Last Day

Tomorrow is the last day of the year 2006, it is the last day of the Christian festival of Christmas (officially)but even more than that it is the last day of the incumbency of our parish Priest. Tomorrow sees the end of fourteen years of his work within our parish. It will be a strange thing to worship without him.
The gift I prepared for him is ready, as polished as ever it can be and also with a surprise addition that sort of grew out of the editing process and refused to go away. A bit like Franken Freezer my undead freezer that is now living in my garage and humming contentedly, it just would not be turned off. At one point it was going to be a stanza and later it could have been an addition providing a contrasting theme. Neither of these were to be, it was a poem of it's own right and made sure that I knew it. I have reproduced it below, enjoy.
Before that though I had some news today that friends in Sudan have had a baby boy, yesterday. This is really great news as they have had a very bad year as with many people in Sudan. As I pointed out to them in my congratulation message, God brings great joys in small bundles, that's Christmas.

Lead Me

Lead me in the simple way,
That trails behind your tread.
Hold my hand and guide me,
Through the darkness laid ahead.

On steep narrow rocky paths,
Teach me courage to carry on.
Show me how to balance Lord,
What is right and what is wrong.

Through the noise and smoke of life,
Guide me please along the way.
Through all the uncertainties of night,
To the bright dawning light of day.

When at last we reach the place,
Where spirits shine like chrome.
Hug me like your long lost child
And I'll know that I've come home.

Peace Dave

Second Rough

OK here later than expected is a second rough draft (click the title to see the first) hopefully more polished than the last. I am really undecided about my proposed sixth stanza so I have not yet added one. Please comment on this post if you have any ideas or thoughts - feedback is always good.

A Testament to Spatial Awareness.


Lord lead us not with synoptic gaze,
to look upon your myriad ways.


Above all it’s a journey,
Often made with strangers,
Through labyrinthine ways.
A presence that you kept,
In all ways and always too,
By parochial prayer and praise.

Spokes spinning up Frome road,
A cheery handshake and smile,
Treating the world to some grace.
Trinity fingers tracing out a cross,
Kingdom drawn out in your hands,
Christ smiling through your face.

Firm footing and foundation,
Cornerstone and underpinning,
Mortar, cement and more.
Yet transient like a blown leaf,
Temporary as a pilgrims tread,
Placed lightly on a sandy floor.

Bitter sweet the journey calls,
Both provoking and comforting,
Lurking hidden within the day.
Proximity itself becomes the key,
Shifting wards fast and deep,
As you unlock your way.

Drenched pew and stonework show,
Even stained within the glass,
Easily possible to find;
Fragrant scents of the spirit,
That cheerfully came with you
And you deliberately left behind.

Peace Dave

Sixth Stanza

I have a nagging doubt about my poem for the leaving parish priest. Things are going well and the polishing process is starting to bring the shine I want. But I feel that an element is missing. I want the poem to reflect real life and in particular his life here.
Last night I was delivering some of my poetry books that had been ordered by people that can't go online. Please follow this link to see my book - great Christmas present! Inevitably I stop for a chat and on one occasion I heard the story of a lady who has a very sick mum that she cares for. Recently her father, who was also very sick died in hospital. Our priest rushed to the hospital to try and be there when he died. Sadly neither him or his family arrived in time. As I heard this story I realised that there was no element of my poem that reflected this portion of the ministry of our priest. This was a part of his life that he seldom shared but always provided. The more I thought about it the more I think I need to include something that picks up this facet of his services. I think that I will have to add another stanza as I do not want to remove any of the content.
I'm annoyed that I appear to have missed out an area of his work but also glad that I have had this pointed out, it will make the poem more real for him and give it more meaning, which was always the goal. So thinking caps on for another stanza.

Peace Dave

Waiting Room

For reasons largely beyond my control I find myself sitting in the waiting room of a specialist at Bath Royal United Hospital. If you have never experienced the National Health Service and don't live in the U.K. you may find this strange. The NHS is a fantastic facility which does wonderful things for many people that they could never afford privately. But as with any nationalised institution there is usually a heavy demand for waiting. In fact you can expect to spend a lot of your time with the NHS simply waiting. If you haven't planned for this it can be very irritating, fortunately I have been there before and when I saw on the notice board that the average waiting time was 55 to 65 minutes I was actually quite relieved.

Because while everyone else was huffing, puffing and fidgeting through old magazines I was quietly polishing my poem. I don't embarrass easily so I had no problem sitting in this large waiting room with the poem balanced on an old copy of Country Life. The man sat to my right was nosing over my shoulder which did become annoying after a while. In the end I asked him for his thoughts on the second line of stanza three at which point he turned red and wouldn't look at me any more. As I said I don't embarrass easily.

My wait proved nearly as therapeutic as my consultation which believe it or not involves another three months wait. I got a lot done and I'm really pleased so far, I wasn't just in the zone today I had time to walk about a bit and even redecorate it. Perhaps waiting is good for you after all.

Peace Dave.

Radical Rethink

Last night I tinkered again with my poem at work in my tea breaks and as time went by I became less and less happy with it. The more and more I tried to flesh out the skeleton that I laid down the more it seemed that I was playing some odd word puzzle and not creating a poem. The stanza lines seemed stifled and as I most feared cut to fit and not part of an overall whole. The work was getting very long and myself very frustrated. It was while I was aggressively scribbling and rubbing out that I decided to lengthen the first line and came to a new opening.
It's like magic, hey presto, I'm off like a racehorse mixing in previously written lines with all new creation and seeing much of it fall straight on to the page as if it was glad to be back. Within two minutes I had deposited five six line stanzas, rhyming on the end word of the third and sixth line.
I'm not pretending that the job's done, this creation still needs plenty of work and I may still include elements of the old skeleton. The bottom line is that I am much more happy with this creation than the skeleton idea. What can I read into this, what does this mean. Perhaps I'm just better off attempting to stimulate myself by writing anything and revising it. Perhaps if I persisted with the skeleton idea I could have done a good job after all. All in all I have learned that my opinions about my poetry count for really very little and that people have surprisingly varied expectations and opinions. Usually my bench mark is: am I happy with the poem, but as this one is expressly for some one else I am more concerned that I do a good job - the best I can. This work is still rough and needs polishing but at least I feel like polishing it, cant be all bad.

Peace Dave.

Skeleton Form

I worked nights last night and in my tea breaks I was able to work a little on my poem. I have taken quite a radical change from the way I normally write and I was thinking about breaking down the theme of spatial awareness into stanzas so that every stanza had something to say about it. I have decided to also not actually define in words what the poem is about so that the reader will have to work it out from the content, so this means that I will need to use language and phrases that will do that. The actual it that am attempting to define in the poem is the task of being a priest in a parish, which is a very varied task that has few set boundaries. So I have laid out a selection of stanzas that each portray a fragment or facet of this. For instance the opening line to the first of these stanzas is : It is a journey.

The stanzas are eight lines long (at the moment) and I have actually roughed one out completely. The others have a facet assigned, such as song, prayer, life etc but need to be properly populated with words. This is a bit exiting for me now as I can actually see something coming . The danger I think is making the words fit the pattern and not using the best or most suitable words because they they don't fit exactly. After all said and done only the best I can do will be good enough. I have a skeleton for this poem now I need to get some flesh on the bones, reminds me of Ezekiel in the Vally of the dry bones.

Peace Dave

Opening Line

Things are going well for the poem I am creating for my priest. You may recall that he is leaving the parish at the end of the year and this is my parting gift, hopefully. (Click the title to go to a previous post.)
I think that whatever the content I will use either separatly styled opening and closing stanzas or opening and closing quotes. My thinking here is to give a serious edge to a poem that really will be fairly light hearted. I always like the style of poem that attempts to define a surreal or sujective topic as if it were fact. Today I scribbled this line which in some form may be an opening line.

How close you are becomes what's key,
You cannot lead and still be free.

This sets a serious tone and steps for me neatly into the theme of spatial awareness in a purely abstract way which I can define later. I'm not happy with the scan at the moment and these lines will have to change before they are used. But this is a start, I have started to write and so things are underway. I have my deadline which is December 31st and all I have to do is create a suitable, iconic poem that he will enjoy reading - no problem. A few prayers needed I think.

Peace Dave.

Rhyme Find

When I can find a quiet moment I try to follow a daily office called Common Prayer. I find it very good and the language spot on. Last night I was reading through a section of the evening prayer for Saturdays and I came across an odd rhyme scheme. The passage is called A Song of the Light and is only ten lines long. It's divided into three stanzas and in the first the it's the first and last line that rhyme. Then the second line of the first stanza rhymes with the first line of the second stanza. The last two lines of the second stanza rhyme. The last stanza has four lines which rhyme on the first and second line and the third and fourth. It was the last stanza that actually picked out the rhyme for me. I've probably read this dozens of times recently and it suddenly struck me, hey there's a rhyme here. Check it out:

Hail, gladdening Light, of his pure glory poured,
Who is the immortal, Father, heavenly, blest,
Holiest of holies, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Now we are come to the Sun's hour of rest,
The lights of evening round us shine;
We hymn the Father, Son and Holy Spirit divine.

Worthy are you at all times to be sung
With undefiled tongue,
Son of our God, giver of life, alone;
Therefore in all the world your glories, Lord, they own.

Have you ever found hidden rhymes ? let me know.

Peace Dave.

Rhyming On

If you write poetry and you like rhymes how do you employ them? Do you always finish every other line with a word that rhymes? How far do takes your rhymes are you always looking for an exact match? When I began writing poetry this was me and to be honest done properly there's nothing at all wrong with that. If you've read my blogs you will know that I have an issue with repetition and this led me to experiment with rhymes. First it was not having exact matches for rhymes, using words that sounded roughly similar but were spelt differently such as "sun" and "come". Then I tried moving the rhymes so that you had to go an extra line to get the rhyme. Care has to be taken here to keep the flow of the poem alive. I tinkered with alliteration and even wrote a whole piece utilising this technique with each line having a different defining letter and no rhyme at all. The key to this poem is it's rhythm; it's about Jesus in the boat on lake Galilee calming the storm ( see Luke in the New Testament chapter 8 verse 22) so there is an obvious crescendo to follow.
I tried repeating rhymes at the end of three line stanzas and using groups of words to make rhymes such as "load me" with "mould me". In the poem these two rhymes are all that appears on their lines so I'm trying to control the way you say the words to enhance the rhyming effect. What I have discovered is that there is an endless variation of ways to employ rhyme and that poems often benefit from this variation. At the end of the day poetry is a form of communication where words are sculpted to achieve a goal. Tinker, play and experiment and let me know how you get on.

Peace Dave.

Rhyming Timing

I have a dislike for repetition. If I have to do things repeatedly I get fed up and annoyed. I could never do a job that involved a lot of repetition and I admire those who can switch off and just do a job repeatedly for hours on end. I can't help it that's just the way I am. I find this attitude creeping into my poetry; I very seldom repeat a rhyme scheme exactly. In fact I some times get bored with rhyme all together. For some this is sacrilege. I know a poet that only ever writes four line stanzas that rhyme second and fourth line end words. Nothing wrong with that, except for me there's a sort of Status Quo feel about things so that you know what's coming next. It's a form of repetition.
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against rhyme and I am a frequent user of it but I try to create my poems for their overall impact and construct them with that as my guiding principle. A lot can be done with the flow of reading scan or length of lines or alliteration without pairing up a single end word. But care must be taken to stay within the remit I set myself or otherwise I end up writing structured prose. The poetry that I like best often can be read so easily that you slide along the words and get to the end almost before you realise. I like my poems to have this quality and even deliberately disturb this polish to make point or catch the reader's attention. It's a bit like a stream flowing over a rock.
When to rhyme and when not to is a discussion that rages still and for me it's a personal choice about the poem. Often at the start of writing a poem I will not know whether the end product will have a defined rhyme scheme, but at some point I will stop myself and make choices about how I want the poem to be. Quite a few poems of mine have been stripped down and re written half way through. When you write do you plan first or during ? do you adhere to a rhyme structure or look for a style that fits the work. I would value your thoughts.

Peace Dave