Gravestones :: And Plain Crosses

Dames and priests you took your time
When time and love was all you had
Today, in less-firm ground, you form a line
With peace and hope, abroad and glad

I'm on retreat and doing fine
There are a few rules, but none so bad
I'm up at five, to go and listen to your kind
Then I write, sometimes happy, sometimes sad

Making a few memories before I too recline
Wondering about the Italian, playing the Stradivarius
The German monk, 8 years he's sought the sign
I came with nothing, a simple country lad

It's an awful poem, without form or design
And there's no hope of rescue for it is just a fad
When you don't know where you are going
It is easier to break with the traditional

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It Isn't :: Rather It Is

It isn't the river
Flowing by the ivy tree
Rather it's another memory
Which I hoped you'd see

It isn't the flowers
Wafting in the breeze
Rather it's another likeness
I hoped we'd seize

It isn't the ritual
Of prayer on bended knees
Rather it's another moment
For our dreams to release

It isn't the habit
Or the desire to freeze
Rather it's another opening
Or a page to slightly be at peace

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Swirls :: In Time In Time

If I wasn't on my own
Would it matter
If I wasn't here alone
Would my thoughts scatter
To the four winds

If I couldn't stop without care
Would that be a trouble
If I couldn't just go on anywhere
Would I turn back at the double
To the four winds

If I hadn't held you so so close
Might you not be my star
If you hadn't been the one I chose
Might you not travel so so far
To the four winds

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Grounds :: + Al Fresco Cafeteria

I am learning about how
The bishop might seal his letter
Also how to recognise a bishop
By the large cross he wears

I think this might be the new deacon speaking
But to be honest
I don't really know my bishops from my deacons
Though I do know, that this lad can talk a bit

But the old monk, with the bowed back
And the unkempt remnants of curly hair
He spoke better I would say; he had a voice
With the quiet calm of supreme authority

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Analysis :: Sat On The Front Bench

The exceptional thing is not the memory
For many places have sufficient ambience

Or artefacts, to remind us of previous occasions
Of significant, if not always peak, experiences

What is exceptional is the forgetfulness
That the strength of that far distant memory

And the fierce, forceful feelings which it invoked
Should destroy all contemporaneous thought

Not only that, but also
That the effect should have such lasting powers

For how long you ask, until the laughter subsides
Until one stops taking oneself so so insidiously serious

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