The Resurrection

 

No-one saw Jesus rise.

The turning point in all history -

After two nights wrestling things we’ll never know

His body decaying in the musty tomb

The dripping water, the hard rock

The mice nibbling, the cockroaches crawling

In the dayheat, the flies who knew no Sabbath

We assume it was when dawn came

That there was a moment

He passed from death to life

 

His body changed -

Did it shine?  

Were angels standing around him?

What did he think when his eyes opened?

Was he surprised like the disciples?

Was he weary?

Did he have a headache?

Or was his new body past these things?

 

He may have lay a while

Staring at the rocks above him

Trying to make sense of it

But eventually he stood up

And probably then

The stone rolled away -

Angels again? 

Or did it just roll, apparently unaided?

 

Regardless, he walked out of the tomb

Into the cold Sunday morning

 

Or at least we assume it was the morning;

Perhaps he rose a couple of hours earlier

- Still in the dark - stars shining in the violet sky

And it was later, walking along a lonely road

That he saw his first sunrise

The other side of death.

 

We’ll never know;

The turning point in all history

Death’s defeat, the firstfruit of our hope -

This newman stumbling out of a tomb

Into the morning light or the predawn dark  -

And no-one to see it, except perhaps

For some birds, flitting through the garden.

 

- Easter Sunday 2001; first published in Studio

 

 

 

Poem Concerning the World

 

Oh, I saw the other side

Fought moustached trolls

Drank coffee roasted

On Columbian mountains

And grew estatic

Speaking in tongues

The world’s forgotten/

Their sound was rich like virgin soil/

I began to think in Atlantisese/ and

I couldn’t understand

I met Tailesin with his harp

We embraced like brothers

And I walked through a wet city at night

The flagstones were brittle

I wore a black trenchcoat

In my pocket was a bottle

Of Southern Comfort

There in the rain

I raised it to my lips

And it vaporated in my mouth

Sweet deep vapour warm like godbreath

I wanted this night to last forever

I willed Nietzche’s

We twirled on a carousel in the dark

She laughed/ her name was Claire

Lingering long/ she had no fear

Her passion met mine

I ran in the dawn

Through a pine forest

I tried to remember the scent

Tried to

Etch

It

In

My

Memory

Always.

 

- 7/4/2001

 

 

 

Two Theologies of Lila

 

It’s too dark to see the landmarks

And I don’t want your good luck charms

I hope you’re waiting for me

Across your carpet of stars

You’re the night Lila

You’re everything that we can’t see

Lila, you’re the possibility

 

- Morphine, ‘The Night’

 

 

1.  Lila exists only in motion - she cannot be held

 

I’ve seen you in the sunset

I’ve watched you sitting in the swirling mists

 

Once in China

I followed the Wall

Around

Looking for you.

 

(Sometimes you appeared in the sky

A mirage in the shimmering heat

Urging me on.)

 

You’re fireworks

A half arched rainbow -

If I could ever reach you

My touch would change you

 

The price of possibilty

Is never having;

The cost of possessing

Is the end of hope.

 

(What counts

- Where hope and having meet -

Is at that tangent

Where our lips touch for the first time

And you taste of white flowers

In a French field)

 

 

 

2.  Lila as eschaton: living in the now but not yet

 

I’ve discovered (after a lot of pain)

That you’re fine wine.

 

The weight of that moment

- The second we first kiss -

Is proportionate

To the hours, days and years

I’ve dreamed it.

 

What a cruel beauty:

My hope the light from stars -

Travelling years through the void

Before it reaches you

Standing at night on that hill in the woods,

The one you’ve been waiting on

 

Waiting with those demon eyes

Those sculpted cheekbones

Your harp on your lap

And your paintbrush by your side.

 

-3/4/2001

The Uninnocent

 

The sadness of the uninnocent, the spoiled:

I sat among colourful balloons in the nightlit yard

Listening to a band enthusiastic.

Christmas lights were trailed through the trees

White clothed tables were spread with party fare

And on the grass the brightly dressed

32 year old divorcee danced laughing

 

It was a different dancing,

                        A different laughing.

 

Emptied of possibility, the dance of the spent

Of one who has already had and been had

And long passed into a different, empty world

Full of mere mouthing, the memories and the mares;

As if youth can be recaptured!

Life is a hymen, soon torn

And we must live out our days, guilty and regretting.

 

- 30/12/2000