I read this set of poems  at a recital at Lanercost on the 21st July 2013

I read these poems by kind invitation of the Cellist Maja Bugge see: majabugge.com

The Poem Must be Spoken was the Title Poem of my first collection available at Amazon.com

The Church of the Sunday Jazz

The church of the Sunday jazz

gathers on the first Sunday

of each month to worship

at the altar of funk

Whether in heaven with Stephan

or playing classics with Stan

the time signatures

with a modernist twist

worship at the altar of funk

The church of the Sunday jazz

gathers on the first Sunday

bringing cool to the borders

New York sophistication

to worship at the altar of funk

Playing the blues, paying their dues

players keep their rhythms strict

as they divide time between sets

honouring the heroes of jazz

at the altar of funk

Placa de Pablo Neruda

Today on a whim

we walked west

past Placa de Tetuan

on past the Placa

de Toros, Monumental

to the Placa de Pablo Neruda

We longed for so much more

We longed for a statue

For metaphor. For rhyme

For sonnets or cantos of love

But all there was

a sign, that we dutifully

photographed, a woman

and two barking dogs

Like the poetry you called for

in the Green Horse, there was sweat

exhaust fumes, a smell of stale wine

a tramp in food stained clothes

unshaven, feeding the pigeons

But wait ………

The young couple, picnicking

beneath the trees

eating bread and jamon and cheese

squeezing the fleshy tomato

Biting, she takes the bruised fruit

from his tender hand

Lovers in Placa Neruda

a metaphor we can understand

Creed River

Turbulence of peat

Brown water, Salmon

Sing their spawning song

Tuned to the rivers

Symphony the chorus

Rises like psalms

Gaelic echoes, language

As old as these hills

As the spawning memory

Of these gallant

Majestic fish, lissom

Silver in the peat brown water

 St Olaf, Balestrand

A sanctuary on the Sognefjord

A ginger bread house of prayer, below the mountain

Where, even in the summer, snow reflects on the fjord’s shore

By the Rathuis, of Balestrand Kommune

At prayers on an endless summer’s night

The view through the window’s plain glass

Sings of the glory of creation shaped by

Tectonic force millennia before the Glacier

Above the altar the Saints window

Shows Olaf with his escorts, Bridget and Helena

Here also Margaret, Columba, Swithin

Celebrated in this land of Saints and Sagas

My Sunday words were broken

As was the bread, the wine

Was spilt and the story rehearsed

In this land of mid-summer fires

In the migration period before the glacier; mothers

Stored their secret gifts: the key, the whetstone

The loom weight ………………

The Poem Must be Spoken

Each day we plan careful progress

Some days are faster

Most are less

But now flowers grow where once there were none

A signature has

Replaced anon

In our garden we plant radish beds

The leaves come first

And then the heads

Each day we attend the newly planted garden

But after rain and sun

The ground begins to harden

But still the miracle is renewed

A delicate tracery

Of roots and stalks force through

The ground is hard and must be broken

As the poem, to be heard

Must first be spoken

Requiem

The surreal quality of the light

the air, the sounds of the night

echo in the square

The complex history of shadows

the interplay of earth and blood

the winter sun

the passegiata fills the busy

streets with crowds

In our attics high above pigeons bring

messages with greetings

from those we love

Lanercost

Approached gentle through the woodland

That stands guardian in the valley of the Irthing River

Flowing trout rich towards Eden and Solway

The long nave of the Abbey Church its sandstone

Chasuble gathered around its long skirts

As the Canons offer a time stretched liturgy

Settled into a soft landscape in a hard County

Where saints settled to sing their psalms

Which rise like wood smoke from winter fires

Their plain chant rises above the valley

Echoing the Irthing’s rippling songs

As it washes over the stones on the rivers bed

A half spent house of prayer, sacked

But retained as Parish Church

Where now the prayers and hymns of lay folk rise

Week by Sunday week, where

The marryings and birthings are solemnised

Where sins are forgiven and forgiven again

A Celtic Church built from Roman Stones

Looping across high fells from Coast to Coast

A curtain of definition, setting boundaries

Lanercost this quiet place where only the echoes

Of past conflict is chronicled, Priest’s raise the Sacrament

The bread and wine beneath the plain glass

Of clerestory windows that reflect the grass

And stone of the heritage beyond, a shadow nave

And sanctuary, a higher altar still to God

Whose presence has remained a steadfast rumour

Of the possibility that meaning lies here

As yet to be uncovered ………..