Blinded by Brexit

Blinded by Brexit

Blinded by Brexit

A proud nation limps on

Like a man with a shovel

Who keeps digging along

A fissure that opens 

Dividing a country  

Driven mad by a virus 

That predated Covid. 

A once sensible people 

Some now barking and mad

One could not imagine

So needless and sad. 

Everything seen through

Union Jack glasses

Spec-savers was closed 

So it’s unfocused lenses.

The periscope’s fogged 

The world’s out of focus 

They should come up for some air

They should rise to surface. 

A clear minded country

That once ruled the waves

Now flounders in shallows;

No freedom to travel

A proud people ruined

By a press than enslaves

And a party that lies

To a people who won’t

Wake up and smell

The stench of corruption

Of a self serving elite 

Nesting like cuckoos

In Ten Downing Street. 

I meet you and weep

In your quaint nursing home

The nurses are nice

Disinfectant is cheap. 

You do not remember

The wonderful times

We spent on the Med

Drinking red wine. 

My visiting time 

Has come to a close

I can see from your eyes

You don’t recognize. 

A savage disease

Has ravaged your body

For the Brexit contagion

Has destroyed half a nation. 

I’ll visit again

The same time next Sunday

Though all is forgotten

By breakfast on Monday. 

Knock knock

 Knock knock

Is that a knock I hear?

I wait a second and continue

To fill in many forms 

Required by the doctor. 

Is that a knock I hear?

I must be mistaken and inspect

The detailed questionnaire

To insure my house next May 

Four calls later and I’m sorted 

Three items more and that’s it

With paperwork and all the forms

In modern life it is the norm. 

Another quiet knock and I turn

And welcome in a gentle man

Who drinks some tea and shares the chat

And bids me well at what I’m at. 

Nice of him to come and visit

No formal message, no posted letter

A quiet knock, a pleasant call

A friendly chat, that’s all. 

I thought this fellow lived in a sanctuary

With lighted candles in a monastery 

Turns out I’m wrong, he’s always near

Bringing peace and love and cheer. 

In the Synagogue

In the Synagogue 

The faithful fidgeted

The chosen of God wondered 

What the carpenter’s son

Might say this Sabbath. 

Every seat was taken

Every pew was full

To listen to what Jesus

Might say this Saturday. 

He never failed to entertain

To challenge and surprise 

Turning well known sayings

Upside down and on their heads.  

Nothing was sacred for

Even the roof was taken off

To lower a stricken man

Looking for a cure on the cheap. 

There was a doctor and a chemist

But no, his pushy family

Upset the sermon in full flow

In what became a holy show. 

The time came soon enough

When he moved on and his rabble too. 

Spared now of parables and discomfort

Back to lighting candles and the incense. 

Life back then was tough enough

With the Romans to endure

No need to include the Philistines 

Or worse again Samaritans impure. 

A chosen people could remain just that

Comfortable in their isolation

With a noble history of suffering

Just let the world spin on. 

Two thousand years later

And the church founded in his name

Faces quandaries and challenges 

Much seems just the same. 

Theology

 Theology

I sat at my desk in the seminary

Excited at my first day of theology

The professor struggling with books

Explained the ninety five lessons it took

To explain God through the ages. 

He outlined in the simplest terms

The central message we had to learn

That God could not be described 

In pictures, sounds or in words . 

So carefully I closed  my books 

At end of class that day

There and then deciding

I’d skip the rest of the year

Believing the teacher was right.  

If there is nothing we can certainly say 

What’s the point in guessing away?

Writing about writing, suppositions and theories,

On a subject the eye hasn’t seen

And the ear hasn’t heard?

Third Day

 Third Day 

What happened on the third day?

We’ll never know for sure

For even on the fourth day

Stories went their own way. 

There can be little doubt

That history greatly shifted

A Spirit had transformed them

For sure the gloom had lifted 

The disciples left the upper room

They had entered in their fear

Now encouraged with new hope

Preached daily far and near. 

Believing that his death

Was not the saddest thing

Death reinforced his message

Uniting seen and unseen.  

Witness to a firm belief

That hope had conquered death

However strange the form it took

In this life and thereafter.  

 

Sunday Women

 Sunday Women

What to make of stories

Blurred by twenty centuries?

How to make some sense

Of something so extraordinary?

When the witnesses

Couldn’t quite agree

On what they’d heard and seen

Surely it’s a mystery?

God bless the folk who know now

With conviction and with certainty

What the women folk had witnessed

In a Sunday morning cemetery. 

Feed me questions not the answers

Because indeed my humble duty

Is to walk the path along a journey 

Leading where the truth may find me. 

 

From Bay to Bay

 From Bay to Bay 

It’s six in the morning

Another day dawning

The sun is rising

Behind Killiney Hill. 

The birds have woken

Their voices have spoken

And so do ours 

In unison. 

We keep a friend’s grandson 

In the Light and

Send  him fond thoughts 

Across the Bay. 

From Dublin Bay

To San Francisco

Miles don’t matter

That’s the thing. 

There is an army 

Dressed in green

Sending support

Across the ether. 

We will not cease

To send him love

From dawn to dusk

He is our hero. 

1/4/21. 6.00am