Friday 9 December 2016

Throw Hope Asunder

Throw Hope Asunder

Throw hope asunder
Learn to wonder
Let it bury itself
Under your skin

Take a moment
Pause and own it
Look around at
Where you’ve been
Keep it steady
Find your path
Follow footsteps denying
Wrath

We’re on a journey
And the road ahead is
Unclear
Fogged in tired mists
And dogged risks
What lies ahead is lost beyond
The horizon of the future
A focal point
A vocal point
Claiming identity
And ready to embrace it all
We look this way and that
Eyes flit forwards and back
Hands swipe the knot in our palms
While
All the while

The call
To the wild waits a silent
Wolf silhouetted against
Darkening skies

Trauma spills forth from
News desks and desert
Streets

The echoing clatter of
Militaristic marches
Stalks this present future
Just around the corner

The right rises and scarcity sings its
Celebration chorus
Creation weeps fossil tears
And scarcity’s song is ignored
Abundance is preferred
~More palatable ~
A more malleable truth

Post-truth
Post-proof
Post-pre-post youth

Whose futures are defined
By the failures of long lines
Of lies

No post-truth
Just no truth

Nothing by which to stigmatize
Swipe swipe beyond the lies

Timelines have moved on and
Every thought is forsaken and
Reactionary
Lacking a bigger social
Imaginary

Filtered by ego’s proof
No use for hives
And hive minds
Collectivist thinking
Just blind leading
The bind-ed
To the blinded bling
Of the latest Soc Med novelty
Where novelty is king
Find your platform
And sing sing sing


Your words are important

Your voice is unique

Everyone is equal
Everyone is freak

Hevel goes the shout
When drums kick in
And push the
Music forward
Not a march
But a run
Through urban streets
Along glass-walled avenues
Of pay per view privileges
We can barely afford

Barely affording to be ignore

We buy debt with or without
A credit check

Purchase and then pay - but
Not yet not yet
Never yet
Increase the debt

Not the buy now
Or the buying on the never never
Rather buying on the
Never ever clever saw you coming
Opened doors with us all inward running
This Friday was black
Eclipsing
But not eclipsed
And not Good
Bought for a price
The ransom paid
Fitting in the lounge
The TV upgrade
Ready to be crucified
And hung out on the wall
Not drowning silently
But vomiting violently

Monotony of insanity
Low-level profanity
High-level conformity
With a nudge nudge wink wink
Of individuality
Your identity
You and only you
And only them
Only us
And you
And them
We
Let out a collective sigh
Inspiration is running....
Out
Our minds cloyed, clogged
With webbed dementia confusion
The simplest action has acquired
New, deeper levels of accountability
And through it all
Nothing happens
Nothing matters
Truth lies shattered
Dreams dashed
Desires scattered
Relationships flattened

In a connectivity fetish frenzy
Where shallow and plenty
Beats deep and lengthy
Discussion
On a theme
About a dream
That belongs to more than one

A dream of a song
Still to be sung

A dream deserving
More than one dreamer

A song deserving more than one singer

This things is big and getting bigger
Watch for cracks
In the unoccupied facade
Of an occupied charade
A rambling corrective
To the mumbles unelected
And soon to be steamrollered
And rejected
The system is infected
With the listless
And dejected

Whole communities abandoned
And left to fight off the rising right
Left to look for a shining knight
Left to cope
Left looking for scapegoats
And there are plenty to choose from
Plenty who’ve been used as them

Lay down all nuance
Instead let’s find a binary
A “them” to match
Our “us”
Let the streets run with red
Turn up the pressure
Reduce the services
Keep politics
As far from people
As possible

Keep it away
From parochial boundaries and boarders
Keep Westminster talking
About a multi-billion pound refurb
Refit
And re-order
Leave communities alone
Undisturbed and sunk in it

We will find an answer
We find our answers
Because our neighbours are amazing
But drops and crumbs
from the lofted platter
Would be gratefully received

Whole generations detached
And feeling deceived

Is this how far we’ve travelled
Just to watch it unravel

No words
No points
This is not about
Scrambling
About
Clambering
After opportunities
Or at least
It shouldn’t be
Who said the Land of the Free?
Who said it could be
Anything more
Anything less
Reaching for something
And hoping for the best
It doesn’t get better
Than it gets in the west
No rest
All professed
No stress
Time to accept less?
Accept less or expect more?
Stand and campaign for better
Write a letter
Then take a stand
Form a plan
Take it to the barricade and

Beyond

But what does any
Of this even mean?

There’s nothing to see and
Even less to feel

It’s all for nothing
And nothing is real



Sunday 13 November 2016

THEM and US: a Confession

Them and Us - a Confession

Whenever we speak of “them” and us”
Lord, forgive us

Whenever we ignore speech about “them” and “us”
Lord, forgive us

Whenever we don’t condemn speech about “them” and “us”
Lord, forgive us

Whenever we stay silent in the face of speech about “them” and “us”
Lord, forgive us

Whenever we don’t speak on behalf of the silenced, in light of talk about “them” and “us”
Lord, forgive us

Whenever we don’t offer an alternate vision that re-imagines the mere idea of “them” and “us"

Lord, forgive us

Sunday 6 November 2016

#AdventThoughts

As with Lent 2016, I've created a whole host of #thoughts that will be appearing each day on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/40thoughtsUK/ - all of the #AdventThoughts can be seen below































Friday 4 November 2016

Journey to the Inward Wild: A Hymnal For The Wild (Volume 2)

I'm really excited that yesterday my new collection of poetry was published by Proost.

It's available as a downloadable pdf from http://www.proost.co.uk/journey-inward-wild-hymnal-wild-vol2 in the UK
or


I'm really excited about these poems and I'm grateful for Proost for putting the book out there.

Proost very kindly write,

This wonderful book contains 97 poems exploring different aspects of the this struggle for stillness.  Expect honesty, real-life language and experiences and the tension of wonder and brokenness.  Tim yet again finds a language for the deep things of life that many of us find it so hard to express. 



November always reminds me why I love the NHS

November is an amazing month for us as a family
It's an amazing month because of our two daughters
And it's an amazing month because of the NHS

Two daughters born in different years
Two daughters born in different hospitals
Both born in November
Both born with different needs

One whose birth was complicated,
Whose heart rate started to drop
As the umbilical cord tightened
Around our little one's, not yet born neck

One whose birth suddenly started to go wrong
One whose birthing suite suddenly filled
With NHS staff, from two, to four, to six
One who was born in mere moments

Thank God for the NHS

The second whose birth
Went really well
Until some hours after she was born
Temperature all wrong, blood tests not right

The second was swiftly moved
To SCBU (A cathedral of care and attention)
Lumbar punctured and monitored
And home within a week


Thank God for the NHS

Saturday 24 September 2016

Recently I tried launching an online poetry journal, we didn't have enough submissions to go forwards! Will try again!

Friday 24 June 2016

#cmpfire2015 poem

Here's a poem that was originally written at #cmpfire2015. It has a swear at the end but seems to be resonating with a few folk so I thought it should be posted again


the disconnect between the ground
and the institutions grows wider the
way the church measures undermines
the mission of God being lived out the
buildings of Christendom drain and
fade haemorrhaging money the
environment collapses and the church
remains vague and out of touch the
signs of faith are lost in perpetual and
misguided hopes for bums on seats the
concern we have for money is shaped
by fear as we seek to preserve the past the
gifts God gives are squandered in an
unholy search for something more the
current generation of leaders will be called
to find ways of ministering freed from
stipend and rooted in simple lives the
hopes we hold will be found in silenced
voices lost to most ears and as we reframe
the frames and watch sparks in ashes fanning
the flames we will look to the gutter to see
the stars and wonder beyond knowing, if we’re fucked

Wednesday 10 February 2016

Monday 1 February 2016

40thoughts

If you are looking for an alternative lent resource you might want to try this. Then again, you might not.