New Years Eve

It is the midnight of the months
The second hand of years
The resetting of the clocks
Where all the world
Wind themselves up
To forget the previous moments
Good and Sour
The stolen seconds
A dozen Eleventh hours,
The weakness of weeks,
Catalogued, categorized,
By calendar,

And again, begin again,
To gain a beginning,

Zero zero; zero zero,
Grounded and returned
No matter what bridges we've burned
What elementary lessons
Have had to be relearnt,
What heights have been fallen from
Or the depths from which we have been scraped up,
Time is on a pinnacle
A pinhead,
A seesaw balance
Between regret and hope
Past glory and potential future failures,

We reset like cooling Jelly,
taken out, to melt,
In summers warm belly,
And remoulded
and chilled once more,

How soon we forget
That every new year
Will be an old year later,
Forgotten  and left
Like past lovers
And childhood vows of devotion
Droplets consumed
 In the waters of the Ocean of time,
Afloat, on this boat
On this vast sea of rhymes
Of new years past and present
Reveries hideous and pleasant

The Year of the snake
Sheds its skin
The Russian doll
Of the truth within

That the journey of Transformation
Is not in leaving one place
For another destination,
But it is a peeling back of the layers
Skinning the years one by one
until finally
The raw and glistening core
is exposed to the elements
And at last we see
The Terrible and beautiful truth
Of who we really are
And what we really need,

And naked and raw
Shelled and in awe
I raise my hand
To the God of sea and land
The potentate of time
In this rightful state of mind
And touch his grace.

Delivery Suite

The room is all set

The forceps of foresight
The Hot water of Baptism
The towels of servanthood
The gas and air of joy in obedience,
Are all ready to go,

The Father is stood by, waiting to cut the chord,

The Angels draw the curtains of certainty
Around the Holy family
As the registrar of births
Waiting in the wings
What transpires, mystery
His story will only record

That the deliverer
Has been delivered

Save the chosen few,
No one heard the screams
No one saw the blood
No one held their breath
In anticipation of the shrill, almost angry
Defiant yell of existence
And the relief, it bought with it,

The silent night
Was split,
Christ, the saviour, is born,


The deliverer has been delivered.

Guest Room of the Heart

Not the squalor of a borrowed stable
But with joyful welcome in the human heart,
I will welcome him with all I'm able,
Though my gifts could barely make a start,

To pay my homage to the King of Heaven,
Not with Frankincense, myrrh or Gold,
But with the simplicity that I am able,
Take this baby to my heart, to hold,

Though you cannot be contained by heaven,
It is in us that you come to dwell,
Never ever will you leave, forsake us,
God with us, our Immanuel,

With all the clutter and the mess at Christmas,
We remember the child in Mary's womb,
Remember that the 'King that came', is coming,
Let every heart prepare him room.

Immanuel

You're lonely, deep down,
So lonely, but none can tell,
Surrounded by Saints
Yet you feel like hell,
And the solution is, Well,
Well, well, well,
It's God with us;
It's Immanuel.

Cant get through this pain
Cant face this painful hour,
Cant take another minute,
It isn't in your power,
The solution is, Well,
Well, well, well,
It's God with us,
It's Immanuel,

No one understands
What you are going through
No one knows your estrangement,
No one feels like you do
But someone does, well,
Let me tell
Tell
Tell
It's Jesus
Our Immanuel,

Priceless presence with us,
This pearl within our shell,
The precious peace in whirlwind's eye,
It's too valuable to tell,
It's free to me, I cannot buy or sell,
Sell,
Sell,
It is God with me
Revealed to me,
My Immanuel

Taken where you do not want to go

Oh, Baby Jesus,
How strange that sounds,
Like 'newborn-ancient'
Like 'Finite-infinity'
Like 'Temporal-eternal'
Oh Baby Jesus,
Look at you now,
God and yet unconscious of it,

You smile up at me
From that manger,
Your tiny little fingers
Would explore my mouth
And stretch my eyelids,
Were it not for that swaddling,

Oh Baby Jesus,
Those hands will be bound again
But first they will be freed,
They will explore, and fumble and take
They will give and mend and break,
As you slowly become
The man God made you to be,

Oh Baby Jesus,
Whose words formed stars
look at you now,
You can't even form words,
You can't even say 'ah',
Just 'buh, buh'
And raspberry's
And squeals
You don't even know the deal yet,

Oh Baby Jesus
Tightly wrapped in clothes another chose
But you will learn to dress yourself
And follow the calling
Wherever it goes
Though for now
You must stay where you're put,

When you were 'younger'
You went where you wanted,
And if it wasn't there
You made there,

When you were younger
You clothed yourself in light
And righteousness made a pretty cool coat,

But, Oh, Baby Jesus,
Look at you now,
Tucked in
Wrapped up
And dribbling
Blowing spit bubbles,

When you're older you will dress yourself
And go where you please


And then, when you are a little older still
You will stretch out your hands
And you will be pinned down again

And then, when you are a few days older than that,
You will stretch them out again,
To family and friends

To one who cant believe
and to another
Who cant forgive himself

And you will say

"When you were younger you dressed yourself
And went where you wanted;
But when you are old you will stretch out your hands,
And someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.”

And, Oh Baby Jesus, you will know
Exactly what you are talking about,
Because you laid down your life
Long before
You ever took it up.

And looking at your tiny unsuspecting face
Baby Jesus
Though it knows me not, yet
I can see
The greatest love

Christmas Echoes (Repeat the Sounding Joy)

The song from all creation
Of mysteries for words; too deep,
Sung from every voice of nature
Summoning Adam from his sleep,

The song from birthless eternity
The splendours of his joy
Were hid from mankind, from then, till now,
Until the arrival of this boy,

Held from our ears, until we sing it,
Until at last we see this Christmas boy
The song that has been always waiting
For loosened tongues to employ,

The Angels singing with exaltation
Glory to the Lord on high
They cannot contain their joy this moment
As we listen, our very ancient essence sighs

Sighs to sing the song of ancients
The source of life, within this boy,
Can you feel the tug of heaven,
To repeat the sounding joy?

We simply open our unstopped mouths
Our hearts with wild and wide-eyed abandon, gaze,
And out spill all our adorations
To the secret spirit's longing,
Hidden yearning, throughout all our days,

Listen closely, can you hear the melody,
From celestial beings rise
A pitch beyond natural hearing,
But if you're still and close your eyes,

You can hear it

The song resounds in supernova
The vibrations from atom's mysterious chant
All creation somehow declares it
And yet, at times, somehow we can't,

But the wonders on display at Christmas
Wrapped up, exposed, in baby boy,
Calls to us with the choir of Angels
To repeat
The sounding Joy,

All life should be a tuning in
To natures song, to Angels ploy
To get us in the heavenly choir,
each day to repeat
The sounding joy.

And repeat
The sounding joy

And repeat
The sounding Joy

The echoes of
Resounding joy

Peace on Earth

When peace shall finally be spoken
When bones shall no longer be broken
Split asunder with shell
Flesh forced apart by semtex and shrapnel
When factions shall finally cease
And prisoners of conscience, see release
When hearts will cease to wage
War with God on every page
Of the book of human life,
When there is an end to strife,

When The last tear has been shed
When the last drop of blood has been bled,
When sword is forged into ploughshare
And spears into pruning hooks there,
And the dark, dark art of war
Will be studied never more,

When there is no more death or dying
And no more sorrows sighing,
For sorrow and sighing will have flown away
When the old order has passed, on that great day,

When Bethlehem's baby is returned as king
And the whisper of peace that he brings
Will be heard and felt by all
As loud as a mighty waterfall,

Then and then only will the peace fully come
That was spoken of, when the angels sung
Of goodwill and peace on the earth
At the advent of saviours birth,
An echo of what is to come
This peace
Complete
This whole shalom

Adoption

It seems almost perverse
Like logic
In reverse
That, with no time to rehearse
Without searching scriptures
Chapter and verse,
Without fathoming
How deep the purse
This finite man, Joseph,
Should adopt
The maker of the universe

The Maker who had first ,
Adopted him,
For better or  for worse
To be the one
Who would bear the one
Who would bear the curse,
To provide for the one
Who would disperse
The treasures of
This maker
Of the universe,

To Adopt the
everlasting
Father of
The universe,

He adopted
The child
Who would be orphaned
By his death,
The child Who, by his death
Would secure Adoption
For all,

And Joseph gazed
Without biology
On the baby face
Of eternity
And saw first
What none could see
Previous to this moment
In history,
And took Jesus, to his heart,
Took Jesus, as his own,
Took Jesus, in a manger,
As if it were a throne,

one

One of us
One with us
One to win us
One to give us

One more chance
At an infinite number
Of second chances,
One
To
Make
Free
Out of being
For
Us

Not aloof
No longer misconstrued as distant
Not far off
But so close
It is on your lips
And in your heart

You don't stand at a distance, saying,
How does it feel to bleed?
No.
God bleeds too
And he looked on what he had done
And he said
that it was good.

When God draws near

When God draws near
People Sing,
Zechariah,
The Angels
Mary, Magnifying,
Souls exploding
Gushing Forth
Rejoicing
Blessing
Glorifying,

Those moments
When rocks would cry out
If he had not just softened
The rocks into flesh

When we sat down and wept
Believing we were abandoned
Our captive hearts were like
Lifeless stone
Sunk, in the rivers
Of Babylon,

But when God draws near
There is singing,
What will be my song?
Is my heart still granite
In exile
Abandoned, by the waters
Of Babylon?

When Immanuel comes
What will be my Song?
In this,
The latest
Incarnation,
You've shown
You've been here
All along,

Never will you leave me
Nothing will cause you to forsake
Your exiled children,
In the desert
Nothing will make you break
Your promise,


Immanuel
God with us
Through waters
And through Flame
O come to us
O dwell in us
forever more the same.








(Please click on the link below to watch the 24/7 prayer Advent post that inspired this poem)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eFiY7Y6mrM

Making An Entrance

His next big entrance
Will be a real show stopper,
The trumpet resounding
Summoning all
Of Heaven
And Nature
To the Final act,

Every eye will see
And many will wish they hadn't,
The Sun will Melt
And the Moon will wain,
Like blood red wax
As Heaven and earth
And the old Order
Pass away
On the great and terrible day
Of his coming.

Those who pierced him
Will look on him
And be pricked
To the quick

The dead will rise
To the meet the triumphant angels
In the skies
And his voice
Will be the thunderous sound
Of Many waters
And his face shall shine
Like lightening.

The Son of God
Sure can make an entrance,

But at the event
Of his advent
No ear can hear his coming
As if on tip toes
He creeps into the stable,
Through the stage side-door,
Bare,
And
Barely noticed,
Unremarkable
He could be anyone.

But then The super-natural God
Makes a habit
Of inhabiting the ordinary.

And, In a way,
Between making these two entrances
He made millions of entrances,
Making selective incisions
Into lives
Into hearts,
And
As the dear Christ enters in,
He made an entrance
For all to come
As top to bottom
He tore the veil,
And made an entrance.

Cynics Acrostic Christmas Kept

Precautious
Realistic
Expectation
Seems
Expedient,
No
Toys
Santa!

Many
Instances
Not
Chewed
Enough

Perhaps
Illness
Ensues
Soon


Cant
Really
Allow
Christmas
Keenness
Entering
Reality,
Son

Terminated
Unfortunately,
Remorselessly
Killed,
Expired;
Yuletide

Queens
Ubiquitous
Entertainment
Expected
Nowish
Sometime

Speaking
Pretty
Evenly
After
Cognac's
Had

In the manger

Careful with that baby
He is dangerous, I tell you,

You can wrap him
In swaddling
But you cant contain him

You can put him in a manger
But he wont be managed

You can bring him to the world in a stable
But your world may end up
Destabilised,

You can put him in your nativity
but he might run native

You can put him in your show
But he might not play

He wont take stage directions
Where you put him
He may not stay

He is just a baby
A baby, is what you say,
He may be just a baby,
But he wont stay that way.

Unwrapped

It seemed
To me
That after Adam
And Eve
Took the fruit
From the Tree
The gift
Of heartfelt ease
Was boxed up
And locked with keys
As God surveyed
The present
Of his presence
And all the ensuing
Aftermath
He sadly smiled
And said
'It's a wrap'.

Maybe, then, for later.


And through the following
wayward ages
God
At times
In various stages
Alluded to the long forgotten gift
Described it, in hope
That hope of it
Would cause us to seek,
To heal the rift,

But each time
It was put before us
We sadly chose
To ignore trust
And left
The gift
Unopened
And,
Were it for us
that would be hopes end,

But at the advent
Of the promised gift
God showed us
what
was hidden in clenched fist,
We thought it there
To fight,
We knew not love, aright

That this hand,
'The holy arm
Of God laid bare'
Was God
Unwrapped
For us
To share
In the mercy of his stand
The fist became
Open hand
As gently
At first
It tugged on beards
And kneaded Mothers breast
And later pinned
To scaffold wood
Where it came
To surrenders rest

This was
the gift
Unwrapped
The back
Of sin
And law
was snapped
And love
laid bare
For all
To see,
The boundless love
The humility,

The gift was God, himself
Unwrapped
And taken down,
From Eden's shelf,

The Lonliest Christmas

I'm taking just a moment,
To be thinking of someone,
Who was alone this Christmas,
Who's only child is gone,

No ringing telephone for him,
No knock upon the door,
No one to sing carols with,
No one to talk of days of yore,

The nest is empty now,
His Son has gone away,
The loneliest time, he's ever known,
Has come this Christmas day,

No laughter, today, will fill his rooms,
No casual fireside chat,
The only one, who truly loved him,
Has left, and that is that,

So Spare a thought,
For Father God,
Who spent the first Noel,
Separated from his family,
So we wont go through hell,
The hell of being lonely,
For eternity and Amen,
He made, the ultimate sacrifice,
And gave up his son to die for men.

Alternative Carol Verses

1~

Violent night, Holy fright
All is screams, All is fight
Round Yon Virgin Mother there
2000 years until gas and air,
You wont be sleeping for weeks
You wont be sleeping for weeks

2~

How Silently, How silently
The Wondrous gift is given
The writer of this particular verse
Was surely, flipping kiddin'
He'd clearly never seen a real birth
Yes, he surely was a male,
in describing the noise of that experience
Any words would fail.



3~

The Cattle are lowing
The  poor baby awakes
If those Cows don't shut up
We'll be eating beef steaks.

 

The Overshadowing

Mary's body Was over shadowed
By the power
Of the Most high
What happened, within
The Nebulous shadow
Happened to her
Without a sigh
As woven in the secret
Deepest, Darkest place
The light was born
Of truth
And grace
That would soon eclipse
Us all,

And Mary
Took each bit
Of light
And shade
And Gathered it
To her soul

And, In that moment
Of Divine acceptance
Surrendered will
She, herself
was Over shadowed
By the light
Now growing
Glowing,
Starting to fill,
Her womb,
Her heart
Her world,

So many shadows
Yet to be unfurled,

And gathered round the manger,
On Bethlehem's brightest night,
An ominous darkness Overshadows,
Creeping in the corners
Of our sight,
The arrival of joy,
Resounds echoes of loss,
The guiding starlight casts over the manger
The Shadow of
The coming cross.

Empty Spaces

Christmas is full
Of gaps,

The gap between waking
And opening presents,
The space in your belly,
To be filled with Turkey
And Mince Pies,

The space, in the middle of a cracker,
The ever lessening gap,
Decreasing between your thighs,

The gap between unwrapping,
Underwhelming gifts,
And sincerest of thankful replies,

The gap between what we expect to receive
And that which actually arrives,

The gap between what we can afford to spend
And our budgets limitations

The gap between western wealth
and so many impoverished nations,

The space where compassion should be
For the homeless on our streets
When we blow a weeks wages
On trainers for our feet,

The space between the good that we want to do
And the resources at our dispense
The distance between family members
Kept by sitting on the fence,

But the biggest and most glaring gap
is the smallest one of all
The pin-head size gap
The microdot
Embedded in the uterus wall,
The virgins uterus wall,
The hopeless void into which
The Christ child stepped
To bridge the gap
For all.

The Invitation

We are holding
An open stable
Just moved in
To your neighbourhood
We'd like to invite you
To a Christmas table
We'd love you to come
Bad and Good

Come as you are
In onesy, tracksuit
Or Sunday best
Come, if you like,
In your birthday suit
You wont be under dressed

The guest of honour
will be naked too
If you pick him up
He may puke on you
He may poke your eye
And smell of poo
But he is completely
Accepting of you,

What's that you say,
How vulnerable you feel
When going to a strangers'
For a sit down meal
Well the son of God
Knows exactly how you feel
But dining at the stable
Being vulnerable’s the deal

But it's worth it for the food
And you wont ever be misconstrued

So Come all ye faithless
Broken and despondent
O Come ye,
O Come ye,
To Bethlehem.