SONG 3

Posted on July 2, 2022 by ashyvicar

Softly I approach
though the writings on the wall
There’s no hope for the future
the past has taken it all
and drained me
drained my dry

I’m not the man I was
and I’m not the man I could be
I just take what comes
and don’t let them use me
It’s hard when you’re down
It’s hard when you’re down

I read all the signs
and all the signs read sorrow
The world barely moves
I can’t wait for tomorrow
It must be yesterday
today is to late

copyright ashyvicar 2022 (but originally written some years ago when I had singer songwriter pretensions!)

Johnson

Posted on April 19, 2022 by ashyvicar

there’s a criminal
living in downing street
a man who has broken the law
everything bluff and bluster
let the rain stop play
for these Eton rifles

there’s a criminal
living in downing street
a man who has broken the law
risible
in the face of tears
jumping on graves

there’s a criminal
living in downing street
a man who has broken the law
shameless
nefarious
pies full of lies

where’s the poetry?
but this is no summertime
for beautiful words
livin’ ain’t easy
and dancing to the rhythm
it gets harder sings Lana

so in muted tones
laced with ire
I make no apolgies
“Johnson! In the name of God go!”

copyright – ashyvicar April 2022

Carbon Neutral

Posted on November 1, 2021 by ashyvicar

a carbon neutral poem
is written on the wind
whispered in the air

the sound of it
Is occasionally heard
by those listening with intent
enveloped
in their surroundings

spoken by trees
sung by birds
of every colour and hue
an occasional word
is noted
repeated
before
being carried away
on rustling leaves

laments are made
to lost wisdom
to authors unknown
who eschewed celebrity

but its rhythm
its metre
is observed
by those blessed
to stand in places
where murmur
sigh
and echoes
combine
where
starlings swirl
in dusk light dance
where
nocturnal flights unseen
disturb the air
and where no pen
no religion
no philiosphy
can claim its truth

Eulogy

Posted on August 1, 2021 by ashyvicar

some who wear
cassock and collar
dislike that point in time
when
things get taken
off the leash
and the poetry of a life
is let loose

wonderful humour
naughty but nice
cheeky but never malicious
loved a game of bingo
liked to shop
she will be missed

is it a hatred of
sentimentality?

is it an assertion
in rhyming verse
that nan tends
rose gardens up above
or the irritation
that many a popular song
speaks to the human condition
better than countless hymns?

is it this
that evokes such
condescension?

yet in those
inadequate moments
when raw emotion
is worn on the sleeve
and language struggles to achieve
all that is wanted of it
lives often ignored
are given a moment
a twinkling under stars
and with it
recognition
that in bingo halls
and retail parks
any god
should be pleased to dwell

A Poetry Reading…..

Video

Bollihope – Spoken Word

Snowflakes

Posted on February 10, 2021 by ashyvicar

under the microscope
are you a miracle of beauty?

will distinctive patterns
make impressions on my soul?

captured by camera
would I be able to draw you?

or would that picture
just simply melt away?

is your design for life
one to be repeated?

does it change for better
any worlds lived in today?

just like snowflakes
all human life is transitory

one by one
lives simply fade away

uniqueness lost
never replicated

the moment gone
forever trying to grasp it

seeking divinity
in the fragility
of humanity

Sunderland Bridge

Posted on November 14, 2020 by ashyvicar

the detritus of human waste
litters the bins

– the river of life goes on –
remark the stones
but closer inspection
reveals birthday card cliché

all of life has crossed this bridge
long before this biro’s invention
merry
trudging
stagnant
accidentally drowned
complex in its resistance
to neat summary

a new structure now sits
down stream
all beam steeled
with modern slants
offering life at faster pace
no time to stop and contemplate

this changing template of autumn leaves
deviation towers
mapping power’s obdurate course
fast flowing
no giving way
and emphatically on track
for environmental catastrophe

This is Bollihope……

Posted on November 5, 2020 by ashyvicar

the place that inspired a poem…..

Bollihope

Posted on September 9, 2020 by ashyvicar

re-claimed by nature
slag heaps carpeted in green
standing at the rock face
did they see magnificence?

with hammers, picks and crowbars
a future of lung disease
could they imagine
children splashing in the water
picnics near the burn
dare-devil races to the top?

it looks beautiful
she said

this lime kiln landscape of testimony
to hard lived lives past
navigated by a stream of liquor
like some resurrected Christ
wounds for all to see
brutal in their reminder
of a price paid
for this tranquillity

Nick Cave

Posted on April 30, 2020 by ashyvicar

to be
minimalist
is best

no words
I write
could capture

a desolation
that brings consolation
in a truly Ignatian sense

but if I had to
refer to
just one lyric

on pain of death

it would be
forevermore
“I don’t believe in an interventionist God”

my heart feels

strangely warmed
within
each and every time