impossible blooms
Pushing out of the rocks they have split
To be kissed and to kiss the mountain sun.
Then where have we been?
For we are weary.
Throughout the years that we have not lived
We have hidden the memory
That once we dreamed shimmering dreams
And walked a magic road
So we scorn those who do
And we laugh,yes but we yearn....
What are we?
We defend ourselves in public
"We are not old"
We attack ourselves in secret
"We are too old"
Well if we are then our hope is gone.
But we are not too old,
We are not old enough
We are too young and we need to learn
How to become old
Old with sea journeys
Old with mountains
Old with wisdom that comes
By embracing our days like seasoned lovers
Then the dream and the dreamer will shimmer again
And we will walk the magic road
Guided by a single star
For here there are no footprints.
Wilf 07/2003
We have not lived the years given to us
We have acknowledged them
But we have not embraced them
We have been their passengers
Not their lovers.
We are weary
Yet we have not gone very far
We have not sailed the thousand seas
We would not brave the terror of their waves
So we do not know the secrets
Of the lonely and far distant isles.
We have not climbed so high
As to see the impossible blooms
Pushing out of the rocks they have split
To be kissed and to kiss the mountain sun.
Then where have we been?
For we are weary.
Throughout the years that we have not lived
We have hidden the memory
That once we dreamed shimmering dreams
And walked a magic road
So we scorn those who do
And we laugh,yes but we yearn....
What are we?
We defend ourselves in public
"We are not old"
We attack ourselves in secret
"We are too old"
Well if we are then our hope is gone.
But we are not too old,
We are not old enough
We are too young and we need to learn
How to become old
Old with sea journeys
Old with mountains
Old with wisdom that comes
By embracing our days like seasoned lovers
Then the dream and the dreamer will shimmer again
And we will walk the magic road
Guided by a single star
For here there are no footprints.
Wilf 07/2003
Intercession (1)
Did you think that intercession was awfully spiritual?
When it comes in gasps
Like a woman in labour?
When its sighs rise from your guts
With the sharpness of broken glass?
And what do you think about being
The salt of the earth?
Is that spiritual?
Or is it your sweat and tears
Pouring out over things you may never understand?
Strange:
When the mind is in anguish
The body knows what to do
And God needs it to intercede
As he needed His, and yes
It is awfully spiritual.
Wilf 08/2003
When it comes in gasps
Like a woman in labour?
When its sighs rise from your guts
With the sharpness of broken glass?
And what do you think about being
The salt of the earth?
Is that spiritual?
Or is it your sweat and tears
Pouring out over things you may never understand?
Strange:
When the mind is in anguish
The body knows what to do
And God needs it to intercede
As he needed His, and yes
It is awfully spiritual.
Wilf 08/2003
The Place where no one goes
This place can not be found
But love may lead you here.
You'll know when you've arrived,it's cold
Jumper-in-summer bone cold
And though you are here to warm this place
You won't feel it if you do.
It is lonely here
Because you are only really here
When you face the right way,
Millions live here like tortured ghosts
All going the wrong way
So by the rules of this place,you are alone
Alone with the cries and the scrape of chains
Alone with a world of ghosts.
So why do you come? Away from the halls of joy
To this house of grief.
Oh following the Man-He's here,kind of,well very
This is one of his places
And you have come,some of you
You who can not bear to leave Him alone
(Where did that feeling come from?)
Has love sent you mad?
Well why not? Mad or not you'll be with him
You'll be afraid as He was afraid
You'll be hurt as He was hurt
But none of this will stop you
For you must come here-some of you
To sigh and gasp and weep
If you want to know its name,that is known by many
But understood by few
It is prayer
This place of grief and ghosts should never have been
So pray that it becomes
A place where no one goes
Wilf 08/2003
But love may lead you here.
You'll know when you've arrived,it's cold
Jumper-in-summer bone cold
And though you are here to warm this place
You won't feel it if you do.
It is lonely here
Because you are only really here
When you face the right way,
Millions live here like tortured ghosts
All going the wrong way
So by the rules of this place,you are alone
Alone with the cries and the scrape of chains
Alone with a world of ghosts.
So why do you come? Away from the halls of joy
To this house of grief.
Oh following the Man-He's here,kind of,well very
This is one of his places
And you have come,some of you
You who can not bear to leave Him alone
(Where did that feeling come from?)
Has love sent you mad?
Well why not? Mad or not you'll be with him
You'll be afraid as He was afraid
You'll be hurt as He was hurt
But none of this will stop you
For you must come here-some of you
To sigh and gasp and weep
If you want to know its name,that is known by many
But understood by few
It is prayer
This place of grief and ghosts should never have been
So pray that it becomes
A place where no one goes
Wilf 08/2003
The man inside
There is the man that you see
And the other that is me:
I am the prisoner and the cage
The subduer and the rage
I am the weeper and the keeper,
The fool at the mercy of the sage
Wilf 11/2003
And the other that is me:
I am the prisoner and the cage
The subduer and the rage
I am the weeper and the keeper,
The fool at the mercy of the sage
Wilf 11/2003
The Unstoppable
Poetry ought to be dead by now
After all,God's dead.
The human spirit,the muses
Even truth,beauty,courage and honour
They're all dead these days
Philosophers,psychologists and all who know best,
They've all said,"Dead".
And as for the bloke in the bar
Who spouts long and loud after a jar
Or a few
He said,"Dead" too.
So why is it that sometimes everything seems to stop
And the pattern hidden beneath is revealed?
Why does this mysterious familiar tide
Well up within?
Why does "It" whatever it is
Demand your attention and your toil
Until it is given a form ,a body
So that it can live outside of you?
This part of you which must escape to live?
Very strange.
Oh, and it will live;it will struggle and kick like a baby.
You will be like a woman in labour.
Cause it to be born
And you both will be free.
Deny it birth and
Part of you will die.
Even the creative block
Is not an obstacle but an anvil
Upon which you and your thoughts
Are to be beaten out and shaped.
Only you can stop the unstoppable
From rising and forming in you.
But even if you do and you dismiss the muses
As quirks of a psychological shadowland
They will not be silenced
Even if you prove there are no ghosts
You will not stop this haunting,
You can refuse to be a prophet
But the prophecy will find another voice.
The poem will find another hand
To hammer out its rhymes
If you try to stop the unstoppable.
Wilf 10/2004
After all,God's dead.
The human spirit,the muses
Even truth,beauty,courage and honour
They're all dead these days
Philosophers,psychologists and all who know best,
They've all said,"Dead".
And as for the bloke in the bar
Who spouts long and loud after a jar
Or a few
He said,"Dead" too.
So why is it that sometimes everything seems to stop
And the pattern hidden beneath is revealed?
Why does this mysterious familiar tide
Well up within?
Why does "It" whatever it is
Demand your attention and your toil
Until it is given a form ,a body
So that it can live outside of you?
This part of you which must escape to live?
Very strange.
Oh, and it will live;it will struggle and kick like a baby.
You will be like a woman in labour.
Cause it to be born
And you both will be free.
Deny it birth and
Part of you will die.
Even the creative block
Is not an obstacle but an anvil
Upon which you and your thoughts
Are to be beaten out and shaped.
Only you can stop the unstoppable
From rising and forming in you.
But even if you do and you dismiss the muses
As quirks of a psychological shadowland
They will not be silenced
Even if you prove there are no ghosts
You will not stop this haunting,
You can refuse to be a prophet
But the prophecy will find another voice.
The poem will find another hand
To hammer out its rhymes
If you try to stop the unstoppable.
Wilf 10/2004
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