Murder Most Foul with a nod to Bob

I have known a murderer
Sharp with hateful words
Has left me bleeding
Poisoned my friends
And left my dearest soul
With mortal wounds.

How foul this festering bile
This attack on long cherished
Friends we were
But now I linger near
Sadness.

You have not killed my love
Just used your dagger
A gaping bleeding wound
Only eternity will heal.

On this the Feast of the Sacred Heart

It is hard to be brave
Dying of cancer
In a busy ward
Full of noise and
Strange lights.

It is hard to be brave
when deserted by friends
left
on pathways hidden.
Or scorned by the young
whose vanity tells them
they can change reality
with any whim, just use
words
and persecute those
who object to
illusions.

It is hard to be brave
when those beloved
have left this life
and words can only
be silent
for us left behind
to be brave.

Silent Witness

St Thomas once said
there is nothing
on this earth
more to be prized
than true
friendship.

I am a witness
to your goodness
and the Light
that always shone
through you
Never did my
steps find harm,
always a sure path
forward.

There is only sadness
at your kindness
 betrayed.
The loss of friendship
is such excruciating pain.
I did not always notice her
paths unwinding
but now I can
see into the clues
that were always there.

Why such poison
to herself and all around,
a heart that closed
and will not open,
snapped shut in
bitterness on barren soil.

I am witness to
your goodness
I remain a silent one
my heart always listening
to hear the echo of
your warm and loving heart
my friend.

These Stones

Some times
your absence
is a rock slide
leaving me buried,
bruised and bleeding,
crying out
from the sheer pain
But I know
you are free.
The sufferings endured
are memories
bathed in Beauty,
the Light eternal and
Splendor.
You are home.


Alas, I await my turn
to enter that valley,
the one of shadow
leading to the mortal
breath being no more.

May my courage remain
Oh, soldier friend of mine,
Be by my side
Always
Please listen to
these tears from
beneath the falling stones.

INSIDE OF TIME

Where you are
I would be
Across the divide
I cannot follow, 
I am a victim of time.
Only my heart can
yearn and strain
to walk beside you
once again.

I must rest content
in a heart that
bleeds  
on occasion, falling 
into the emptiness which
ebbs and flows upon the 
silent watch
where love lies buried.

My Friend

To my spiritual director

I am a book
You wrote
For almost fifty years
The title page
So carefully chosen
After many hours
Suffering and prayer,
Slowly calling me to
Forsake my nets
And follow your footprints
Into time.

I am a book
Of few pages
Yet lovingly tended
Illustrated with your
Crafting hand
Delicate in colours
Sharp in outlines defined.

I am a book
Someone
One day may read
To find
Traces of Him
Who called us both
To write a tale
With love for Him
In friendship's
Golden hues.

Willows

The willow shrubs
Speak spring when
Cold and ice recede,
Warm buds dressed
In wooly cotton coats
Brownly grey.

The willow trees
That weep
Draped yellow twigs
Hairshafts
Blowing with breezes
And summer locks
Hanging with the harps of exile.

I have become like willows
Weeping before the doors
Death shut strong
And fast.
What key can be fashioned
To unlock the silence?
What window found to
Peer into mystery
The Light beyond this
Painful vale.

Like spring, hope
Dawns against the cold
Bitter wind
Stripping happiness.
My heart finds courage
To bud forth swathed
With warm memory
Goodness, innocence, peace,
A blessed gift this humble life
Willows both grey and gold.