Found Poem

This is called Pure Gym Wall Words:

Access code

Black box 18

Black box 24

Black box 38

PT zone

Meet the experts

Cleaning station

Brilliant stuff

Hydration station

Fuel

Ignite your fire

Emergency help point

Accessible

Everybody welcome

Polite notice

Lifters' code

General waste

Recycling

Flex 'til you feel good

Safety station

Train safe

Impress yourself

Changing

Could you do that a week ago?

A Brief History of Orders

I often get asked about the difference between various levels of orders and types of clergy. Here's a go at an answer that won't help much:

First there are are curates who come here to train

So they don't make the same mistakes over again
Stay for the long haul through fire and rain
Embrace the diaconate; try to stay sane

Pioneer ministers - new on the block
Out on the edges and far from the flock
Their lack of traditionalism can be a shock
But give it a few years before we take stock

Associate Vicars are semi-detached
They're like normal clergy with more jobs attached
Missional policies all newly hatched
Youthwork and priesthood and culture all matched

Who'd cure souls if there wasn't a vicar
Listen with patience then make us go quicker
Move us to healthiness when we are sicker
And manage to do this without too much liquor

Rector or vicar - you may find a tension
In fact they're the same but a different dimension
Subtle distinctions not worthy of mention
It makes little difference to the size of the pension 

Ridiculous is the next stop from sublime
An Area Dean at the heart of my rhyme
The powerless in middle management time
Installing potential and sniffing out crime

Sub-deacons, precentors, some canons and more
Lead worship more formal (they mainly do awe)
Processions and vestments and knowing the law
You want charismatic, they'll show you the door

The next, ex cathedra, will rarely be seen
At home in the structures; liturgically keen
Magnificent, masterful, moody and mean
You pay to get out if you chat with the Dean

If you're an archdeacon the pleasures are fleeting
You get to enjoy on the way to a meeting
Remember the name of the one you are greeting
And never look bored at the mention of heating

Who'd be a bishop you need to be strong
The pay is depressing the days are so long
You only get noticed when things have gone wrong
Lamenting more tempting than cheerful song

Assistant and suffragan ones are the crew
They do all the jobs that the Lordly won't do
While other diocesans, forming a queue
Head up committees, enquiries anew

In charge of a province archbishops are found
Inspiring, accomplished, respectful and sound
Head in the heavens and feet on the ground
Episcopally governed, synodically* bound

If the least will be most and the most will be least

Then the line might go backwards to enter the feast

To the sick and the sad, the perverse, the deceased 

Well after the first year we're all 'just a priest'


(*for 'synodically' the spell-checker suggests 'spasmodically')

St Perran's Day 2020

Dead Dirty - A Poem for Pentecost

And another poem I wrote a couple of years ago but have never used, published or performed:

Dead dirty

Before the water you are thirsty

You are thirsty

As you approach the baptist you are thirsty

Your thirst to be quenched if you drink

As a sign of trusting the saviour you trust the baptist

To give you safe water

And refresh you

If you don't you stay parched

Before the water you are dirty

You are dirty

As you approach the baptist you are dirty

You will only be clean if he washes you

As a sign of trusting the saviour you trust the baptist

To wash you

And make you clean

And if you don't you stay dirty

Underwater you are dead

You are dead

As the baptist holds you under the water you are dead

You will only live if he releases you.

As a sign of trusting the saviour you trust the baptist

To let you go

And release you back into the wild.

And if he doesn't you are dead

Thirsty, dirty and dead

The English Revolution

Wrote this last week. I was waiting in the car having arrived early for an appointment. A sample from the Disposable Heroes 'Television' came on BBC 6 Music and I mistakenly started humming 'The Revolution Will not be Televised'. In fact that is a Gil Scott-Heron tune. But somehow it got me thinking that in this day and age the revolution, indeed any revolution, probably will be televised and thus this:

The English Revolution 

The Revolution will be televised 

The Revolution will be live-streamed and podcast

The Revolution should be bookmarked - visit revolution.com 

The Revolution will be reported 

The Revolution will be commented upon and analysed 

The Revolution in pictures will be on pages 3-17 

The Revolution will be written up and sold back to you in 24 weekly instalments

(buy issue 1 get issue 2 absolutely free)

The Revolution is now available in paperback but eventually

The Revolution will be discounted on Amazon

How was the Revolution for you? 

The Revolution will be seeking feedback

Could you hear?

Were you warm enough?

Did you spend any money on the T-shirt?

If we did another revolution would a different day of the week be more convenient?

Would you like a revolution in your area?

Please state preferred method of dictator overthrow or tyrant assassination

Can you think of other people in your locality who might enjoy a revolution?

The Revolution fails to understand that the English public do not require permission to give feedback:

Dear Sir,

I hope that no tax-payers money was spent on the Revolution. I will not condone this until my green bin is consistently emptied on the correct day

Dear Editor,

I was appalled and shocked to discover that the Revolution was delivered with so little publicity. I was unable to participate due to a long-planned visit from my in-laws. Please would you make sure that more notice is given for the next one.

Yours faithfully

The Revolution will be delivered by properly-trained individuals

The Revolution will be high vis and EU compliant

The Revolution will use up-to-date energy-saving technology and is now going on stand-by

The Revolution will be an equal opportunities malevolent force

The Revolution will be seeking membership from under-represented communities

The Revolution currently needs applicants for whom Revolution is a second-language

The Revolution will not use your data without your express consent

The Revolution will be harmonised and institutionalised

The Revolution will be cost effective

The Revolution will be using SMART goals

The Revolution will be fat free and low cal

Gluten free revolutions will also be available

Once opened the Revolution should be stored in a cool, dry place and used within three days

The Revolution must not be diluted under any circumstances

The Revolution may contain nuts

Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol this morning:

I wrote this poem last year in the pre-Christmas rush:

Christmas turns up about now
Screams to a halt - tyre rubber in the road
Look at me

Advent walked here, carefully holding a candle

Christmas bares its soul about now
Make me happy with food, fragrance and fashion
Buy me

Advent cradles its light from the breeze

Christmas accessorises everything about now
You need two of those, extra glitter and ribbons
Box me

Advent speaks of a truth beyond packaging

Operating with a sense of other-worldliness can be hard. Monday and Tuesday's Thought for the Day contributors spoke of Advent as a period of reflection, waiting, hoping. Advent asks us to wait gently while the world sits outside in its car, beeping its horn. Come on.

Does a carnival anticipate a heavenly party? Do Christmas lights speak of the one who is the light of the world? Do ambulances remind us of our humanity but that one day every tear will be wiped from our eye? Do medals for bravery emphasise the otherness of this world where there is evil but goodness can, and will, overcome it? Well, (beat) they might.

St Paul spoke of this world as seeing through a glass darkly - looking forward to seeing face to face.

The great seers and sages of the Christian past described special sites in our world as 'thin places' where God can be glimpsed more easily.

In one of his novels Philip Pullman spoke of the spirit world being accessed by a subtle knife - if you could find the right place you could cut your way though.

I hope you see God through the gaps in the rush and find yourselves in some thin places today. Peace.

Thought for the Day

As delivered at BBC Radio Bristol today.

National Poetry Day. This year's theme 'messages'. Couldn't resist:

Good morning you people I'm having my say

I bring you a thought for a poetry day

It's breakfast with Emma on the BBC

But just now she's shut up to listen to me

I bring thoughts to ponder but linked to the news

And some of these subjects have stirred up your views

For instance crowd-funding's become all the rage

To afford cancer treatment on your weekly wage

And am-dram type students considered it best

To cancel their show which was causing unrest

Was that par for the course or maybe stupidity?

Do you think that an actor should straddle ethnicity?

And what of the modern world - toughened or tender

Are there job limitations on the basis of gender?

The Clifton Suspension Bridge has a new master

Will the fact that she's female be great - or disaster?

This topical programme delivers the show

That informs and debates and discusses and so

Attend to the message; listen in to the chat

You'll never keep up if you don't manage that

It's Keith with the headlines and Joe with the travel

If they're not on form then our lives all unravel

The papers reviewed and the markets explained

All bases are covered - no, one yet remains

This faith-based two minutes of which I'm the provider

Should take local thoughts and then focus them wider

Because if hearts and minds are the radio's goal

Then just for a moment attend to your soul

I cannot pretend, if I did I'd be odd,

To view every tale through the eyes of my God

But I can leave a message; I can drop a thought

That a holy perspective should sometimes be sought.

I added one further effort to the limerick competition:

A good-looking feller called Joe

Did the travel on a great breakfast show

But he got in a mood

When Emma was rude

And made all the traffic go slow

I seem to have become Pay Ayres. It's the Somerset air.

GCSE Day

Today you will meet a stranger

Rather than having a name

They will be known by a series of letters and symbols

They are not you

They are someone else

They are neither enemy nor friend

They will walk with you into the future

You may hold hands if you want

Or try to shake them off

They are snapshots of you last June

And the albums contain moments

Of mayhem and magic

You are no more defined by these letters and symbols

Than you are by a photo

For to me you will always be A*

Low Carbon Christmas Carol

As delivered at Trendlewood's carol service this morning:

Mr whatsisname looked out
On the feast of thingy
Traffic on the roundabout
Day was grey and dingy
Brightly shone the neighbours' lights
Carbon use was cruel
Is there something else to use
That's not fossil fuel?

Christmas Eve we're desperate now
Full of angst and sorrow
Nothing left to eat that's not
Ear-marked for tomorrow
Phone for fast food that will do
Pizza boy's called Steven
Dominos are calling round
Deep pan crisp and even.

When we have eaten enough
We turn on the tele
Watching films, we've seen before
Lip-synch at the ready
Masterchef and Strictly won
New Apprentice with crown
When you are left Home Alone
John McLean comes round.

Hero then surveyed his home
Red lights blinking why, why?
PS, Wii and DVD
All were left on stand-by
Let's turn things off and play a game
Something social to do
Put your phones down for a bit
And I'll talk to you.

Is there something happening here
That some of us are missing?
Should we ponder deeper thoughts
Whilst mistletoe-planned kissing?
What this means we might just ask
Sitting round the table
Is the clue born in a barn
Making the world stable?

Advent Sunday 2015

Christmas turns up about now
Screams to a halt - tyre rubber in the road
Look at me

Advent walked here, carefully holding a candle

Christmas bares its soul about now
Make me happy with food, fragrance and fashion
Buy me

Advent cradles its light from the breeze

Christmas accessorises everything about now
You need two of those, extra glitter and ribbons
Box me

Advent speaks of a truth beyond packaging

Disposable Poetry

Last night at Café Create we revived the poetry challenge competition so I could win it. Here is the task. A poem about ketchup to include the words:

Awkward
Missing
Charismatic
Naughty dog
Discombobulated
Avalanche

And here is the winning entry. Will take humility pills later.

Ketchup

Without sauce the taste of pork would
Almost certainly be awkward
Nothing red the bacon kissing
Bland and dry - there's something missing

If unadorned with sauce you ate it
You'd be discombobulated
Cowering like a naughty dog
Beneath a tasteless lump of hog

A BLT is posh nosh sarnie
But if you don't wish for a barney
To reach for sauce is automatic
Makes your butty charismatic

You bash and shake and hit and dent the
Gravity-hating condiment
I think it don't need to be proved
That all this leaves the sauce unmoved

You want a spot, you get a dollop
Hits your breakfast with a wallop
Not a pretty red-smeared tranche
It poured down like an avalanche

Which is why you all know the ditty
Long ago from some far city
'Tomato ketchup shake the bottle
None will come and then the lot'll.'

National Anthem

To the tune 'Barwick Green':

England is a lovely place
Full of hills and green stuff
A people of amazing grace
From monarchs to the dog rough
On an island
North of Europe
Fading days of Empire
History's not been kind to us but
We look to the future.

Not too hot and not too cold and
Nothing tries to eat you
Courts are fair and doctors free
The police tend not to beat you
Pies and chips
And cheese on toast
And tea to soothe our worries
We don't need the rest of you
(But thanks for bringing curries)

The Gospel in Three Limericks

Wrote this years ago but don't think it has ever been shared.

There was an old feller called God
Who found it exceedingly odd
That each generation
Of every nation
Should tread where they shouldn't have trod

Not wanting to count it all loss
(And seeing how he was the boss)
He sent to earth Jesus
To try and appease us
But we nailed him onto a cross

Three days later the people were led
To a place were some witnesses said
They'd a story to tell -
The deceased looked quite well
And not in the slightest bit dead.

RIPBB

Before I heard you play at all
Your face adorned my bedroom wall
A pull-out poster which came free
With Sounds, or was it NME?

But then, with no appropriate shoes
I learnt the simple twelve bar blues
Your grimace looked down from afar
At bent notes on my air guitar

An anthem from the southern poor
Played on the step outside the door
You woke up every morning down
The dog had died; the girl skipped town

You proudly told the newsroom hoards
You'd never really mastered chords
So U2's Bono, your new chum
Did Rattle while you offered Hum

Not for you the rock or roll
The blues is meant to take a toll
So now you're gone; we'll grieve away
A slow one in the key of A

That Gibson is at last unplugged
The road crews' gear no longer lugged
The final feedback fades and falls
There won't be any curtain calls

Love came to town, you caught the train
We'll never see your like again
Your peers acknowledged you number one
Woke up this morning BB - gone

Poetry Challenge

Last night' s Cafe Create poetry challenge was to write a poem about silence featuring the words:

Wind
Water polo
Alternate
Beagle two
Castanet
Psycho therapy

I woke up, couldn't hear the wind
My ears had sinned
All input binned
Tinnitus - tinned

The sound is slaughtered
Over-watered
Decibels quartered
Ear-holes mortared

It is a no no
If you go low
You should say woah
Under-water polo

I tried to see
If there might be
Another key
A noise to set my panic fee

The taps flow rate
A soundless date
The shower sedate
Maybe I could alternate

Turned on the news
But missed all cues
Unshared views
No Humphrys bruise

I think the noise
Often annoys
Ruins my poise
But I didn't want to lose its joys

Now I get
A dreadful threat
No rhythm set
A silent castanet

So let's see
What becomes of me?
Psycho-therapy
Can't raise the fee

Farewell laughter my old friend
I think you got me in the end
The prophets subway walls just send
Me round the bend

What's a guy supposed to do?
It feels like glue
My ears are through
There's more response from Beagle 2

Wet noise

A gentle grace
Whooshing into wet
Tiny patter of little pitters
And soon the sound
Surpasses the radio
In my conservatory of percussive precipitation
Whilst on the patio
A bird bath bubbling
Water table rising slowly in this
Green unpleasant land

Poem for Sport Relief Day

Premiered, and probably enjoying its only public outing at Café Create tonight:

Lines composed in honour of the man at the gym who, without removing any of his three layers of clothing, reads the Daily Express whilst on an exercise bike.

I see you 'cross a crowded room
And note you plod instead of zoom
The sweat that forms upon your brow
Appears by magic; can't guess how

Perhaps it's a response to reading
That has caused those droplets beading
Thoughts of all that immigration
Exercise imagination

You peddle in a mild manner
Wondering about Diana
Moving like a gentle dancer
Perhaps you think it causes cancer

Tory good, all others bad
Politicking makes you mad
Rattling your virtual sabre
You find it easy to blame labour

So I have some news for you
If getting toned is what to do
If you want to get more fit
You'll have to move your arse a bit

Bleak

I spent a lot of time between the ages of 11 and 16 just staring out of the window. I don't know if my Dad's words 'If you're bored you must be a cabbage' were influencing me (they do now) but I know I had the feeling that something would come along to ease the dullness of teenage life and I simply had to wait. I did. It did.

These days my life is never dull. Moments of reprise from busyness can be rare.

One thing I do know. That slight tendency to inward-lookingness. The very edge of depression without ever crossing over into it, where I can see down but have no inclination to jump. That is the place of creativity.

Today, a day off, I had to be up early to take my car for a service. The garage is on one of those anonymous out of town malls where there is a cinema. Not open for three more hours. There are also the usual fast-food chains and loads of lifestyle destinations, oops I mean shops.

Looking out over a rainswept dual-carriageway from the most pedestrian unfriendly McDonalds in the west, I have never felt more alive. It is as if the words from the past kick in and this is my cue to do something useful; to make a difference myself without help. To get the lyrics of the song the wrong way round, I have to get down in order to get up.

I don't know if this is a key to managing depression. I would never describe myself as having been depressed. But so many of my more creative friends, especially the musicians, seem to have to embrace the downness in order to write.

I wrote this haiku over breakfast. It is Valentine's Day:

These roses are red,
Enhanced by the glow of the
Petrol station lights.

Let us not go into its quality as poetry. The haiku is a one-liner by any other name. Chuckle if you want. Let us notice that it is quite bleak. Cynical about love and cheap expressions thereof. It uses the greyness of the weather to comment on the greyness of relationships. Petrol station flowers say 'I nearly forgot' louder than 'I remembered'.

Sorry to be writing a critique of my own work but it is to help us understand how I got there not to draw attention to the verse. It would not have happened if I had been enjoying the start to the day.

It is also 14/02/2014 which excites me more than most as I like being alive on interesting numbers days. The love of my life tells me that is both very sad and also why she loves me. So at least one person understands.

I need to move to another coffee bar. This one has exhausted its possibilities.

Tonight's Café Poem

I failed to save the universe

I failed to save the modern world
My plans for rescue not unfurled
To kingdom come we all were hurled
From dire straits we stay uncurled
We all got twirled

I didn't even save my street
There are no more people to meet
No friendly faces here to greet
No parties in the summer heat
We all got beat

I failed to save the folk of earth
It is the end and not the birth
Of future there's indeed a dearth
I watch my planet's dwindling girth
There is no mirth

I failed to save the universe
I know that couldn't sound much worse
Forgive me if I sound perverse
Or even get a little terse
I'll get me hearse

Poems with Matt's Help

At our diocesan clergy conference we have the wonderful Matt Harvey as poet in residence. In workshop he taught us the Norse art of kenning - describing a physical object in terms of its properties, abilities, attainments or effects. So the sea becomes the whale-road; blood is battle-dew.

This allows you to write a descriptive piece where the identity of the thing being described can be a riddle; a slow reveal. My first effort, slightly refiined and re-ordered this morning is:

Wake-up bomb

Sleep's sworn enemy
Dawn cheek slap
Mainly future compost
Vitamin transport device
Controlled acid attack
Ornamental bowl-filler
Cowardly citrus
Big brother to that pipsqueak lemon
Best wild but
Tamed by sugar

Secondly he demonstrated biographical poetry. Statements about your past build up a picture of who you are today. This could be very long but editing it to a few lines makes the gaps interesting. So mine is work in progress but:

I come from...

A Victorian house with a derelict top floor
An untidy play room and an accusation that I break everything
A family where university hadn't yet happened
Reading on the bedroom floor to be nearer the disappointing electric heater so
Under an eiderdown

I come from...

Grandma's mantelpiece ornaments
A punch in the face on the way home from school
Aunty Brenda lived with us
Don't you have an Aunty Brenda?

I come from...

A garden with two apple trees as goalposts
And a potting shed full off disuse but playful possibility
Creativity launched by broken garden tools re-imagined
And the garage had a pit

I come from...

107, Oakfield Road, Selly Park, Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, Europe, The earth 3rd planet from the sun if this book should chance to roam box its ears and send it home

I come from...

A house with no music
But they bought me a piano and let me paint it blue

Thought for the Day

As delivered this morning at Radio Bristol. Any parts of the region who need a name check in a future attempt at inclusivity, please let me know:

Good morning. News from around the world is grim. We've had some of our annual discussions about Christmas starting too early, transport problems, strikes and health issues. It occurred to me that happy or sad, upbeat or down, all human life experience is within a short distance of the studio. We live in a great place and so:

Good morning to Bristol, to Weston and Bath.

It's Thought for the Day are you game for a laugh?

In Avonmouth, Portishead, Yatton and Pill

Are you raring to go or depressed and quite ill?

In Totterdown, Clifton, in Wraxall or Kenn

Has the sports news depressed you? Your team lost again.

In village, in city, in country or town;

Did you like the news headlines or have they got you down?

In Knowle West and Hartcliffe, South Gloucester and Cleeve.

You've finished your breakfast; you're ready to leave.

In Backwell, Long Ashton, in Easton or Stoke;

Are you searching for change for the bus 'cos your broke?

Hey Keynsham, and Saltford and Clevedon and Yate

If you hear out my poem are you gonna be late?

In St Paul's and in Kingswood and Emerson's Green;

Is today bright and cheerful or moody and mean?

Good morning Blaise Castle - good day Portishead.

Have the interviewees sent you back to your bed?

How you doing Cribbs Causeway, Laurence Hill, Ashton Court?

Take a moment to think of the answers you sought.

All the way to the country and round Abbots Wood

Sending aid to the hungry or getting tattood?

In Filton and Henbury and Westbury on Trim

Are you in good condition for the shape that you're in?

University, college or junior school

Just beyond all these names is there some deeper rule?

So Flax Bourton boy or a Temple Meads girl

There's only a few who can live in a Worle

M4 M5 junction - Ward 10 BRI

I pray you'll have patience - I'm sure you know why.

So from Nailsea to Failand, Chipping Sodbury, Patchway.

We are blessed to live here on a crisp autumn day.