944

If you are Love why is there so much Hate?

Free will alone cannot account for this.

I may have my moments but my state

Of mind is generally not averse

To all mankind, and I would rather seek

The loving and the kind, with compromises -

Emulate the blessed who are meek -

Than risk the isolation that despises.

Yet day by day the world seethes with the bile

Of desolation, creeds whose single aim

Is blocking any isolation while

Claiming to be acting in your name.

          I am confused; if Love were really all

          Why do so many fail to hear your call?

Brian Hick May 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 31.5.23

 943

Isaiah Ch45 v 7

So you created evil; you agree,

Or at least that's what Isaiah says.

I'm glad that you admit it and can be

Honest with us even as you rage

Against those who ignore your claims

For straight obedience to some dubious laws

Set up by tribal elders whose real aims

Were crowd control, subverting the vile roars

Of sweaty desert yobs.  But now we know

That everyting that is goes back to you

For good or ill, and all we have to show

For it are endless years of misery and woe.

          How glorious that we know how to love

          Despite the anger seething up above.

Brian Hick May 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 29.5.23

 942

Psalm

An empty church; a quiet afternoon.

I sit and read some chapters of Isaiah

But cannot concentrate, for all too soon

My mind drifts off from texts that don't inspire

To thoughts of you, in hope you will appear.

Silence creeps around me but the mass

Of clashing words within my head shear

Away the hope of any lasting peace -

A war unheard but raging even here.

Must I ever fight to find the balm

That heals this deepening wound, this lingering snare

Which eats away my soul destroying calm?

Oh for a touch, a hint that you will come

And rescue me from what I have become.

Brian Hick May 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 26.5.23

 941

Where are you in all these words

          Spilling out to fill the time

          With little sense of the sublime

And even less of what occurs

Between the spaces and the joy

          Of silence.  Oh, when will they pause

          To let a heart which here adours

The unspoken and unthought, enjoy

The richness that does not demand

          An explanation or a fact,

          Contented simply to react

To your spirit's soft command;

Because I need a sacred space

          Unconfused by text or deeds,

          Unconscious of human needs

Or even of specific place

But one where I can listen to

          Your voice singing from the earth

          Your music antheming the worth

Of everything that's born anew.

Brian Hick May 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 24.5.23

 940

Workhouse

We had a home but then I lost my job

And nowhere hereabouts to find more work.

With nothing saved and no desire to rob

I tried to make ends meet, and did not shirk

The meanest task or lowliest of toil;

But nothing came, and so we had to go

Into the Workhouse.  Who but would recoil

At all the human misery on show?

Debased, reviled, no sense of concern,

Compassion, warmth; for though we are poor

We have feelings, when separated, yearn

For love that is denied us by the law.

          Why does the church teach that all are one

          Then separate me from my wife and son?

Brian Hick May 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 22.5.23

 939

I'm sorry I can't write free verse,

          That all my poems rhyme,

          It's not that it is easier

Or that I have the time

To organise in metric form,

          Make each ending ring,

          It's just that it comes out this way

And I can't do a thing

To stop it; but then why should I

          When it seems to fit

          Both what I think and what I feel

And that's beside the wit

Which often flows when playing games

          With ideas, words and puns

          That tumble out upon the page

As each line runs and runs.

So I hope that you'll forgive

          This antique sense of style

          Hoping that, for a short time,

It helped to make you smile.

Written in five minutes while waiting for the train at Wickford

Brian Hick May 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 19.5.23

 938

Tuesday morning back to work

No coffee on the train;

The sun still shines, the wind is cold,

But cannot stir my brain

Which rests somewhere beside the sea

Or near St John's, Smith Square,

Basking in the Easter heat-

Anywhere but here.

There are not many on the train,

Some phones have started ringing;

Yet when we get to Tunbridge Wells

Most round me are snoozing.

The underground at Canon Street

Is closed in all directions

So I must walk to Monumnet

Thus missing my connection

To Wickford, but at least this train

Is running after Easter;

Be thankful for small mercies, sir,

It's not quite a disaster.

Brian Hick April 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 17.5.23

 937

We sat under two

Golf umbrellas on the beach;

Such fierce Easter sun.

Brian Hick Easter 2011 was 25th April

©copyright Sally Hick 15.5.23

 935

That unseen blackbird almost overcomes

The radio from somewhere down the road

Oblivious to what I can't block out

As if the human world with all its load

Of noisy chaos, tension and distress

Were irrelevant to the simple joy

Of singing for the love of it, and less

Some naturalist's analysis of why

Birds sing or nest within the trees.

He sings, as I rejoice upon the Downs,

Ignorant of any time but now

Where we exist in unsought harmony

          Merged together, making all things one,

          A natural evolving union.

Brian Hick May 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 12.5.23

 934

The hedge needs cutting;

The noise tonight might annoy,

Perhaps tomorrow,

Brian Hick May 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 10.5.23

 933

Saturday

The grass still grows, the tree tops calmy sway

While dawn's dull light soothes away the darkness.

You are not here; your life now ebbed away

And all that I can see is emptiness.

I thought that you would always be by me,

The stronger one, to stop me running wild

But now I am alone I have to see

That time has passed for thinking like a child.

Yet I recall you said that childlike thought

Was closer to the truth than adult ways

And openness to all the world has taught

Would bring enlightenment to final days.

          But how I miss your voice, your laugh, your love

          And would not trade them in for heaven above.

Brian Hick 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 8.5.23

 932

Connect

Above my head two lines zoom into space

Like laser beams across eternity;

Where these lines of congruence embrace

I stand entire, a perfect tiny me

Centre of the universe, the one

Around whom everything that is revolves;

But looking up, I see the lines have grown

Ever wider until all dissolves

Far beyond the limits of my mind.

How strange that I can know that even there,

Immense and enigmatic, I can find

A Love that penetrates my heart, to share

          With all I meet, despite my selfish whims

          And all the limitations that life brings.

Brian Hick April 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 5.5.23

 931

On Hastings sea front

Why do so many 

People carry their doggies?

They could let them walk.

Brian Hick May 2011

 930

On reading 2 Kings

(a project to read the whole of the Bible out loud in St Clements church 2011.Sally)

The church grows colder and colder as I hack my way

Through chapter after chapter of the deeds

Of long dead kings who all the Lord obey

Although I read their action only leads

To yet more ruthless slaughter and the cull

Of innocent bystanders who cared little

For tribal mores or the endless dull

Incitement of the priests, whose law would whittle

Everything to their simple belief

Our god is right; he tells us what to think;

We alone can comprehend his brief;

So follow us and you'll be in the pink.

          How can intelligent people claim

          That this god and Jesus' Father are the same?

Brian Hick 2011

©copyright Sally Hick 1.5.23