Tag Archives: poetry

Things that I struggle with

Things that I struggle with, in no particular order: Unscrewing the lid from a new jar of pickles. Unravelling tangled yarn chewed by the cat. Understanding the holy mystery of the empty tomb. Untying the umbilical cords that bind us … Continue reading

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Seven below

One from the archives for a chilly day This morning, on the school run, even the sun did not want to rise, lounging fatly in the treetops, red and round, heavily globular, a frozen popsicle on a bare tree stick. … Continue reading

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Luke 21:25-36

Dissipation, drunkenness and the worries of this life circle their prey; the room dizzies, spins, sickening; swirling skirts’ colours and patterns staining the food, pulling you into the dance; something is calling, falling … snapping back into sharp-edged focus, technicolor … Continue reading

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Rites of passage

My mother’s funeral did not take place in an American high school auditorum, neither was the local rag reporter in attendance. No one wore football pads or swimming gear; I was not in clericals, being unordained as yet, and having … Continue reading

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Fair linen

I heard Anne Lamott at a writer’s showcase a while ago, and she said that if we writerly types do not write down right away our ideas, the ones that strike at inopportune moments, then God gives them to her, … Continue reading

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End of summer

The softest of rain makes nervous puddles shudder; what will fall down next?

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How I learned to write poems

She had a tortoiseshell called Puddles who wandered in one day and never left; he watched us deal in words and cookies across the kitchen table. Her husband began to tremble when he walked, and one night my father found … Continue reading

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Signs of summer

Beauty, decadent and dangerous; a cheap hit of colour running riot through the regimented rows with their cloth of gold; a flamboyant tease, streetwise with a delicate touch, the joy and the ruin of many.

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Play

The commons lie empty: the trees unclimbed, the river unswum, the rope unturned, the rhyme unsung, the swing unswung, the air unbreathed; stale breezes atrophy. behind the blinds we play on an LED stage, escaping the day we’ve forgotten to … Continue reading

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Somewhere in Ohio

Vulture-hunched, pecking black blood out of rusty ground; feeding on dead earth.

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