St. Joseph's Church,
PASSIAC, NJ
2:20 PM, JANUARY 23, 2004
Silent place of echoes,
Cold stone, hollowness,
Hallowness, stillness.
Beyond, the hissing pulse
Of hurry and commerce.
Silent place of memory,
Cold stone, presence,
Sameness all at once.
Beyond, the desperate graspiness
Of fading daylight.
Silent place of simplicity,
Cold stone, unity,
Hardness, fastness
Beyond the black river
Of regret, of sorrow,
Drowning suffering in love.
The heart of the world beats
And beats. One sits. One sleeps.
One reads. One writes. One prays.
One confesses. One shrives.
All love
One Love's loving all.
Peter Gallaher
January 24, 2004
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Strong River
The river freezes, branches lie on top -
Let water take the weight if crystalline
As one phase changes to another
Ice to water, water ice
To mist to cloud to snow to rain
All phases intersect
So too did Nazareth walk there
Not frost but innocence
And mystery upheld Him
We too will rise into a change
Love is the catalyst, the crystal speck
That makes the river death hold up our weight
Pavel Chichikov
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Rabbie Burns
Its not that I dinna like yer auld Burns,
Its jist I quiston yer motivs an plans,
Somtimes yer description great insight turns,
Yet sometimes boggy mochit sinks an stans.
Each wooman yer fancied yer telt her lies,
That constant luv, wid breeng hir only joy,
Yit all the time yer dallied, no surprise,
Yer weans an bairns roond legs silla employs.
An then yer soshal conscience it wis guid,
All men as equals I can't disagree,
Yet yer consided whit I never cuid,
Slave overseer as a joab for thee.
An then yer wer a tax maun, I cant see,
Hoo yer squared that one in yer sauncy heid,
Fer puir men made yer famus, set yer free,
Tax maun is a bound maun, I wid be deid.
Yer joggled tha reeligis hypocrits,
I wid be clappin staunin on ma seet,
Cheerin yer oan tae all tha soondist bits,
Yit yer ner puled goad aff, that made me greet.
Still an here's the thing that I want tae sae,
Yer put oor language on tha maps o' earth,
Eenglish folk, ther faces turned shades av grey,
As oor puir naishun got credit an wirth.
So aw in aw, I think yer made tha grade,
Championd tha wirld yer saw in glory,
Cawed it as it wis, a shovel a spade,
An reveled in tellin a quaint story.
Marc Sherland
January 2004
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Even the poorest heart has some jewel on which it
hangs.
- Franzos, Die Juden von Barnow
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Solitaries
Gildas is my birthday saint
Old Jeremiah of the British
Saxons bursting through the gate
The Celtic kingdoms all but finished
Vortigern corrupt, the king
Inviting Hengist to come in
Posed another reckoning
Which added up to Britain's end
Then forestalling present grief
By worse he solved a season's woe,
He set a thief to catch a thief
And anguish piled like winter snow
The cities burn, the fields are waste
Harvest lost and nothing left,
Or almost nothing, hermits taste
The dregs of honey in the skep
Faith protecting drop by drop
Samaritan beside the well,
Sweet the hope that never stops
Accumulating in the cell
Damned the cities of the plain
Cities of our pieties -
By solitaries who remain
Another city will arise
Pavel Chichikov
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Splendor
The golden butterfly of the loving heart finds your lips as a shelter
for
its beauty.
The wings of your kisses make neverending streams of light
that fly to
every corner
and draw the smiles of brightness on every wall and window.
Behind the curtains of the night's dark lace your face, as a silent
wonder, starts
weaving our sweet, tender dreaming...
A candle flickers and makes shadows on the ceiling
of a room that has been waiting to start guarding our dreaming.
Sorana Salomeia
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Pohutukawa Night
In Wattle Bay near the harbour entrance
A gnarled old pohutukawa leans out
Binding the unstable red sandstone cliff
Its dome of clumped foliage embracing
In the dark my bed on coarse marram grass
Sweeping right down in the west to the ground
Keeping from me a chill south-westerly
Swirling, the canopy of radial boughs
Shutter and flash blue and white diamond stars
Denser in the west than a city street
Glittering ceiling to wondering gaze
The glow of Auckland orange in the east
Casts the shadow of my arm on my chest
While at ninety degrees the riding light
Of a fishing boat sways and throws white rays
Into quiet darkness neath tree and cliff
Ripples on ripples voice the rising tide
"Hurry hurry hurry hurry hurry"
Drowning the silence of grass, tree and cliff
It slackens, stops, spread stillness invites sleep
The voice changes "Going out, going out."
By first light I must be gone, must be gone.
© Noel Fuller January 26, 2004
JAJJ LOL
Just another juicy JAFA
Living here in Babylon
Working for the grumpy gaffer
Not much time to ponder on
The modern existential canker
Neil Hawkes |
Primitive Religion
Hawk above the poplar trees
Winter stripped, undressed,
Cambered wings, recurving tips
Slowly buoyant to a rest
Grey and murderous frost
Shale of shuffled ice -
Are you nesting, feeding, lost
Above the bowing forest?
In your slow unthreatened flight,
Your hawk's head still,
And in your globular far sight
Instinctive will
And the warm blood of rodents
Squirrel, mouse and vole
Will be your hawk's communion
Your instinct's soul
Pavel Chichikov
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