SCOTLAND
SCOTLAND
HUSH
HUSH
Certainty knows so loudly A fighter-jet Carving the world Into soundbites Mass-produced in bright keys Belched from its rear end Filling all space for thought With static What if we fell Through a crack in the noise Into silence? No echo of ourselves To tell us we’re the best Only the sound Of God breathing Would the barking dogs That guard our interests At the gate of our souls Slope away? Would we return To our lives, less sure? Or would we still Dressed in suits Walk unseeing like ghosts Past the broken displaced Make our neighbour drink mud Since he has no shares In the water we trade Or the doctor we own Build our villas on hills Filled with migrant graves With cash earned from arms All this while we cry ‘Jesus saves’ Would we still Slit throats in the sun Of a Libyan beach While the surf rolls in To the sound of a shout ‘Allahu Akbar?’ We? That was ‘them’! There is no them In the hush that descends After the tumbling Question mark A minute of silence Face to face with nothing But the whisper of God ‘You thought that I was like you?’
A TALE OF TWO WORLDS
A TALE OF TWO WORLDS
Fairy tales Predictable pleasing Happy end delivered Folded and pressed To the good, never ugly Vistas of rolled lawns Patchwork fields Forests grown on request Ready-clipped to measured height Protecting those who dwell In the blessed land of Sunny Disposition On which God beams Cheshire cat-like From a safe distance In his azure sky Meanwhile, elsewhere The heart of the world is flawed Its bedrock grinds and works Against itself in rage Earth hits sky Sea bruises rock Carves cliffs with sharp blades Rain drives and pounds the shore To grains of sand The earth’s crust folds and buckles In spikes and crags That no-one can ride Forged through the ages In conflict and passion These are the rocks Which rob us of breath Make us weep as they take us Beyond ourselves With their song of constant renewal Here, God stands At the core of contradiction Molten rock in bare hands Holding the pain Energy in chaos Work without end Keeping void from matter Heaven alive At the heart of the earth Extracts from its depths Forms of violent beauty Monuments to exorbitant Patience and grace
WORDS
WORDS
Words ride on sound-waves Across smoky rooms and satellites They carve out keys That unlock underground rivers And spark dry flints Into fires that buzz Hum and ignite ideas Through towns and continents We must use them well Words that are lightweight skitter Over the surface of a lake Skimming the depths that carry them Or tumble from the jar Convention requires us to keep Ready-filled Like sweets Wrapped in bright colours Words heavy with overuse Deaden the hymn to What matters to us most And make it a thing Purchased on special offer Bulk buy at the chainstore Vitality crushed By their limp weight Words that are barbs From which weapons hang Well-oiled and ready For the unthinkable Adorn word palaces Made of chicken wire Listen to the wind whisper The lie through empty holes As the edifice slinks and bends With the tide Cling to words as you cling to life When they lose their essence We no longer feel The world dislocates And falls out of joint With itself Line them up, slow and deliberate Lay a path we can walk on Stones, carefully chosen on a shingle beach Layered and shaped by the tide Drawn from the bedrock of history Where word and being are one
Freswick – photos – changing light, changing elements
Scotland: photos – Glencoe, Ullapool, Laird to Wick
ROME
QUEUING IN HEAVEN
QUEUING IN HEAVEN
Can we choose where we sit At the eternal church lunch In that great house of heaven? Do we have to share a room? Could it be … dormitories! What music will there be? What if it’s country With a worship leader. Shall we wear fixed smiles Through eternal centuries Playing games to pass the time? What happens if you are A private person? Will there be queues To meet our heroes While others stand in lonely corners Whistling a quiet tune Looking at their shoes? Shall I sit on the dunce’s chair As befits my dotted line of faith While passers-by With hooded eyes and doubtful lips Assess my long-stay permit application Wait. This is hell. Or else a church weekend away. In heaven, The lines of weak and strong Break in confusion at the thought of God Before a limitless horizon.
THE CRY – LE CRI : A CHRISTMAS POEM (kind of)
THE CRY – Christmas poem
We struggle through life Dragging carrier bags Heavy with what we know But once a year we dream That the world stops running Its habitual course Just long enough For God to put in An appearance But in our city streets Everpresent neons bling and hoot As the wind blows Newspaper around our ankles Weighted with words of All we can’t put right With our clinical knives and surgical gloves Under the lamp of our Great belief in ourselves Hate hisses and swells across the world Meanwhile, hot air escapes From bankers and wise men While love is just a heart Scratched between two names On a toilet door God, in all this ? We look for him In some sweet imagined silent night Snow dulling the world’s noise Angel voices ever singing Peace in a plastic Snowstorm bubble Village church scene But the cry of the newborn child Deep gasp fighting for life Shout of protest on entering this world And at the status quo Of what we think we know Doesn’t wait for the dream But cuts across time The cry that guides us Never leaves us Calls, through the real Of the then, the now And the will be Bullshits the fiction And fills our lungs in turn With clean air
LE CRI – poème de Noël
La vie nous encombre de Sacs de courses Chargés de notre sagesse acquise Or une fois par an nous rêvons Que le monde arrête Son cours habituel Juste le temps que Dieu Fasse son entrée Eclair Mais dans nos villes Sous l’éternel néon, clinquant, criard Le vent envoie contre nos jambes Du papier journal Lourd de paroles annonçant Les maux que nous ne pouvons soulager Avec scalpel et gants chirurgicaux Sous la lampe de notre grande Confiance en nous-mêmes La haine siffle, gonfle à travers le monde Alors que banquiers et sages Ne brassent que du vent Et l’amour se cantonne en un cœur Tagué entre deux noms Sur la porte des chiottes (pc WC) Dieu dans tout ça ? Nous l’attendons ailleurs Dans une quelconque nuit Douce, silencieuse, imaginaire Où la neige atténue le bruit terrestre Et les anges dans nos campagnes Chantent la paix au village Dans une boule à neige en plastique Mais le cri du nouveau-né Qui se bat pour respirer Lance sa protestation Dès son entrée dans ce monde Contre le statut quo De ce que nous croyons savoir Et n’attend pas le rêve Pour transpercer le temps Ce cri qui nous guide Ne nous quitte plus Appelle, au cœur du vrai Dans ce qui était, qui est, et qui sera Fait taire le pipeau Et remplit enfin nos poumons D’un air pur
THE LINE – LA LIGNE
VIdeo – Noémie Daval – reader John Featherstone
Vertical line wafer-cotton-thin Top to bottom, heaven to earth Perfection drawing down to gravity Pure line cuts through messed-up years Soul-tearing conflicts, each side’s tug of war Pulling to displace it, transform it, own it Thread-bare it out of all recognition In order to occupy the centre ground But this plumbline across which the pendulum swings The pivotal point of Every Thing Continues its course Through every nightmare of human emotion The scream, the fury, the nourished resentment Of the woman whose mind has got lost in her life Soiling herself as she hits out at cars The power-crazed, feeding on the hearts of others Children’s voices silenced by a real gun Or made adult too soon, souls sold for cash The homeless washing t-shirts in a Paris drain Pride strutting down the sidewalk in smoked-glass shades The complacent me-dom of righteous indifference Its scrapheaps of privilege Paradise to the scavenger The misplaced hope in fairy tales The disappointment in reality Pinned out on a slab with nails between this point and that Left to be picked at by crows This divine line takes the electric charge Of the death-row chair Full on Racked by the voltage from our killing fields 3 days of nothing Before the line resumes where it left off Regains its purity of form and becomes The heartbeat underpinning the world, for ever
Vidéo – Noémie Daval – lecteur John Featherstone
Verticale, ténue, filament Haut en bas, ciel à terre Perfection rencontre gravité La ligne pure traverse les années ratées Les conflits ravageurs qui fendent l’âme Chacun tirant à la corde pour s’emparer du fil Le transformer, dénaturer, élimer Jusqu’à le rendre méconnaissable Afin d’occuper la place centrale
Et la balance oscille d’un côté, de l’autre De ce fil à plomb Pivot de Toutes Choses Qui suit son cours A travers chaque cauchemar de l’émotion humaine
Le cri, la fureur, l’amertume nourrie, De la femme dont la vie a détruit la raison Qui se souille alors qu’elle tabasse les voitures L’affamé de pouvoir, qui se goinfre de cœurs Les voix d’enfants tues par un vrai fusil Adultes précoces, âmes vendues pour le fric Les sans-abris qui lavent leur linge dans un égout parisien L’orgueil qui se pavane sur les Boulevards derrière ses verres tintés Le moi-roi qui se suffit à lui-même dans son indifférence vertueuse Les ordures du privilège, paradis de l’affamé L’espérance mal placée dans les comptes de fée La déception du réel …
Tendue sur une planche, clous ça et là Abandonnée aux rapaces Cette ligne divine reçoit la charge électrique De la chaise du couloir de la mort de plein fouet Tenaillée par le voltage de nos charniers
Trois jours sans rien … or la ligne reprend Retrouve sa pureté de forme et devient Le battement de cœur qui soutient le monde, à jamais
Mud at the wall 