The Zebedee Files

2.

Barely a poem, more a
Reading between the lines
First stop: the mother
Kneeling in the dirt
Grubby dress
To ask of who?
Whom did she see?

After the top jobs
For her boys
Chancellor perhaps
Home secretary
It’s comical. Do any
Of us know more than
The Jerusalem donkey?

The sons of thunder
Squirming under
Their mother’s thumb
Her love too strong
For her to see
Beyond their peering
Eyes and strong limbs

James and John
Also on their knees
Held down by her
Version of the future
There was only one
Perhaps who knew
Of no earthly glory

Zebedee, by name

The Zebedee Files

1.

A few soothing notes
Disturb the oars
Unfolding nets
Boats overturning to
The music of the morning

The early rays soften
Already soft greys
Overlaid with dawn fire
Woodpigeons - such
Unspectacular greeters

Moving three fishermen
Bed to bread to boat
Skins leather-tanned
The hue of hull timbers
Slatted and daubed

Against the Galilean
Storms. One stands,
Eyes closed, breathing in
The air, his habit; his heart
An ear, listening

Waiting for news; of a
Heavenly music beyond
The liturgical score; his
Synagogue stacked with
Dry wood, but no fire

Rumours from the Jordan.
New notes. Whispers of
A conflagration to come;
That’s all it took
To pull two sons away

From the boats, from a
Father who freely
Gave his only sons into
A baptism of fire to ignite
The dry ones of Israel

His sunset-soft grey hair
Now overlain with
Heavenly flames
His heart, an orchestra:
Zebedee, by name

The Tap. The Funeral.

You will have seen this:
A tie loosened; eyes unblinking
The suited man barely managing
To burrow his way out
Out. Outside. To breathe

Felled by an image, or
The pure notes of a Spanish guitar
Or its fiery rasps. Or the image
Of someone he once knew.
Or Belsen

Or a woman presumed dead, yet
Singing hymns,
Looking at her wristwatch
Scratching her itching ear
Like she used to

Shock when it comes, propels us
First inside, then out.
Outside. To breathe.

Then the return…to the funeral
His enclothed collectedness:
Tie straight and
A face that belies no truth
A steady hand for the champagne

A necessary pretense
Until a light tap on his shoulder…

…together they exit
Outside to breathe,
To treat the past with
Oxygen and a cigarette.

I broke a mug

I broke a mug and
It broke me

I didn’t know it contained so many
Gasps and repeated Oh Nos!

Stunned for those ten or twelve seconds
I bent down and cradled each piece

Each coffee and tea-stained fragment
A personal decade-long history

From allotment shed, a gift,
To kitchen…all those sunrises…

“Days of miracle and wonder
Don’t cry baby, don’t cry”

I broke a mug and
It broke me

It didn’t let the light out
Through the cracks

That’s not how it felt
Light, I find, is a heavy thing

It pours out like lead
In the furnace of sorrow

Watch now as I piece together
The jigsaw with glue

The grave can wait a while
You have more coffee to carry

I broke a mug and
It broke me

The Moon

That precious tidal-rinser of our shores
That soft illuminator of tall trees
And horses’ manes at dusk

A constant reminder
Of other worlds
Above ours

An educator,
A lone adventurer,
Buffeted and pockmarked

Carrying a history of glory
Her surface illuminated by the Sun
Yet suffering the suffering of the defenceless

The Moon is you, is me, is all
Who have or are to live
And shine out

Unknowing of the next impact
The soldier next to you decapitated
Or the spouse who suddenly is not there

Cratered yet rolling on
I could never
Shake

It off, this
Shock-cratered
Life, scattering the light
In all directions to all nations
All creeds, convictions, cultures
It is the Moon that guides us home

Follow Me

Can I hear His voice calling me?
Must I leave myself once again?
Who is this Man?
Follow Me is all He said
Why look for the living among the dead?

What is it about this Man I cannot refuse?
A king wearing no crown that I can see
A prophet His message His flesh
A priest offering Himself
Beckoning me

Can I hear His voice calling me?
Must I leave myself once again?
Who is this Man?
Follow Me is all He said
Why look for the living among the dead?

I don’t deserve Your look I want to say
But His river of mercy is too strong
Undoing all that is wrong
Offering His hand to pull me from the waves
Drowning here I cannot stay

Can I hear His voice calling me?
Must I leave myself once again?
Who is this Man?
Follow Me is all He said
Why look for the living among the dead?

I wanted to kneel, but He said walk
I wanted to walk, He said swim
I wanted to swim, He said fly
I wanted to stay low
But He set me on high

Can I hear His voice calling me?
Must I leave myself once again?
Who is this Man?
Follow Me is all He said
Why look for the living among the dead?

Joey Mitchell…live performance…on Hope

Steam on the Windowpane

It’s winter on the top deck
With the morning commuters
Yawning, respiring
Exhaling, coughing - and I,
Creating finger-art,
In our collective breaths
Draw a line on the window
And escape to an outside world
Of rushing trees and cityscape

On my way to fit snugly
With another,
A living jigsaw piece of
Flesh and vibrant clothes,
Smiles and sadness
To meander through the
Mystery of knowing someone
You can never fully know
To exchange words
To exchange a kiss
A hug
A steamy cup of coffee

After, a walk
Through a park brightly lit
In a January sky
Brilliant in its clean-air blues
Passing others and their dogs
Exporting tufts of breath
Nostrils and mouths at work
The rhythm
Of footfalls and arm-swings
Taking me to a graveside

It’s there that I discover
How to hold my tongue
And let my grandfather speak,
His advice still seeping up
From under, from inside
His interred frame.
A man with strong eyebrows
And a piercing gaze
With love simmering
In every harsh syllable
Of his few words:

‘Whatever you do, son, put some
Steam on the windowpane’

I sigh and wish he could see
His message left trickling down
On the number forty-two.
Advice from a hard life
Of personal victories kept
Far from public gaze
His pride, tucked away
In the soil that fed us
During the impoverished
Years, that bought
My school shoes
And hid his tears.

We Shall Rise

Escaping to the beach
Sandals and tee-shirt discarded
Looking down at the
Rhythm of the waves
Toes tipping over the jetty
My arms leap up and,
Free from the planet, I rise…
…and fall

Columns of sunlight pour
Through the water illuminating
Seaweeds waving with joy
Fish dart about
Iridescent in shoals, but
No sooner do I relax,
Calm and at home,
Than I rise

Wounded healers, fashioned
Somehow to sink like stones
To suffer shipwreck and sorrow
Our outer garments,
Facades and masks removed
O! Take us under Lord
Let us see life and light
As we fall

Until at home
Above and below
In season and out of season
Abounding or abased
Until we know You, truly,
In reverses and walking
Drenched and anointed,
Then we shall rise

And on that day
When the Sun falls, when
Dress rehearsals are complete
When we journey beyond
Our horizons, what we know,
And all is laid aside,
We shall rise

To face the One, whose
Garments were taken and torn,
Distracting the soldiers
His toes tipping over the brink
And arms stretched out wide
Proving for all eternity
That falling
Is only a prelude:

We shall rise.

Lost & Found

A long heavily stained
Desk, teak maybe
Stretched across the dingy
Office a flight of stairs
Under the concourse
Where life is faster

The man, an identikit
For all L&F officers?
Overweight, pallid
And unimpressed
A trained smile,
No deus ex machina,

No joy, and I wonder if
Anyone is waiting for him
Or whether we all
Look lost and this Earth
Is where we are deposited
Until Someone comes

 For us

Growing Towards the Light

Are you?
Is what he said
Straight in, session one
After small talk about the
Geranium on his bookshelf

And me prevaricating
Talking about auxins,
Anything
Except why I was there.
I thought session one

Would be…
Less poetic, less allegorical
You know
Less tangential
But he was straight in,

On my turf
Trespassing on purpose
Irritating the metaphorical
Edges of me, to flip me,
To see what’s underneath

Like the limpet
I was am will be…
Trouble is with these
Professionals
They charge enough

So silence is expensive.
I turned around
And said ‘Yes, I am.
That’s why I’m here’
His name, engraved by the way

On a brass plate, Sr. Garcia,
From Buenos Aries,
‘Call me Jesús’ he said,
His warm smile told me
Where to sit

I nearly knelt

Two Toothbrushes

That soft early morning light
Seems to catch things unseen
Cobwebs in a sway
Translucent green leaves
Shedding a fitting peace

That time of day
Requiring no speech
Facial muscles
Yet to recall
Quite what to do

An automatic pilot
Shuffles you forward
To a mirror, to a basin
To a shower as yesterday
Is washed away

And there they sit
Like living counterparts
Facing each other:
Two toothbrushes
Quite different

Yet revealing more than
Speech can convey. Bristles
Worn down on one side
This one, encased in unrinsed
Paste, contentedly untidy

The other, almost shining
Upright, ready for life and love
Disaster, and heartache,
Not quite comprehending
Her neighbour

A guest I am, immersed
In a forty-year marriage
For three mornings.
Unbeknown to them
I guess,

Who owns each brush
Standing as they do
Opposite, yet facing each other
In the morning light
Shedding a fitting peace.

It’s 9pm, Bristol

A cigar tip glows red in the dusk
As a puff of smoke exhales
Into the trees -
Whisky in hand he watches
As the rough and aromatic
Scents disperse.

Above, the trees seem to
Breathe the wind, in, out
And send creatures to
Fill the cooling air:
First a lone wood pigeon
Maybe the last of its kind

It’s plaintive echoes
Receiving no reply
A solitary Robin, out late,
Like the next thought,
Unexpectedly lands
Closer than a brother

The biters arrive:
Invisible flesh nibblers
Then silent, swift, skilful
Insect-hungry bats swarm
The Battle of Britain
Renewed in the sky above.

The cigar stub
Damp and dulled
Calls time.
Inner contentment
Seeps in like the
Rasping warmth

Of the golden measure.
Fingers exploring familiar
Ridges of the cut-glass
Unconscious of the
Gift just given:

May the peace of the Lord
Be always with you.

Bluebells on the Beach

In a blue-violet trumpet, and,
From aeons past,
In each pebble
Is the thought that thought of you
Is the light that gave you light
Is the temporary
And the unchangeable
You

In the one;
Colour and light,
Swaying in the breeze, there
For one deceptive purpose:
Seduction.
Your honey sap
The future trap.

In the other, granite grey,
Hard yet smooth
In your palm
A missile in the hand
Of God
Picked up and launched
Through my defences

The bluebell on the beach
Swept there by tides and
The four winds
Nestled against each other
Trampled by strangers
The congruent parts
Of a woman
Of a man

Rabboni

Why come so vulnerable
Covered in straw?
You make everyone suffer
Your arrival took its toll
On Joseph, on Mary, and children
Extinguished by a king

 Why a mere carpenter’s son
Out of the way, up North
In Nazareth?
Why wait so long
An inert Messiah, watching
The blind lead the blind?

Jesus, why shun the limelight?
Why refuse the crown?
Those willing to honour the
King of glory?
Why relinquish riches, not knowing
Where to lay your head?

After all said and done
Why set your face to Jerusalem?
You stilled the storm, my storm,
Yet offered your wrists to nails
Your head to thorns
Your cheeks to spittle

And, risen, in dawn dark
Avoiding adulation
You dressed as a gardener
Trowel in hand,
Earth under your fingernails
And spoke my name

The beach…2 “Paddle Faster”

Closing my eyes I lift the paddle high
Above my head
A push sends me scuttling
Down the steep pebble incline
The sound like a waterfall
Hard round pebbles scraping the keel
Five seconds of acceleration and…
Into the wash
Into the lapping waves
Orange nose cutting through the surf
I paddle faster

Eyes open, blinking away the salt and Sun
Looking back at the hundred or so
Souls, large, small,
Young, old
Spiritual and secular
Clothed and almost unclothed
The distinct sound of a summer’s day
The beach, a playground for all…
Moments pass…then, turning
Away from the shore
I paddle faster

My fibre-glass capsule,
Skeg rope pulled tight
Water falling along the paddle
The only sound now, thumps
Of sides on wave, wave on sides
An exchange just beyond me
Not known
Until you permit yourself to be
Baptized in the ocean.
Paddling faster, deep and strong

Out here, away from voices,
One hears a Voice
Calling you onward, not back
Calling you home perhaps
‘Slip between the harbour arms’
The urgent voice, strong now,
‘Paddle faster!’
Has time come to lift my paddle
High above my head
To the light?

No. Not yet. It’s not time.
I’m headed East
With the tide and current
The wind making the sea alive
A fearsome fight
Five miles or so
Until, surfing, I ram into
Shingle, sand, and slopes
My interim home
Of a friend calling to me
‘Paddle faster!’

The Beach…i

Turquoise and white the waves roll in
crashing at shallow angles
along the shoreline.

Wandering among the shingle,
the seaweeds and beached wood,
a man, absent-mindedly,

smooth pebble in hand, is at home.
Quiet, lost in thought,
surrounded by the wet roar

Aaron’s Rod

Winter’s lost its hold:
Yielding, exhausted,
Blackened branches held up
In wordless surrender.
Even death must sleep
Naked trees, stripped annually
Of leaves and blossom and fruit
Unable to hide far-off horizons
From prying eyes

The birds, though, know
A different story
Twigs, flying mission on mission,
Clamped and carried in beaks
Of hope
Nests appear before
The camouflage of Spring
Spares them, covers them
They know, the birds

Eruption from death
The first buds, a day away.
Like Aaron’s rod,
As unstoppable as unlikely,
Dead as we are Eden’s nightmare,
I am the Life, like a heavenly parasite,
Displaces our winters
With His orchards;
Trees of life once more.

Father Across the River

It is not for me to question
Your soul, encased in history
Put to the sword, not once,
Barely to survive.
Deep-set priestly eyes
And heavy Orthodox voices
Filling Cathedrals
With more than sound
Grieving over your sons
And daughters drift away,
Enticed like the Prodigal

It is not for me to question
Your soul; sad anger
Consuming many
But hear this song
Deep calling to deep:
Your son will return
If you let him go
If you let him inherit
If you let your enemy
Feed him scraps
Only to discard him

It is not for me to question
Your soul; precious to me
But turned inward
It rots.
Unburden yourself
Of all I have given you
Let the chanted Psalms
Run backwards through you
Or your sorrowful tears
Will drown many
In the Dnipro

Tides

Those watch-free zones
The coastal towns
Collections of people:
All ages who,
Glancing at the sea,
Or the cool inland breeze, or
The shadow on a summer’s day
Unerringly
Know the time

It’s early morning
Long shadows retreating
And wide busy crab-lands
The mud-flat home where
Lugworms, destined for
An angler’s hook, abide.
Seagulls black, and dawn pink,
Patrol like constables on a beat
Jabbing at the weaker shells

Or the evening low-tide
And children and trouser-rolled
Fathers and mothers
Grandparents, aunts,
The well and the unwell
Melded into one lump of joy:
Soft cool mud
Squelching between
Willing toes

And in the storms
The lashings at hightide
Seaweed cast up to the wind
And the same seagulls
Driven to a standstill
Eye-watering thundering
Gales ripping
At the tops of the waves
White horses galloping

And, all the while
The locals know the time
The harbour disgorging its hunters
On the tide
And gathering its children
Weighed down with catch
Escorted by
Inexhaustible seagulls and
Lamps swinging in the dusk

It’s a watch-free zone
The sloshing of an
Untethered will
Eruptions of romance
The collapse of wealth
Erosion of a coastline
And baptisms of
Overwhelming joy
The divine order of things

You and I

We’re all coastland people
You and I
We know the signs, the time
Sudden tide-turning breezes
Heralding a peristalsis
Of irreversible change
Storm time has caught us
Once again, we are unmoored
Blown by a fierce wild wind