Hound of Heaven Hymns - Latest works

gaze away

as the light touches
the retina so our
gaze blesses or curses
order and chance
landscape creature
sea and others what
difference does either
way make or do random
meaningless passing
atoms satisfy the
unknown as well as
every encounter I gaze
over water land and
sky each day a prayer
with the blessing of
refreshment and
remembrance I shared
this view as a lover
deeper than any depth
tender as the waft of
a zephyr and a longing
that is meaning
itself

reflected light

at times the moon
drops low and almost
seems to touch the
earth a light and
presence beyond our
reach beguiling and
luminescent in its own
reflected rays filtered
and shaped by the seas
and craters of dusty
rock it’s always there
even when invisible to
teach us new inner
truths to claim us in
a triumph beyond
eclipse caressing the
soul cross questioning
the mind pulling
and easing the tides
of our sinews in which
celestial light was
reflected in human
flesh unrecognised
by many yet and now
forever here

a rose arisen

bud bloom and
hip petalled and
pared a scent
and descent into
a void where
there is still
promise and memory
of will and was
but which is a
rose and arisen
the burgeoning
foetal flower the
unfolding glory of
display the fecund
globe green then
flaming orb it is
all and none like
me and you in
the cycle of a
rolling wheel
generationally
joined and riven
by the neverness
of being and the
always of the
beyond for the
ever shall be
has also always
been but only
glimpsed as in
a garden

Beauty's benison ~ a sonnet

Does habit take away our freedom true
If unaccompanied by risk and chance
Which comes from others and their point of view
Ignored so often after fleeting glance?
This life of limits feels like prison’s cage;
It’s more we want with neighbours serving needs,
A world where self is writ on every page –
My eyes are shut to those whose difference bleeds.
Yet life can well anew in any form
Through change that meets us all in certain grave.
Our bumpy fragile lives beset by storm
Are precious notes on love and beauty’s stave.
This hope is ours in life though short or long:
The singer loves us – we’re his endless song!

surface

does the surface
speak true can we
lift meaning truth
and purpose with a
glance and always
move on the surface
reveals so much more
the more it covers
the grain and textures
tales and memories
trapped stored paved
lost abandoned and
spurned it is the
mystery of all that
is and nothing the
ephemeral eternity
there is an economy
where nothing is lost
and nothing is every
thing our time trapped
views are so shuttered
partial incomplete and
dangerous the sirens
luring us on to the rocks
of destruction where
we choose not to know
and be known but
casually saunter through
these precious days
caring only for self and
self–reflection and
immediate self
realisation bobbing on
the surface with a smile
of blasphemous
satisfaction bob on

blind and deaf

energies wild and gentle
lapping waves sighing on
sand the howl through
the trees in the gale we
are caressed and thrashed
by powers we harness but
never control we are not
in charge our tenancy
is tenuous and short
lived but we presume
spread vaunt and preen
when the mirror and the
mystery warn and
disagree but who cares
there’s always tomorrow
– or is there

now and never

it all happened where
it was a liturgy in
ordinary far from syn
agogue and temple manger
miracles stories and
cross real time all
time no time every
time our time the im
possible incarnated as
a babe and a dying man
nurtured and nailed the
seasons pass and rhythms
and order make a system
that can never contain
the ever present gift that
blunts our powers so we
can see and taste a
touching whose sensuality
is eternal we are taken
and claimed beyond breath
and sustained by its
pentecostal gale and
anointing fire ig
nited oil so all are
chosen called and
carried through clocks
and calendars to the
kingdom of in
candescent darkness
and blazing glorious
joyful endless
night of nights

inconsolable

it’s non negotiable
but everyone wants
to challenge grief
nobody knows and
yet we all pontificate
over a pain panic
pandemic where the
world has ended the
light is no more there
is no familiarity in
this abandonment no
lifebelt it is the no
thingness of it with
fast dying embers of
the physical furnace
the flames still lick
silently invisibly
intoxicatingly irretrievably
ineffably you will always
be here and yet never
again the public fact and
the interior truth two
are one in flesh but
also inextricably for
an everness no one else
can ever understand why
do I have to be consolable
consoled when the pain
is excruciatingly eternal
in the now and the
prospect alone and to
gether in an impossible
unity – help!

Easter amalgam

Our lives are split yet held as one in love,
Each day we live a diff’rence strange, apart.
This earth and all it holds – below, above –
Reveals a truth that’s hard for mind not heart:
When light and dark are formed in day and night
Whate’er we will, we cannot always stand.
The sun will set and take away its light
To send us into shadow’s other land.
We each must rest and take our needful sleep
There is no choice for this is nature’s way;
No work or talk: we enter deathlike deep
With only dreams to lead us back to day.
Here Easter’s truth releases us from pris’n –
Our Friday’s God of death is now aris’n!

friday

outside of the city areas
unwalled undefended
often by plenty habit
contentment ease but
countered by the
condemned cells of war
poverty disease tyranny
here in the open but cloaked and
enshrouded by fear prejudice
contempt indifference blood
is spilt judiciously flesh is pierced
technically to shame and
pain beyond words where is
innocence and what
can it mean is sacrifice loss
without benefits is meaning
and its power of love so
absent it might be gone for
ever the lance in the side
no need to break the legs
the sabbath is fast upon us
so back to our temples and
the interior orders of self
and importance the gushing
blood guarantees our job is
done revolt stamped out but look
the flow is watered too a river
of hope embracing all loss death
now has a power transformed
how can I trust it if I can’t see
it

the turning tide

some say the wind
gets up as the tide
turns and turn it
always does pulling
our lives like the shore
into and away from
the restless sea in
turn the slave of
the moon and the
universe our lives are
cut off by the rising
waters an energy that
can carry and contain
set on a journey or
scupper by inundation
the ebb too like the
flood can threaten as
well as bless the waves
and currents caress
careen and crush
taking and leaving
the truth of life
itself yet not just
a quotidian scale
but a tide of decades
and centuries setting
us afloat and adrift
beached and abandoned
riding life and facing
death all in the cycle
of sterile forces holding
us in our infinite
freedom as we soar
in the swirling eddies
of the spirit’s touch
we live and die always
at the same time
whatever the tide

the finding

the sudden silence
a stillness that
steals vitality steels
the time the moment
of departing and
something new and
disturbing is born
within the beloved
a quest a question
to find the lost the
slent the still but
never still bound the
living on to make the
daily round a strange
uncharted land im
printed and evacuated
the half heard voice
and triggered memories
déjavued in an ex
plosive moment of
overwhelming power
and ebbing instantly
in an echoless un
repeatable in
accessible yet
returning capriciously
loss and lost tease
as well as tear apart
am I being led acc
ompanied loved I
teeter constantly on
a precipice where my
senses swirl whirl and
spin as everything falls
away in the dizzying
gift of finding and
being
found

Just a thought? ~ a sonnet of retrieval

There comes a thought that stops us in our track,
It will not melt away or have an end:
It haunts and troubles – mind and soul look back
Retrieving, haunting, power which must descend
To change us, challenge and to make us new.
Whate’er the pain, discomfort – cost what may –
We face and learn despite our fear – what’s true
Is changing us as living truth today.
And then the memory from the past is torn,
A dream whose poetry now to prose is turned
And something strange and new is somehow born.
There is no way to backtrack now: we’ve learned
That mystery’s power is more than present’s now,
We’re held and made by hope’s eternal vow.

hard facts

what currency does
truth trade in or
beauty and love the
world cries out for
hard facts objective
truth these we
might load on to
a card or stuff in
a wallet under
grided by the vaults
of gold but breath
is free and universal
writing a different
story and not a
statement the
heart is the heart
and challenges all
else intelligence
matter and extinction
itself here is the
springboard from
self a bubbling source
bursting into the
luminescent droplets
of a playing fountain
whose purpose is joy
and glory for all the
parts and the facts
matter not when
entranced by the
mystery of being
being alive and
sensing all in
nothing and held
for ever in the
suspended diamonds
of sun kissed spray
infinite everlasting
now!

A Christmas Cantilena

(based on the chiastic structure of Pietru Caxaro's 'Cantilena' c. 1470 in Maltese)

Across the years a song has sung
Formed in our hearts from yearnings deep
For one to come – as hope has sprung –
That love will shepherd us like sheep.
Our searching, fighting, lying tongue
Cries out amidst the tears we weep.

Into our flesh comes the light
Present and clear in our sight
Babe in the straw from the height
Making our human night bright.

Dawn brings the day out of night
Wonder and truth bring love’s right
Challenging power and our might –
No more each other to fight.

As angels, magi, fade away
In passing years the story grows
But still we fail to stop the fray –
We change God’s song to human prose
But now today this love we pray
Our worldly fear and hate depose.

a christmas devotion

a newborn baby
an everyday miracle
but now the Word
made flesh a heart
that will stop a mind
that dissolves within
the nailed and lanced
corpse love incarnate
flesh and death formed
uniquely to take my
hand and yours here
is no lawgiver but a
threshold over time
and every matter
infused with spirit
encountering no
yesterday or
tomorrow but the
abyss we drop
into the vortex of
a new creation
where nothing holds
us tenderly as Mary
enfolds and suckles
her son divinity is
no idea but the
arms of strength
and tenderness that
cannot be seen or
proved just cradled
crucified crowned

nata lux

coming on clouds
is a dense mystery
permeating the
earth for the root
runs deep in human
time and cosmic
promise the mind
and heart ring together
in the music of an
impossible in
destructible hope a
lone voice on the wind
carries eternity in
piercing the armoured
breast of self – love
comes has come is
coming all at the same
time in blood and
flesh placenta and
mother’s arms salvation
is that messy and
real yet its poetic
presence makes me
quiver with the
excitement of never
failing requited joy

A Christmas sonnet of decision

If God indwells with us in every way.
The seraph’s song, the star we all can see,
Here’s yet a mystery set in human clay,
A life – and death – that calls us more to be.
His birth we feast and dance to every year –
Much less his death and new life prize and blaze.
Perhaps the cost and pain of love so clear
Involving risk and faith in this world’s days
Makes every question bring us down to earth
To seek a sure and certain world to grasp
Unchallenged by the starlit stable birth –
Whose life goes on beyond his final gasp:
Each soul must choose the way of life or death
And live eternal truth in every breath.

A kyrielle for peace

Our hearts are battlegrounds within
With minds set firm on self and sin;
Love opens up its treasure store:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

The untold loss, ne’er to be known,
No names in letters set in stone,
Cries out in hope to make us more:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

There is no plan, just simple care,
To honour others and to share
Our lives and world – in love outpour:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

The secret miracle of life:
Forgiveness heals and ends our strife.
It remakes lives, shuts hatred’s door:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

There comes a time when all must choose
The path to walk so none should lose,
That justice, mercy, truth, can soar:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

Sweet peace is that for which we’re made –
Through trust and kindness unafraid.
This earth can touch another shore:
Teach us the ways to end all war.

new year's eve

the dying of the
year is but a
calendar cal
culation of
counting our human
days the scale
shutters our view
as we who are mere
specks in a universe
whose laws and space
we only partially see
yet alone know our
two eyes and brain
calibrate the meaning
of our time but our
souls are apprehended
by a mystery we can
neither scan nor
notate the fleeting
and the passing
open up not into
a new year but a
possibility bestowed
and beckoning from
within and beyond
breaking us like
a wave or a dawn
into a form we
never can see or
know it is the
dissolution of all
limits and mere
existence falls
away as we
are taken con
sumed in a
pointless con
summation

empty

the world is too full
for Christmas Beth
lehem certainly was
and so was sideshowed
to an animal outhouse
humanity majors on no
room creating elites
and outcasts scapegoats
and unwanted little
knowing these are the
conditions for indwelling
divinity it is through the
cracks that love seeps in
often unnoticed but
sometimes crucified
manger wood is not just
splintered and gnarled
it can be nailed and love
can be pierced and bled
and slain that’s why we
forget and fill ourselves
with pleasures and
priorities so we need
never be empty

dogma without debate

truth is like a
hand grenade
weaponised
righteousness by
unrighteous
people and we
pull the pin
with dogma
removing debate
and monopolising
the truth we can
never possess or
control how many
are killed past
and today in a
war to be right
and condemn
difference and
diversity how
different indeed
from the healing
touch the life laid
down the lowest
seat the golgotha
throne the hammered
and lanced corpse
raised by
undogmatic dawn
of grace which
never triumphs
only gives

A sonnet that sings

What story does the music weave this night
When senses stilled by dark and velvet black
Caressed by sound evoking inner sight
And set to run in mystic visions’ track?
A cloak of wonder, worthless to a world
That sets a price on human life and breath,
Descends and settles like a cloth unfurled
To take us to a realm beyond our death.
This journey strange is made and seen in dreams
When rest is active in imagined ways
Our fears are faced from deep remembered streams
Drowned by the cares of pressured urgent days.
This music sings us from our selfish cage
Into the freedom flown from flesh and age.