-
Testing, testing...

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

other tongues video - katherine

-
Here is a video of the poem 'katherine' from the other tongues collection: Or watch it at YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONofI8ffQU8 The text itself: katherine we’re making lunch in front of the telly but you’d rather pick up bits of potato peel from off the carpet not the least bit interested in stirring you look at me with a rim of blue fluff round your pink lips scowling hard wriggling your other hand from out between my grip and the wooden spoon which i think is fair enough except when i come back from the loo the saucepan is upside down and corn beef hash is splodged all over the floor a grin spread across your face and i wonder to myself would an eighteen month year old do that? as that’s how old the doctor says your mind is even though we celebrated your body’s twenty first year last week when you sat in your party dress in exactly the same spot hearing only la l- la la la la la l- la la la la la l- la la la la la ……. la l- la la l a la because there a...
Read more

First Burial of Ashes

-
Image
I assisted at my first burial of ashes last week - an unexpectedly thought-provoking occasion as the deceased was a trans woman. She had been one of the oldest people in the UK to transition through surgery in her seventies, and she had remained married to her wife who had been a faithful and supportive companion throughout the process. Her widow was present at the graveside and she seemed so kind and warm. Together the couple had had two children, both of whom were also there, along with a young grandson looking very earnest and smart in a shirt and tie. The lady's transition journey had provoked mixed reactions in this family, some responding comfortably, others struggling - but it didn't stop them coming together for the occasion and they seemed a lovely, united family as they huddled together with their arms round each other under umbrellas. It was a huge privilege to stand there in the midst of this family which had worked through this process together, and to offer prayer...
Read more

A place of wondering

-
This blog was once a place where I occasionally released poems into cyberspace without any direction or purpose other than a general hope that someone ‘out there’ may read them and have a few thoughts. This didn’t feel comfortable so I didn’t do it for very long.  Since then I have done a lot more writing, a bit more thinking, and am now of the view that purposelessness is fine – in fact, it may be the point. This blog, then, is to be a place of wandering and wondering. In my writing (both poetry and journalism) I will be asking lots of questions of people, of God, of the church, all without necessarily having the answers. And when I do come to conclusions, these can and should be questioned again. Please go ahead: please change my mind.   The title quote above is a truncated version of lines by Tennyson:   'T here lives more faith in honest doubt,/ Believe me, than in half the creeds.’ He wrote them out of grief at a friend’s death at a time when he too was askin...
Read more