The Songsters
- Details
- Written September 2013
Selected phrases coupled with dotted crotchets,
Melody, harmony and dynamics to stir the soul,
Lines and spaces translated by a composer’s hopes
To be born as music in the listener’s waiting heart.
Until the brigade reaches the finale – legato, cantabile,
With what should normally evoke thunderous applause,
Greeted instead by a moment of quiet appreciation,
Hung with the emptiness of sounds echoing
As the cadence dies in the stillness of the worshipping mind,
And they stand statuesque, transfixed by their own offering,
The diaphragm immobile in a silent semibreve,
Until the leader flexes fingers, drops the arms,
And we all relax, ready to receive the Word.
September 2013
The Inheritance of Fellowship
- Details
- Written November 2012
The Maple Road table buzzes with conversation
As colonel meets major, composer finds doctor
And stories emerge, experiences shared.
Social officers, corps officers and those from headquarters
Laugh between courses and the clink of cutlery
As the retireds discover they’re far from cast-offs;
They’re no mere have-beens sent out to graze.
Hearing-aids and walking sticks don’t disqualify
Those who’ve found the things that endure
In the sacred space of the officer covenant.
They join in celebration of past and present
Bonds of commitment to love and serve
The one some say should also have retired by now,
But who joins the table even though it’s not Emmaus.
May 2012
The South London Retired Officers’ Fellowship was founded in 1937 at the Salvation Army corps on Maple Road, Penge. This followed a conversation between Colonels Frederick Hawkes, Thomas Lewis and Percy Turner – Hawkes, the composer, Turner the doctor.
Click here for photographs of the fellowship celebration in November 2012
The Decision
- Details
- Written May 2012
Influences flow from the Himalayas
As bottled water and ice-cold Pepsi,
By cycle rickshaw, metered taxi,
Brahmin priest and outcast cooly,
Sonia Gandhi, BJP, [1]
CSI, Salvation Army, [2]
Bengal tigers, Delhi belly
Cut-out film star, blaring telly.
Messages come from here and there.
Punjabi roti, Tamil chow
Andhra curry, rice pilau
On battle ship and ancient dhow,
Spitting cobra, sacred cow
With monsoon rains and paddy plough
In village concourse, Panchayat row,
Women’s chit-chat, quick pow-wow.
But we always listen to the strung up doll
Bejewelled with necklace, temple gold
God and man, both young and old,
Male and female, warrior bold,
Legendary history and story told,
As truth and trust from myths unfold
Leaving the mind in clearer mould
To accept what’s on the threshold.
But they don’t do girls here, so be gone
From Indian nightmare and western dream
Show me the image with sonar beam
Make it a boy for the hockey team
Or mother-in-law is bound to scream
And put heads together in a killing scheme
So amnion will lose its gleam
As membranes rupture with a gushing stream.
Are girls as good as boys – their equal?
But you are both, you conjoined clown,
Our wiser sage, complexion brown,
Inside out and upside down,
Back to front like an Urdu noun.
Two-faced puppet in embroidered gown.
You’ve persuaded me to keep her, so I’ll tell the town
But come back to you with my dowry frown.
May 2012
After visiting the Alchemy Exhibition at the Royal Festival Hall.
Image of puppets by courtesy of Itchy Pixel
Puppetry is a popular traditional art form of India. It remains an important means of entertainment and education. Here a pregnant woman listens to the Baharupia puppet upholding the value of the girl-child. This puppet, when inverted, takes the form of the opposite sex. Click on the video clip below to watch the Baharupia in action.
The Breakdown
- Details
- Written October 2012
Out of the engine in friendly banter
As one blames carburettor, another the plugs;
Voices rising in shared solutions
But none forthcoming, so retreat is beat
To put all hands on deck with a push and a shove
For a kick-start that still doesn’t work.
Until a light-flashing computerised mechanic
Dons his overalls to do the check-up,
In twenty-first century diagnosis,
But still no solution – and no-one to blame –
So the crane cranks up the car for tow-away,
And they shake the dust off hands and feet
For a farewell handshake, and a parting smile.
October 2012
Thoughts of breakdowns in India and England.
Photo: By courtesy Michael Noel -
Joel Oleson at the side of an Ambassador in the Thar Desert, Rajasthan, India
Advent Paradox
- Details
- Written November 2023
Expected, but unexpected,
Promised and accepted
As an extraordinarily planned baby
Who comes in simplicity and innocence,
Untainted by a world of desire
Erupting into envy and anger.
But he's willing to bear all of that
In a life of selflessness,
As an incubator down the road
Switches off in deprivation
And the other child dies helpless,
While we light an advent candle,
Still committed, and with hope.
November 2023