TRANSPARENT

Over the years
Our bright acrylic traits 
Slide, dissolve
Pale into watercolour
Undefined edges
Fine lines
Soft colours
That fail 
To arrest

Walked past
In crowded rooms
Looked through
At parties
And in church

Should I 
Shave my scalp?
Daub it in woad?
Carry a rose
Between my teeth?
Tear my shirt 
To show a rebel heart
Still shouts 
Beneath the brittle skin?

Or is there an upside
To this gradual becoming 
Transparent?

As the grain of the paper 
Blue-veined 
That carries us 
Starts to show through

Freed
From the need
To airbrush perfection 
Layer the gloss
On the uneven
Rough weave of 
Fibre and splinters
A life lived holds

As fading tones
Reveal a space
Beyond immediacy 

PENTECÔTE

Tu as brisé le silence 
Par la bouche de gens 
Peu fréquentables, de langue barbare
Que nous ne cernons pas
Or, on finit par comprendre
Qu’il faut larguer
Le Dieu qu’on s’est formé
Enfermé par nos mots. 
Alors même
Que l’on entrevoit l’éternité
On comprend 
L’autre, et ce qui l’anime

Oserons-nous abandonner
Nos jeux de pouvoir, nos calculs 
Le chiffrage de nos comptes à rendre
Pointés par nos doigt accusateurs ?
Il nous faudra ouvrir le poing
Lâcher nos acquis.

Tu danses avec le vent
Embrases la surface de nos eaux bien tranquilles 
Pénètres les fissures
De nos incohérences
Fais ressurgir
Le laid, le beau
Pour les placer sous les projecteurs 
De l’amour
Tu portes nos soupirs dans ton souffle
Recouvres nos épaules 
D’un manteau de consolation
Et nous mets en marche

PENTECOST

You broke silence to speak 
Through people
From the wrong side of the tracks
Using foreign words we can’t make out
And we somehow apprehend 
That we must quit
The God in our head 
Wrapped in talk
And as we glimpse eternity
We understand 
Where these ‘others’ are coming from

Dare we drop our power-games
Our settling of accounts
Sizing up and finger-pointing
Spreadsheets of checks and balances
Release our grasp on what we have attained?

You dance on the back of the wind
Set fire to our too-calm waters
Plunge into the fissures
Of our inconsistencies
Dredge up the ugly and the beautiful
To place them under
The searchlight 
Of love
Carry our sighs on your breath
Cover us in your coat of consolation
Set us on our feet again

Started in the autumn, tweaked in the spring...

LOCKDOWN WINDOW-BOX

Leaves with brown paper veins 
Have succumbed to dry earth 
And the neglect of the sad
For months touched only 
By the movement of dust 
In the rays of an improbable sun

Hope hung heavy
When the world closed down
And the few who were out 
Never looked up
Fear having no time 
For flowers

People drift past again
Eyes fixed on feet
Lest they fall through the cracks
In the ground
Towards the unknown
No star but the present
To guide them

Heather and ferns
Persistent in growth
That thrive on the hills when alone 
And unwatched in the cold
Will sit out these times 
Unconcerned by neglect
Self-contained and serene
As the earth turns
And renews