frankenstina

Thinking of angels

2011-12-20T23:40:00.000Z

Oh, do not try to make it ordinary
or even think of credibility -
this visitation by the angel
or many
to shepherds in their freezing fields
or Mary -
no: I see hosts of snowy wings
descending in impossible sweeps
of power, I see
faces taut and gleaming, and those
piercing eyes that penetrate the soul
so that breath fails, and when it
passes there remains a vacuum -
and perhaps just a single
shining
feather.

©C.M.M. 12/11

Dedicated to the choir of St Thomas, Fifth Avenue, for their singing of A Babe is Born (Matthias)

I've used a different picture here of the Annunciation from the one I used on blethers - though nothing I could find quite matched the vision I had!

Winter Solstice

2011-12-19T15:51:00.001Z

The silver tree is a white ghost

in the dimpled white of last week’s snow

as the pale glow in the eastern sky

shows where the short-lived sun will rise

while night withdraws itself to where

a thin moon hangs above the hills.

The coloured lights of the coming feast

Shine in the silent streets below;

The last cries of the drunken night

Are echoes, and the drinkers sleep.

The birds wait, frozen on the tree.

A prayer stirs in the coldest heart.

© C.M.M. 12/11

Suffering General

2011-11-20T18:28:00.000Z

The original Southern General Hospital, Glasgow

Hospitals no longer have that smell

- the fearful pungency of old -

no: there is a casual air

about the hours of waiting, where

random chat is fractured

and coffee cups abandoned

as if this were a station –

a brief halt in life’s affairs

a stop along the line

before the terminus.

Stop: don’t think of terminus,

not here, among the shifting

interrupted lives of those

who miss their names –

impatient calls and repetitions –

then stumble off to share their need

and leave, calmed for now or not,

out into the grey day where fog

swirls round a half-built tower

and coughing echoes in the biting air.

©C.M. 11/11

The conversation

2011-08-01T10:42:00.000Z

Under a pale sun - not cool,just
grey and calm - the words
flowed. Dissonance and history,
patronage and eternal things,
maths and music and the links or
not links were tossed about,
resolved and questioned,
worried and smoothed against the demons
that might darken a day.
And all around the earnest talk
the birdsong fluttered in the unthinking light,
the peerless technique of the singers
rising and falling among the flowers,
its challenge merely territorial
its beauty only in our minds.

C.M.M 07/11

Birdsong in Gethsemane

2011-04-22T22:16:00.000Z

In the darkling garden

a lone bird drops

liquid notes like dark blood

beneath the quiet trees. And then

silence. And in the silence

the old struggle surges

as flesh and soul pull

apart. The body aches

to be the prayer, to feel

the God’s warmth

in the darkness. But

there is only stillness

and the blood’s song

and the everlasting longing

as somewhere far away

innocence sleeps.

©C.M.M. 04/11

Dark Waiting

2010-12-15T17:34:00.002Z

Dying light
Originally uploaded by goforchris

This poem was commissioned for the Advent issue of Inspires magazine. As the magazine is now out, with the poem very handsomely presented, I feel free to share it here: the first poem I've ever written to order. I'm grateful for the stimulus - I thought I might have written all the Advent poems I was going to.

As the months slide towards
the winter dark, the first pang
of longing stirs, like the
quickening of the unborn child –
the sudden recognition, yet again,
of waiting and of need.

This deep-felt urge was surely felt
each winter, on the darkest fringe
where small fires flickered in the gloom
and men looked east, towards the rim
where every morning brought the sun
a little fainter, lower, cold –
and now we wait another dawn,
a birth of hope and love and trust.
And do we long to see the Son,
or long for longing, long to kiss
the wind of love, its passing felt
by all who light their candles here?
The child stirs in the womb of dark.
We stretch our hands in hope, and wait.

©C.M.M.

Advent Child: for Anna

2010-12-13T13:09:00.001Z

Anna
Originally uploaded by Mac44

She came with the first snow,
the Advent child, a small, crumpled flower
opening beneath the hard stars.
The tiny clever hand has minute nails
and closes warm around my soul.
The dark eyes seem serene and filled
with unborn wisdom far beyond
the knowledge born of age.
My world contracts to hold this
shining moment in a timeless breath
as the snow falls and the world stops
and all the Advent waiting seems to end
in this new child, this vulnerable love
melting the frozen darkness
from the winter of my heart.

© C.M.M. 12/10

Ben Donich

2010-09-05T17:18:00.000Z

Each climb to the high places brings

a question: will I come again?

The wind blows, the crow swoops by

on silent wings, upcurved and still

on the flying air, and I no longer

earthbound feel the soaring

and wonder when the flight will end.

The spacious air mocks this

introspection, calls me to

the briefly precious moment

on this thin-earthed crag

where the rock glints hard in the

noonday sun and the fool’s gold

shines at my fingertips

and the downward path curves

into the purple afternoon.

©C.M.M.

Cowal Games: Midnight

2010-08-28T10:10:00.000Z

Along the crescent, in the middle of the night,

a hooded figure minces, its tight step

in bondage to its low-slung jeans. It looks along

its shoulder at the road, and then I see

the green glow from the mobile phone

held like a talisman against the dark –

against the loneliness of being young

as other figures seem to taunt

by being three instead of one.

And hidden at the window I observe

this interplay of darkness and of threat

as distant voices call and jeer

and music snatches at the air

in this, the hour of midnight lives

before the silence of the dawn.

Morgan in school

2010-08-21T15:45:00.003Z

I wrote this ten years ago, the last time Edwin Morgan visited Dunoon Grammar School. Someone else sent the poem to him, and he replied: "I was touched by her words. I promise to 'speak for us still' as long as I am able!"

And he did.

Your words fall quieter now,

Poet, sometimes submerged in

The hornet hum that is

Technology's voice. Older, you yet

Play young men's games with

Joyous random images from

Mercury to Maryhill.

I see you a small, valiant

Bird-figure in canary yellow,

Quick light movements underpinning

Words as fluent as a song.

The circle of young faces,

Sunflowers in rapt attendance,

Bear witness to your potent

Weaving of wisdom with youth's vigour.

Speak for us still, poet, lest

The tide of dumbness sweep over our

Inarticulate longings, and we drown.

©C.M.M. 11/00

Weathered

2010-07-08T10:43:00.002Z

This poem is the child of the previous post - a development rooted in the same experience.

The wind chases bright fractured

gleams over the grey sea,

the tree-dark green

of the encircling hill -

tosses the petals with small regard

for their fragile beauty.

The sun comes only in

short bursts punctuating

the fat grey of the clouds

gestating tirelessly above my head.

In such a way it too comes -

I cannot call it He, this vastness

with its divine connotations

randomly and so seldom here.

But were it summer heat

always, without the aching

chill of clouded skies,

would I ever know the

sudden searing joy

of unexpected warmth?

©C.M.M.

Morning, July

2010-07-06T16:46:00.004Z

After the night of wind and rain
I went out into the startled garden
where the white blossom littered
the ground beneath the scented bush
and shreds of tree lay torn on the ruffled
grass. From a tall chimney a gull
wailed in some unknown grief
and magpies bickered in the holly tree
brittle among the pruned crown's thorns.

No warmth to still the restless mind
or please with easy mindless toil
of pruning, cutting, lifting weeds -
no. This is where we live our days
as light flies over restless sea
and lights on us so fleetingly
that joy results, and glows within -
so come, then, wind, into my soul
and startle me with transience.

©C.M.M.

Baby Brother

2010-05-26T22:10:00.002Z

26/05/2010
Originally uploaded by Mrs Tosh

on the birth of James

Child, you too were this mystery,
this new face shaped and moulded by
its journey into this world’s light,
those dark eyes tightly closed against
the brightness and the gaze of love,
this impassivity of sleep.
Look on the unknown face and know
how passing months will soon reveal
the wants, the tears, the laughter and the love,
the child unfolding like a flower,
the mystery dispelled.

Look, child, look – oh, look at him
and smile, and know the rush of love
for this small stranger in your life –
a new soul born into the world.

C.M.M. 26 May 2010

Touching the past

2010-05-21T11:14:00.002Z

Ring of Brodgar
Originally uploaded by goforchris

One of the most powerful impressions left by a recent trip to Orkney is the link with a distant past - more distant even than the building of the Pyramids.

Come with me, come to where
the stone circle reaches
to the sunset sky;
come over the cropped grass
where the wind bites at your face.
Come with me to the mound where
the dead are piled
in rickled heaps
of bones picked clean as air
buried with the sky’s claws
their spirits long-flown
beyond the sea-eagles’ soar.
Come with me, oh come.
The anxious birds still call and wheel above
the long-cold hearths,
the sea still seethes and foams below
the cliffs of plated stone.
The past is close – see:
touch it, and know.

©C.M.M.

Prayer for Good Friday

2010-04-02T17:34:00.002Z

Station of the Cross
Originally uploaded by goforchris

In the solemn quiet
in the emptiness of soul
in the silencing of love
in the darkness of loss
come to us, God,
with the steady faith
that you are there
that your power is at work
that the light will come again
that your Son will come to us
in the joy of the Resurrection
and the promise of eternal life
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Iona Stones

2010-02-22T12:52:00.007Z

This prayer/poem came as the result of a short stay on Iona, when I did indeed hurl a symbolic stone into the sea at the start of Lent.

Two pebbles in my cold hand
close-nestled in symbolic weight,
one mottled red, resentment red,
the other green and cool as is
the light of God.
The red is gone now to the cleansing sea;
the green held close in hope of what might be.
God grant that rush of light again
and drown my soul in your green tide -
the tide of God.

©C.M.M. Iona, 02/10

The desert

2010-01-19T12:15:00.002Z

Thorn bush
Originally uploaded by goforchris

How easy, then, to have belief
when travelling by sight -
when stars are bright, are gleaming hard,
the sky as black as it should be
the road an afterthought.

How simple when the fire is warm
to bear the winter's chill -
to feel that fierce suffusing fire
consuming doubt and passing years
as dry things in its path.

I feel the road. Its stony way
is treacherous beneath my feet.
The boredom aches - but if I look
around I see the other grey
and lonely souls whose journey takes
the same lost path as mine.

If I could stop for precious time
to wait and feel and know,
out of the dark surrounding me
the pressure of that unseen light
might come again - might flood the soul -
come, Lord. Come soon. Come now.

©C.M.M.

Communicating

2009-12-08T16:47:00.003Z

I wrote this poem over 3 years ago, but was reminded of it when I found our family house on Google Earth street view.

Today I would have phoned -

wished to share the small

details of my life, the

safe return, the laughing

at the rain which fell

as if the Flood would come.

But had I rung the number

as familiar as my name

you would not be there.

A stranger’s voice would say

your words, and the strangeness

would be too much to bear.

And contemplating this

a glacial shifting in my soul

gave promise that in weeks not lived

the frozen tears would find the way

and spill into a distant sea like

drops into the ocean of my love.

Delville Wood

2009-08-26T15:56:00.001Z

Bluebells on the parapet
Originally uploaded by goforchris

Delville Wood on the Somme was the site of a terrible battle in WW1. One tree remains from that period; the rest of the wood has grown since the carnage. It is a powerful and beautiful place.

The trees are still. The morning light
flickers through unfurled leaves
of palest green, and glances on
the random stones, each one a tale
of heroism in this wood.
The inner ear hears voices then
- the howls and oaths and sobs of pain –
and flinches from the screams of shells
which shattered trees and soil and men
when Hell’s gates opened on this place.
Now dead leaves mask the pitted soil
of crater holes among the trees
where trenches snake, grass-masked and still,
with bluebells on the parapet.
I think of sweet youth lying there
with shredded limbs and broken smiles
and as I pause, a church bell sounds
as if to give a pious hope.
But here is sacred, where I stand –
it needs no choirs, no altar-rail
but only memory, and love
and silent prayers for lives unlived
and birdsong in an empty wood.

©C.M.M.

Songs on the Somme

2009-05-18T17:17:00.002Z

Graves at Louvencourt
Originally uploaded by goforchris

On a recent trip to the battlefields of the Somme, I was surprised by how natural it seemed for the group to start singing the old songs after a day of solemn remembrance and reflection. Louvencourt was one of the places where the Last Post was played at the end of our day.

The old songs echo over
undulating ground where once
shells fell. The voices too
are old, for those who
sang them new are
dead, long cold in
narrow graves. The warm air
blows the acrid scent
of golden rape, appropriately
blanketing the fields of war.
Solemnity and laughter seem
uneasy fellows till we think
of youth and daftness and sheer joy
cut down, silenced, gone – and know
that they would smile to hear us sing.
Is there an echo on the wind?
Perhaps. Sing on. Shed tears and play
your last posts where the singers sleep.

© C.M.M. 05/09

Reconciled

2009-03-26T13:46:00.002Z

In me. Deep in my
soul. Not near, not
present, but closer than
the voices that surround
me day in day.
This is the Comforter
coming quietly, almost
unnoticed from the journey
through the years. No longer
with me, to smile and
look and love, but
clasped firm where death can
do no more, can never
harm again. Friend, the
long years of yearning are
past and you return, more
here than before, closer than the
kiss of parting.

©C.M.M.

Invitation

2009-03-22T17:53:00.002Z

I wrote this last week for Beauty from Chaos, the Lent blog where it first appeared. An invitation to us all in this season, I felt.

Come, my children, walk with me
through this desert, through the dust,
clasp my hands – you will not fall –
and sing your sweet songs on the road;
bid your loved companions follow
where the daybreak lights the sky.
I will take you onward to
the places you could never dream
until we come to that lone hill
where trees stand black against the light,
their shadow crossed upon the sand
and there your hearts will break and mend
and come forth stronger than you knew.
No, do not weep, my child – not now;
my road will not seem hard at first
and you will know both joy and fear
until the end when through your tears
you see around you flowers of hope
and know that journey’s end is love.

El Teide

2009-02-18T16:22:00.003Z

For Chris, who led us there and who read this so beautifully.

On a rock, the lizard is
a flicker like the flames below
- grey on red, as ash on fire –
high on the caldera’s rim.
Far below the white of snow
shows the paradox of cold
on these hot plains at Teide’s foot
but on the lip where once the fire
poured down to drown itself below
the dust of fear stirs in the soul
as shadows lengthen once again.
We are so new, so soft. So small.

©C.M.M. 02/09

Grandson

2008-12-23T09:38:00.002Z

For Alan

That first day, the day we met,
when he lay quiet in my arms
I gazed at his small, sleeping face
and willed that he should look at me
and know. Yet when the black eyes blinked
and opened on the world I was
quite unprepared for such a dark
profound solemnity as if
this tiny boy could see into
the whole immensity of life
and claim it there, and know it his.

©C.M.M. 12/08

Advent Prose revisited

2008-12-18T23:30:00.004Z

I wrote this in the first week of Advent 08 after listening to the Advent Prose sung in church on Advent Sunday. The words were repeated in that morning's OT lesson from Isaiah, and by the time the reading was over the poem was already forming. It first appeared on love blooms bright

Rend the heavens, come quickly down -
Can we mean it? In the dark
to ask the God to come like this
would have us tremble at the presence
sought that Sunday as we sang.
Behold, thou wast angry and we sinned -
dear God, we try, we know our sin,
we see too clearly where we are.
The veiled women weep, the bomb
explodes on distant soil:
we worry lest our own are there,
care less about the ruined lives
among the debris of our wars.
All our deeds are like a polluted garment -
hung about us in the cold
as if we fear our nakedness,
would do anything to hide.
The child dies at the hands of those
whose task is care and love
while we, appalled, avert our eyes
from innocence betrayed.
We all fade like a leaf
and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away -
light little things in the face of creation
and yet, and yet ...
Lord, we continue. You have never
swept us from the face of earth.
We love and beget and children
lovely children, innocent and clean
come naked into the world
in your eternal promise of what can be.
Your Son will come, again, again
and we have hope, another chance
to use your world in precious ways
to hold your people to your face.
As tiny fingers clasp round ours
we reach into the dark and feel
the strength of love enfolding us.
The heavens are rent as if a cloud
were parted at the end of rain
and light will come too bright to tell -
we sing again. Come, Lord, and soon.

©C.M.M

Mary's baby

2008-12-03T18:55:00.003Z

This poem was finished four hours before I knew that Alan, my grandson, had been born to Mary. It speaks to me of that other Mary while being about a contemporary birth - or indeed birth's miracle at any time.

For Alan John McIntosh

It is time. From deep within
my inner dark a sudden
fierce tightening calls out.
Be still, I say. Be quiet.
This child will come
will find the light
will be the light
new in my life, but now
I want to keep him close
keep him mine alone.

A huge force squeezes me again
taking me beyond the lighted space
into the dark of inwardness
focussed only on the pain
forgetting self and any joy
to come from such gigantic toil.
Someone cries inside my head
and anxious faces swim and fade
and leave my eyes alone to look
and marvel at a miracle
as something infinitely huge and small
is born, and lifted to my arms.

My heart is broken and remade.

My son looks up. His black eyes gaze
on heaven one last lingering time
before they close against my breast.
We are alone, and all the world
shrinks to a tiny, distant speck
as swelling joy fills all my soul.

I hold him close. My son is born.

©C.M.M. 28/11/08

November afternoon

2008-11-17T19:49:00.005Z

For NJFM

That dreary day of early dark
I baked a cake - my thirty-fifth -
for Christmas, happy at the thought
of something done and stored away.
And as the warmly scented air
stole through the house, I glanced outside
to where the leaves could just be seen
dancing in the garden's gloom
as if in hope to see my child,
small and purposeful and quick,
come down the path towards the light
and smile at being grown-up
returning home without my help.
I smiled myself at years compressed
by memory, repeated tasks
and Christmases which mark the time
to where that child can now be seen
awaiting in his turn a child
approaching in the winter's dark.

©C.M.M.

Afterbirth

2008-11-13T17:26:00.002Z

After the struggling's long dark
the wailing and the exhortation
the pain of separation and the sudden
rush of birth there comes a moment
precious in its quiet simplicity
when I recognise a new truth
shining in the newness of that day
as with a sudden huge swelling from my soul
replacing that hugeness now a tiny child
the happiness within is known and named.

There will be a time for more naming
and more recognition of this child
at once the closest stranger in my world
and my newest love, but now
is time for happiness alone
enjoyed and savoured in this peace
held between the movements of a song.

©CM.M. 11/08

Autumn Flowers

2008-10-21T11:56:00.003Z

Two nasturtiums bloomed today.
I saw their gold as the sun
Tipped my autumn garden with
Illusive warmth. I took the seeds
From the drawer you placed them in
Years since, and planted late in some
Faint hope of their survival.
They flower, but the year is spent
As are your years, and winter comes.
These unplanted seeds were hope
Abandoned as your vigour faded,
Their tiny sunbursts a last dawn
Of tenderness before the dark.
Go on your journey, gently, now,
The last sun warm upon your face.
©C.M.M 09/04

Cathedral of the Holy Spirit

2008-10-11T17:46:00.003Z

Cathedral of The Isles
Originally uploaded by goforchris

There was a church, rising
Above green terraces of
Pleasing symmetry,
Surely too neat, too
Small to encompass much
Mystery. Yet in that
Silent shell, in the golden
Brass-glow of candles,
God would touch
Careless souls, catch their
Hearts in a mesh of
Incandescent song, so that
Those who knelt there would
Pass through the veil of light
To the bright places beyond.

© C.M.M.

Hymn for Cumbrae

2008-10-11T17:42:00.002Z

Cathedral of The Isles 2
Originally uploaded by goforchris

The Spirit guides me here,
to meet upon this hill
The outstretched arms, the wounded hands,
The love that finds me still.

In silence I am held,
Until my song takes flight
And breaking forth in golden notes
Fills heart and soul with light.

When I must leave this place
And face the world again
Good Saviour, from such holy ground
Come with me to the plain.

Consume my soul with fire,
Let love and peace fly free,
And at the end take all I am
And shape what I must be.

©C.M.M

Responding

2008-09-18T22:17:00.004Z

Sometimes poetry seems to me to be the only vehicle suitable to express an idea or an emotion. This poem arose from my reading of a small part of Jürgen Moltmann's "The Trinity and the Kingdom".

RESPONDING

It is dark, dark night.
Take this cup – suddenly in the dark
it is too awful. But the warm tide
is receding into the dark
and the cold sweat of emptiness
takes its place. The desperate words
fall unheeded on the stony ground.
Withdrawn in a point of light
God has no ears, only pain
and tight-focussed squeezing of the great
love now raw and bright
above Golgotha. The night is past
but dark remains, and emptiness.
A searing cry bruises the great mind
drenched in the pain of loss and
separation – and this is done
for me, this hellish loss, this bruising …
so that I can see, can understand,
am not forsaken. It is too much.
Too much for me. Too much.

© C.M.M.

Bird-brained

2008-08-26T15:14:00.003Z

A sudden rush of wings heralds
a thrush in triumph with a snail
shining wetly in its beak.

A second flurry and a second
bird appears, brownish-black,
aggressive movements: I want that!

The thrush heads off, hiding deep
among the million roses’ thorns.
A black eye looks at me and then

The blackbirds’ wife with one bold move
is standing just inside the room
which smells of ironing and clean shirts –

a blink of reckless possibility –
to wreak havoc in the warm clean space
with feathers, droppings, frenzied wings …

But no. She turns, and hops away
a bird again, in her own place.
The snail? Dead meat. The sun still shines.

C.M.M. 07/08

Once ...

2008-08-24T22:26:00.003Z

In the hot silence
while he slept
and only the flies sang
she made the basket
strong with love
to hold this one most precious thing
and gave it, dry-eyed,
to the waiting flood.

© C.M.M. 08/08

Garden at noon

2008-08-20T15:33:00.001Z

The garden, Kington
Originally uploaded by goforchris

The sun’s light is such as to
obliterate all colour save the
red and purple in a pot
behind which a gang of
glossy bees plunder thick lavender.
Another casual urn is tightly packed
with small blooms –
such careless profusion betraying
the industry of cooler days.
Behind the tall poppy-brides
a sinister trampling suddenly ends
as a blackbird emerges, ruffled
in foolishness at being caught.
Pink roses hang in full-term weight
above the hidden path, guarded by
a spiky sentinel in a tall pot.
And as the tall trees toss in the
wind’s stir, three black jets
scream belatedly as they wheel.
Do they look, the men within,
to see below this garden stuffed with life
and fly on, their hot metal tombs
filled at once with remembered scents?

© C.M.M. 07/08

Llananno revisited

2008-08-11T23:29:00.003Z

Llananno church
Originally uploaded by goforchris

In an empty church
where once a poet prayed
I sat, the sudden cool
a contrast with the world
of sun and life and heat
beside the river’s glint,
beneath the hurried road.

Above the skewed cross
behind the dying flowers,
the empty candlesticks,
a huge, green tree
filtered the sun's light
which flickered on the stone
as the great mind of God
thrust a small pulse of its power
into my waiting soul.

©C.M.M.

I recently visited this tiny church in the Welsh border country, a church which is barely ever used, a church immortalised in a poem by R.S.Thomas who liked to visit it in much the same way as I did.

Dead relevant

2008-06-02T17:53:00.002Z

In church one day we hear
about Noah and the man
who built his house on rock.
We know about poor folk who
build on sand
or cliffs which fall down.
Global warming and
high tides: everyone is glad
to be so relevant.
But down the leafy drive
where all the shops are shut
these three girls, young and
skinny-ribbed in sun
are shouting as they show
how people lose the way
by living on the beach:
“Fucking Sunday,” they yell.
“Fucking Sunday. Eh!”

©C.M.M. 06/08

Nevada Desert

2008-04-23T14:06:00.002Z

The long straight.
Originally uploaded by goforchris

So this is a desert. Grey dust
stretches for miles to rumpled hills –
dust peppered with puffs of thorn
and punctuated by tall spiked shapes.
A heavy silence presses on the ears
which pound in answer as the blood
rushes round. There is no other sound.
No bird sings, no creeping thing
rustles the dry leaves, no water
drips or seeps. The huge pale sky
is windless, and the straight road
an empty slash to the far haze.
God, we are small. But in this place
man became so huge that worlds quake,
in the hideous paradox of size
destroying with the particles of God:
creators of deserts still to be.

©C.M.M.

West Coast Line

2008-01-07T17:12:00.001Z

Pendolino Virgin Trains
Originally uploaded by JamesZ_Flickr

Speeding up England on the West Coast line
for Christmas, on the twenty-third,
was always going to be a journey
of parallels, of those who have and
those poor sods who haven’t booked
who squat in silent misery on
cases over-stuffed with gifts.

We slow to crawl through Birmingham
past empty gaunt gasometers,
canals and vast flat muddy plains
patched with puddles big as lakes.
The queue for coffee edges on
towards the counter where the man
has just run out of paper bags
and will not let us have hot drinks
for fear of spilling on the crowds
of squatters in between the cars.

The fogbound cityscapes give way
to late sun slanting over cows.
The couple opposite grow loud
from drinking solidly for hours.
We stop at Crewe. The dusty roof
- of glass, but fogged with layers of filth –
casts dim green light on grey cream tiles
as stragglers haul their luggage off
the heavy train, and we heave out
into the sun, a golden stream.

At Warrington we have a laugh –
the drunken woman disappears
and then returns to tell her tale,
How she’s been stuck, and phoned for help:
“I’m in the toilet in coach J –
I’m in the darkness” – and she laughed
half fearful that her plight had been
broadcast to all, but sadly, no.

Wigan: some platforms, not a pier
grey beneath the pink of dusk.
Above the wires, a large pale moon.
In red iron cubes some pansies flower
-and off we go, past playing fields
where hardy figures kick a ball.
The loud-voiced man stands up to leave
- a chance of peace from the next halt.
I think of Larkin on his train
and brood on weddings in the sun
as darkness falls and off we speed
much faster now, with no more stops
till Scotland and the homeward stretch
to Christmas and the thought of home.
The train is quieter now. I doze
and when I waken we are there.
We drag our bags down to the door
and all these strangers pull on coats
to leave the long womb of the train
and vanish in the Glasgow night.

C.M.M. 12/07

Not Prosaic

2007-12-06T12:04:00.000Z

I feel that this poem owes a great deal to my greatest influence, the work of R.S.Thomas. No apologies - only gratitude.

NOT PROSAIC

And God said: sing me
a song. Talk of me only
in poetry, so that your mind
is not bound. Do not confine
me in your prose, for you will
lose me in the thicket
of your language. Rather
let your words ring with the
resonance of my love,
sounding deep in the hearts
of all who hear the visions
of their transparent ambiguity.

©C.M.M. 12/07

North West

2007-12-02T23:36:00.000Z

See – on the globe’s curve
where the land ends in darkness
and mankind’s small flame-light
meets the black of the ocean
where the long dusk of summer
is the dream of a heartache
and the warmth of the sun’s light
is lost in the wind blast –
this is where hearts turn
eastward in longing
cry for the Christ-light
to illumine their bleakness
wait for the journey
to lead them to growing
once more believing
the sun will return.

©C.M.M.

Cafe in Cromer

2007-11-29T12:33:00.000Z

I wrote this poem after seeing a small b&w photo of an old lady drinking tea in a cafe in Cromer, in the guardian's excellent Guide to Photography. In a way, I suppose I'm imitating Edwin Morgan's Instamatic Poems, but at the time I didn't think about that. Rather, I was overcome by memories and a sense of pathos - and those memories were in colour. I deliberately refrained from reproducing the photo - the poem should after all be able to stand alone.
Anyone who remembers my previous struggles with line layouts in html will note that I seem to have solved the problem!

CAFÉ IN CROMER

On a bleak sea promenade
where the seagulls soar and scream
lights behind a steamed window
promise warmth and refuge from the
grey wind that carries rain.
People hunch among the dark tables
and smeared vinyl of the floor.
Pleasure? Do we visit
such places for pleasure or
need? A thick white cup
half-full of pale brown
- the tint of which says tea, tea
babied by over-milking –
and that nameless lump
yellow on the plate, a thin
line of red promising sweetness:
will these items sustain
or please?
The grim posture, the
downturn of an old woman’s mouth
defy speculation. Who can know
what need brings her here,
what loneliness in a tidy flat
over a dust-flecked hearth?

©C.M.M.

Amtrak: Williamsburg - New York

2007-11-23T00:08:00.001Z

Train arriving
Originally uploaded by goforchris

A tall train, necessitating
two small steps for us
to board. The announcements
begin with the first
halt: We will be continuing
momentarily. We do
Thank you for your patience.
We flash past Quantico –
a marine base on a river –
where the Presidential helicopters
crouch beside the track.
Potomac river is frozen over
before the Washington icons
glimpsed through gaps
in nondescript structures.
An iceberg forms beneath
a tap left running
on the platform where
the workers wear
padded red tartan shirts.
The temperature is
significantly lower than
when you boarded – and
we feel tended, somehow,
as we glide past
Baltimore slums towards
the wolf-howl sirens
and crawling yellow cabs
like beetles in the snow
and the brown-sugar slush
and the tireless heroisms
of the men who clear the streets day and night in
New York City.

© C.M.M.

Mobile Bay

2007-11-20T10:28:00.001Z

Sunset 1
Originally uploaded by goforchris

Ice falls in the freezer with a
sound of distant guns.
A pelican sits hunched above
the private fishing pier
and the pampas grass is rustling
in the wind across the bay.
The towers on the blue line
where water meets the sky
give two fingers to the wind’s threat
of destruction held at bay
and the duskless shadows lengthen
as the sun drops to the sea
in the amber of the evening
and the log-fired cocktail hour.

© C.M.M. 11/07

Conflict

2007-11-11T23:18:00.000Z

In the dust-laden ochre
Where our fear is embodied
Storms death sent from heaven, and
Here on our quiet hills
Rain falls, gently.

In the wind a wild keening
Binds victim to victim through
Stone-broken desert while
Quiet in my garden a
Bird sings, alone.

High above a grey shadow,
Its long wings extended,
Brings the end of all loving as
Over our altars the
Spirit drifts, weeping.

C.M.M.

Catriona

2007-08-28T22:12:00.001Z

Beautiful, no?
Originally uploaded by goforchris

What do they see, such
Dark eyes, liquid and huge
In this small face?
Eyes that have looked on heaven
In the close darkness
Of a long growing and
Emerged, calm and unblinking
To this sudden daylight wakening,
Untroubled by the world’s grief,
Yet carrying an innocent knowledge of all things.
I cannot look away, as this
Small sorceress holds my gaze
In hers. The invisible thread
Tightens, reformed again,
Tying me to this new life.

©C.M.M. 08/07

Not online

2007-07-10T14:24:00.001Z

Edgar's headstone
Originally uploaded by goforchris

A new poem which I began a year ago. It seems to me that there is a link between our cyber-communication and the sense of connection with the dead, but it can be the case that funeral rites can underline the finality of death even as they affirm the continuation of the spirit.

NOT ONLINE

It is finished. All the rites
Which mark the parting of a friend
Completed in an afternoon
Of sunlight hot on new-mown grass
And birdsong aching in our hearts.

I cannot bear to have it done –
This last farewell, the final act
Of thanks and loving at life’s end.
We turn to face the road again
And though we talk, remember well
And fondly laugh at what we shared
There will be no more actual space
Devoted to the life now past.

I leave his name upon the list
Of those who phone – but if I rang
The screen would tell me “Not online”
And that is what it means. The end
Of sharing words across a world,
The end of wisdom, comfort, grave advice,
Of laughing, teasing, human faults –
All stopped. No sharing left. Cut off.

The hot grass undulates in folds.
A lone bird calls and in its song
Repeated: User not online.

©C.M.M. 07/07

Glen Rosa

2007-04-27T22:39:00.001Z

Rosa Burn again
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

I wrote this poem some years ago, but after a return to the glen yesterday it seems appropriate to reproduce it here - despite the fact that the heady scents of summer were missing on a glorious spring day! The poem appears in Ridgewalk.

Glen Rosa

Once more I have left
The still, incense-laden air of
God's holy places
And come again
To the wild freedom
Of his hills. Here
Thyme's incense never
Fails to breathe its pungent
Perfection and prayer seems
A continual state of being,
Here, where the torrents
Roar in time-worn depths.
And high above, joyous and fragile,
The larksong's antiphon
Soars in the rainwashed air.

© C.M.M.

Supposing him ...

2007-04-14T22:49:00.000Z

I wrote this poem more than ten years ago, in a year when I lost too many friends. It was inspired, however, by an Eastertide sermon given by one of them, my friend Colin Wheately.

SUPPOSING HIM ….

Supposing him to be
The gardener, the Magdalene
Turned for comfort.
As friends are culled,
Choicest blooms from
The garden of my life,
I too must turn to
This gardener of souls.
Fragile as the blossoms
In the beauty that He gave
They now repay the years
Of careful nurture, but no longer
Where I may see them.
Supposing Him to be the gardener,
I cannot grudge Him
His own, but
My garden is barer for their
Passing. I must wait for
The Gardener to come again.

©C.M.M.

Spring flowers

2007-04-08T17:16:00.001Z

Flowers 3
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

A strange gift, this
Small, scarred root
Long buried in barren soil,
But she gave it -
Trembling and fearful of
Winter's mockery on
Spring's new growth.
But the light - the
Light that burst in
Unforeseen splendour
In that silent place
Cherished this precious
Shared flowering in its
Vulnerable birth.
And the wounded gardener
Smiled, and turned from the
Tomb-mouth, and
Left the woman to
Face the dawn.

©C.M.M.

Praetorium

2007-04-07T09:53:00.000Z

PRAETORIUM

Bound in the chains
Of our weakness, our spite,
Derided in the purple of
The world’s acclaim,
Our Lord confounds power.
And the people shout
Crucify him
And the weakness of power mutters
Crucify him
And the confusion of the soul whispers
Crucify him
And they lead him forth to
Crucify him.

©C.M.M.

Night watch

2007-04-06T10:58:00.000Z

Yesterday's Maundy Thursday poem was written three years ago. This one came to me last night, during the Maundy Watch - always a powerful time of prayer and image.

NIGHT WATCH

Is it here, God, in this garden
where the light wind stirs the leaves
silvered in the hard blue moonlight
- is it here that we must struggle
in the dialogue of self with self?
But the words are hardly spoken
when the vast and swelling ache
- a kind of joy, but of such sharpness
that I gasp, and words are stilled -
of the God so close within me
grows and self is marginalised,
pushed towards the edge of being
so that all I know is Him.
In this sudden fiery knowledge
friends who cannot understand
seem ephemeral and tiny –
Pray, I tell them, watch and pray,
as it comes upon me fiercely
that the end is here, this night,
that the God I carry in me
brooks no shrinking from this goal.
Now my soft palms spread in pleading
look so gentle, feel so dear
and this vulnerable body
breathes and weeps in dread of pain,
till the world turns and the strangers
bring this night watch to its close
and the brother’s kiss of greeting
a last gentle touch of love.

©C.M.M. 04/07

PASSION

2007-04-05T16:43:00.000Z

The sun sinks towards the hills
As Christ’s words intertwine
With birdsong. Not the dawn’s
Reminder of betrayal, but a
Sweet and undulating current
Flowing into the dark of evening.
In the shadowed garden the song is
Silenced by advancing night,
The prayer silenced by acceptance.

The world’s careless beauty
Mocks the black flames of death –
Birds sing above the drawn sword,
Trees toss over the betraying kiss,
Green earth absorbs the bloodshed,
Men struggle to the light of a distant dawn.
The earth turns still.

©C.M.M

February Poem

2007-02-24T22:54:00.001Z

And in his garden
in the second month
the hard green spikes
forced their narrow way through
the cold earth, as
Nature's relentless renewal
mocked the many dead.
No spiritual resurrection here, but
undiminished life, visible,
predictable in its season.
But the dead in their
narrow graves bore only
the offerings of remembrance,
rotting in the black blast
from the rain-hid hills,
and faith seemed fainter now
than the sharp blade that
severs, and the distant song of love
was carried in the wind.

© C.M.M.

February Rowan Tree

2007-02-21T11:45:00.000Z

I wrote this poem a year ago while I was in New Zealand, in the area of Central Otago where goldmining flourished in the 19th century. The contrast of their early autumn with our dreary winter was endlessly powerful.

FEBRUARY ROWAN TREE

A hot wind blows from dusty hills
Under the bright bowl of the sky.
No rain will fall this day, and none
This whole, parched week.
The ghosts walk quiet beside the lake,
The blue grave where their past still sleeps,
And in the hills the crunching scrub
Conceals the burrows where they dug
And crouches on their cold hearth stones.
Now grapes hang heavy in the sun.
A cricket calls. The dry grass sings
And in a garden far from home
Where winter's grasp is barely loosed
The blood red rowans swing.

© C.M.M. 02/06

New poem

2007-01-08T15:37:00.000Z

CLOUDED

Cumulus is stacked
high in accumulated layers
of grey. Here and there
a line of pink light
betrays the sun we
cannot see. But over
the curved loch a
skein of blue opens
its torn wings on heaven,
a window to what is
always there.

We must
hold to that hidden
lightness when the dark
closes on the mind
like the grip of winter
on the tired embers
of our chilly faith.

©C.M.M. 01/07

Poem for R.S.Thomas

2007-01-07T16:47:00.000Z

I've been writing over on blethers about the new biography of R.S.Thomas, and about Thomas' poetry, about which I am passionate. The poem reproduced below I wrote on the day I woke to hear the radio announcement of his death.

DEATH OF A POET

I awake to the knowledge
that the one who could
voice such emptiness has
gone in the grey, rain-
worried morning and left
this vacuum my words cannot fill.
How can I bear the
silencing of that voice whose
parting arrows never failed to
pierce my soul,
whose wrestling with his
god defined my own,
other than by hoping for the
bird-shadow of his passing?

©C.M.M. 09/00

The feast of the Epiphany

2007-01-06T16:05:00.001Z

Another poem from "Ridgewalk"

MORE THAN MYRRH

‘Surely,’ said the fourth,
‘I should bear this gift: to
walk lightly through
the world’s pain; to give
love without the hostage,
and stem the blood’s flow without
bleeding; to offer self and
not feel the tiny
hooks tear the mind –
loving with no demand,
trusting without proof,
believing and yet
letting go?’
And God smiled
and walked the road to
the thorns’ crown that was
the last gift of love.

©C.M.M.

The feast of the Epiphany

2007-01-06T16:05:00.000Z

Another Epiphany

2007-01-03T23:04:00.000Z

This poem has actually gone the rounds a bit - I posted it on blethers at this time last year, and it appears in the collection "Who - me?" However, as I now have this poetry blog and some new (I hope) readers, I repost it as a further working of the ideas which surfaced in the earlier poem.

SEARCHING

We plod through a desert
of our own making. We,
the wise men of our time, knowing
everything and nothing, search for what
we do not understand.
The mysteries of time and space are
hidden from us no longer, but
inner space defeats us.
The vacancy offends our
proud mastery of life and death.
We who cure and kill with
profligate ease cannot bear
such painful uncertainty.

And so with each
turning year we mount our
star-led beasts and seek again
the strange child, desperately.

And some are seeking kindness
or the fleeting warmth of joy,
and some the distant music
of a half-remembered song.
But do we dare to follow
where that star-light leads,
clutching tawdry gifts as
the proof of our intent?

For
far beyond the stable where the
child becomes the man
the swift breath of love's passing bears
the wood scent and the tears
and the guideless journey onward
from the weeping and the tomb.

©C.M.M.

A poem for Epiphany

2006-12-28T23:59:00.000Z

I wrote the following poem on the Feast of the Epiphany, 2000. It appears in the collection "Ridgewalk", but I reproduce it here as a result of reflecting on Christmas without Christ - which is the celebration I see all around, laced with a kind of desperation.

EPIPHANY 2000

Two thousand years after the
star's silent summons
light from the stable still
burns momentarily; the
impermanent Magi still
make their improbable journey.
Perched on the lip
of another era, we
strain to feel the faint
warmth of faith,
kissing the wind of
love's passing, yearning
from our pulsating circuits for
the connection to hold.
And as the moment passes
we look ahead, not at
light's comfort but at the
stark shadow on the hill.

New Poem

2006-12-22T12:59:00.000Z

ADORING VIRGIN ADORING

The night we invaded the gallery
it rained and the snell wind
clawed through your clothes
and it wasn’t really night –
just late. ‘We close in
twenty minutes,’ said the man
and we chorused, variously,
‘We know’ ‘We’ve come to see
the Botticelli’ – as if he’d
painted only one – and then
we pounded up the spiral stair
under the glooming busts
and burst into the empty room.
And there she glowed
from a wall on our right
the pale face surrounded by
transparencies of flower
in pink. Floating. And we
stopped. The face was one
you might see reading on a bus -
not archaic or distant but
concerned, as if remembering
as she gazed, not at the child
but over, round and through.

Remembering or looking to
the piercing both of hands and soul?
Or was she seeing inwardly
the flaming eyes that greeted her
as problematically blessed
and hearing as she knelt to pray
the distant sound of snowy wings?
We stared in quiet until the room
was filled with unseen Gabriels
and then we heard approach not wings
but ordinary feet -‘It’s time’-
and smiled at this young messenger
and drifted into the wild rain
under a sky whose stars were dimmed
as lights and tinsel took their place.

© C.M.M. 12/06

Advent Song

2006-12-17T00:06:00.000Z

ADVENT SONG

Look, God, look
in the vastness of your dark
hear this song
in the chorus of the world
where I sing
for the glory of your coming
held by love
as the music pours from me
a flame within
as the night falls around me
hear my prayer
and come through the darkness
hold me waiting
as you wait to be born.

© C.M.M.

The irrational season

2006-12-10T23:20:00.000Z

This is the irrational season
when love blooms bright and wild.
Had Mary been filled with reason
there'd have been no room for the child.

- Madeleine L'Engle

Winter Song

2006-12-03T19:12:00.000Z

In winter dark, the western dark
where lights glow small and waiting hearts
feel grow again the aching hope
that Christ will come, will come to them,
the winds of heaven cut to the bone,
the time-shaved bone in long night’s sleep.
But here the Christ-child still may seem
to come in love to frozen souls,
the warmth of flame to lone hearth-stone
and hope among the lingering husks
of leaves that cling on tortured trees
to whisper that the time is near.
The shadows dance, the candles flare.
We wait in quiet beneath the storm –
our Lord will come, the child be born.

© C.M.M. Advent06

Prayer

2006-11-24T18:21:00.001Z

Looking south
Originally uploaded by goforchris.

God of the grey sea
God of the mourning wind
God of the bleak northern sky
Give me your fire to warm my cold thoughts
Your light to bear in the face of fear
Your warmth to hold close to my trembling
Your companionship on the lonely path
And at the end the brightness of the open door
And the joy of a long-awaited greeting.

Amen.

© C.M.M.

Heard melodies are sweet ....

2006-11-19T17:11:00.000Z

A poem arising from listening to Liszt's organ piece "Ave Maria by Arcadelt". For me, this piece is associated with Christmas, and the allusions are to that time of year.

HEARD MELODIES

The days that followed your quiet end
were filled with bright, hard-shadowed light
and cold cut drily to the bones
and froze the tears as yet unwept.
The world seemed lit as if a stage
which you had left, your part discharged,
and music played like distant bells
heard on the road beneath the stars.
Was it to set the music free
you turned away from struggle then?
For if you chose the path you took
you left this lightness like a gift
with which we joined the search of those
who brought the myrrh, and bring it still.

© C.M.M. 10/06

Stabat mater dolorosa

2006-11-14T21:50:00.000Z

Stabat mater dolorosa
iuxta Cruxem lacrimosa,
dum pendebat Filius.

Singing these words to Pergolesi's music this evening, I thought of all the mothers, their heads covered, weeping over their dead children in the lands of the Middle East. The words are so charged for Christians with the weight of Good Friday, but as the music lamented with the woman who had to watch her son die I could feel also the pain of those other, helpless, weeping women. We sing; they mourn. God is crucified daily, and we stand and watch.

Remembering in Beta

2006-11-13T16:09:00.000Z

Ok, so this is what happens when you switch. It's ok. I rather like this template too. I thought I might start posting the odd poem here, just to see how it goes. If anyone visits, I'd be glad to hear from you!

This poem was written at this time of year, but a few years ago. George died not long after taking part in the TV programme on which I saw him. Count this as my poppy for this year.

GEORGE 1998

The strong young face is yet
Visible, hardly blurred by
The eighty-year journey from
Passchendaele. Inane questions seem
Impertinent, but age has brought patience.
‘I were a strappin’ lad.’
And this self-knowledge had
Catapulted him into
Hell. Stripped of friends by
Hot shards of death he has
Persisted through three more generations.
Now a little child shall
Lead him through the neat
City of the dead to meet again
A friend still young.
Dear God, when the end
Comes quietly, how will he explain?

© C.M.M. 12/11/98

New beginnings

2006-10-10T22:17:00.000Z

This is a test posting to explore the possibilities of Blogger Beta - if I can ever find how to switch. I didn't want to risk doing it with blethers till I saw what happened. At the moment this box has come up without a space for a title - very odd.