Through undulating borderlands Beneath the shadow of the dyke, Borrowed water slowly slips Cradled soft in clodding clay. Through Tenbury Wells Ludlow, Leominster; Deep recirculating flow of Quiet, unhurried Teme. A seeping vein, sunk Low in storied earth, Snaking sinuous past Dew-soaked orchards, Fruitful burdened boughs, Silent stands of hops Framed by dawn’s first light; Through …
[For a long time I’ve been wondering how to communicate my Christian view of the world in the form of a poem. A theme I keep returning to is the vast implications of the fact that Jesus is the Word of God, the one who created and upholds all things. As a scientist, the more …
Suburbia burns silentlyWhite candles burst inChoreographed conflagrationGraceful limbs engulfed inFleeting crowns of pastel flameAblaze yet not consumed Sophisticated minds swear blindSuch subtle orchestrations are butSkittering showers of sparksAccidentals struck loose by theWild, chaotic wheels ofDogged chance But is it so? Are we determined byMechanical necessitySome poverty of spirit toImpute poetic grace sublimeEach painstaking designTo mute, …
The year is on the ebb The pendulum is low All is in retreat A few last leaves hang Unloosed by snatching gales Limp as sodden leather Languishing lifelessly Allies of dead summer Flapping on the gibbet To set an example The once-emboldened sun Slides dreary through the motions Shuffling low in bleary skies …
[The more I wrestle with digital technology, and particularly the synergy between the smartphone and social media, the more concerned I become for my generation. For the most part it seems the endless capacity for online self expression has enslaved us rather than improving us. How do we learn to deal healthily with an ever …
[“My Way” is by some margin the nation’s favourite funeral song. Yet the rank individualism, as old as Eden, which typifies our age, cannot save any of us from the end which awaits all of us. The dreary crematorium chapel scorns our attempts at self actualisation – we all go behind the dusty curtain in …
Icarus, Without the fated plunge, Is but a dreary grey-haired parable, Pragmatic unremarkable commute, Recklessness is crucial, The brazen rise to kiss Apollo, Weaves the gossamer of myth; In flushed freewheel of youth, Vital abandon strains, Frothing fervid at the bit, How easy to hold living light, While dew lies wet on years, Lightning racks the fertile mind, Thunder echoes …
[I keep coming back to Nietzsche’s aphorism about the madman, from where the famous “God is dead” phrase originates. I’m struck by how extraordinary clear-sighted Nietzsche was about all the societal changes that began racing down the tracks towards us once we lost our transcendent reference points. This poem is something of a meditation on …
Oh how we mocked! Cretins of a bygone age Who, in antique delirium Dreamt the mighty sun Might stoop to circle earth Yet, since Galileo raged Enlightened hubris Girds still greater fantasies The axis now transects the will The cosmos orbits every man
Autumn exhaled her last A breath of swallows Sighed upon the south Before cold rags stopped up her mouth And cannon cracks of frost Felled the stragglers The low slung sun Now barely grazes poplars on the hill Cold light pressed low in furrows Glances from the sodden soil Frost maps out long shadows Moored …
