This is letter-writing night,
look up to my window: 
lone poet silhouette, curtained light.

The radiator is warm in here.
old Remington two-finger-tapping,
I'm drunk on vintage good-cheer.

Friends parted by sea and land, 
their roots dug deep in my life.
We hug with words, not arms or hands.

The thrill of unfamiliar post-marks,
foreign stamps, bulging envelopes:
embraced fellowship, significant spark.

Innumerable epistles over many years -
fountain penned, typist pounded; 
most sang one (if not three) - cheers.

Informants share past holy glow,
writing about art, faith and life:
"Liz is washing dinner dishes below, 

after I cooked vegetable crumble...
Bravo for such utter humdrum - 
making life tick,  keeping me humble.

Motown sounds, speaker blared, 
tie-dye shirts, smocks and flares; 
school dance glitter lit, mirror globe, 
soap flaked floor, psychedelic strobes.

Love-lyrics learnt from tinny transistor, 
memorised for slow dance, close whispers,
song scenarios, second-hand emotions, 
descant duets daydream devotion.

Heart on sleeve, too easily revealed,
teen soul torn but Hitsville hope-healed;
tight group harmony, emotional peak.
vocal edge sometimes bittersweet.

Hand clap, feet tap, horn-stab time, 
finger snap, short line Stevie rhymes,
top pop moves I vainly strived, 
Four Tops, Miracles, Jackson Five.

Most sixties singers silent or dead 
Funk Brothers fills echo in my head,
much missed music, Tamla teen tracks - 
my silent spirit screams - 

"I WANT YOU BACK!!

I Want You Back video song

Grey flakes spewed from charnel chimney stacks,
burnt bodies gag stench seeps from Auschwitz,
local landscape ash-smudged with satanic snow.

Yahweh’s still small voice spoke in Sanctus bell
no choice – Pilecki’s self-arrest then effected,
Moses-like mercy mission to holocaust hell.

Inmates’ eyes dead-stared from hair-shorn 
heads;  starved bodies broken, slack skin hung,
tongues struck dumb in that Gehenna abyss.

Like sacred spy, Pilecki recorded multiple deaths,
inhumane experiments, barbaric atrocities -
Aryan fascist fury burned, devil-driven.
 
Polish hero, brave escapee, pockets packed 
with haunting, harrowing proof –
Europe now knew - but chose to stand aloof...

Pilecki volunteered to allow himself to be captured by the occupying Germans, so as to smuggle himself into the Auschwitz concentration camp. There he drew up reports detailing Nazi atrocities at the camp and established an underground resistance movement. I believe he recommended Allies to bomb Auschwitz.
__________________________________________________________________

Stiff the lock, antique the oversized key,

dwarfed by massive porticoed door;

carved cathedral tombs coolly welcomed me,

lone footsteps echoed on chequered floor.

 

Colourful stained glass saints stoically gazed,

I ascended spiral staircase to play piano tunes

on old pipe organ, ivory keys haltingly praised

an ‘unknown god’, isolated Saturday afternoons.

 

Ravenous teenage heart, refugee with no relief

but driven on by spirit of sonic swell,

seeking celestial certainty, Bach’s biblical belief

a shelter “where sheep may safely dwell”.

 

Time halted in that lofty leviathan space,

asthmatic bellows wheezed, symphonic boom

echoed back sloppy timing, adding farce, not grace;

that console kindled hope in God’s engine room.

Have you heard of the surprising and critical role that a Christian Zionist played in the earliest stages of Herzl’s modern Zionism? Reverend William Henry Hechler was that man.

Hechler was an Anglican clergyman who cherished a deep love for the Jewish people. He “happened” to find and read the newly published 'Der Judenstaat' and recognied the prophetic moment. He went on to meet Herzl and become his key point of contact with both the German Kaiser and English Christian Zionism.

Frederick I, Grand Duke of Baden, was very taken with Hechler's eschatological predictions and with Herzl's pragmatic solution to the Jewish problem through restoration of the Jews to Palestine. The Grand Duke became a lifelong advocate of Herzl and the Zionist cause. He used his office and his relationship with his nephew, Kaiser Wilhelm II, to support Herzl and Zionism.

The press saw these events as momentous. Hechler had succeeded in bringing political legitimacy to Theodor Herzl and Zionism.*

__________________________________________________________

Rev. Hechler’s Discovery of Der Judenstaat, 1896.
__________________________________________________________

Vienna, 1896 - Rev Hechler stood in front
of a bookshop window: mesmerised on seeing
Herzl’s Der Judenstaat - Zion’s crie-de-cour -
heart paused, tears blurred that miracle moment.

Hechler long-searched Torah & prophetic texts,
an Anglican anticipating Israel’s return:
“I will take you out of many nations, gather you
from all countries & bring you back to your land.”
 
Herzl, anxious, obsessive, Moses-like, messianic
willed for an open-minded, expectant audience;
instead - Jewish mockery greeted his brave vision:
to make deserts bloom again, kibbutzim kindled.

Both biblical Zionist & secular political prophet
urged return to God-promised, gentile-denied land.
Later, the SS Exodus docking stopped, British troops
refused entry to emaciated emigrants, last-hoped haven.

Herzl unelected, exhausted, passionate patriarch,
esteemed obsessive, who forgot about his family;
Hechler, Messiah-hunter, grave overgrowth weeded
by late-grateful Zionists, named honorary Hebrew.


__________________________________________________________

'For I know that my Redeemer lives,
And He shall stand at last on the earth' Job 19:25
	
	
כי אני יודע שהגואל שלי חי,
והוא יעמוד סוף סוף על הארץ


Rev. Hechler – Anglican clergyman, biblical prophecy proponent and right hand man to Herzl. In 1884 Hechler wrote his treatise, "The Restoration of the Jews to Palestine".

*Hechler collected Bibles, maps of Palestine and constructed a scale model of the Jewish Temple that had stood in Jerusalem. He studied the Bible closely, working out timelines for the Restoration of the Jews and the Second Coming of Jesus. He predicted that in 1897 or 1898 a major event would occur that would lead to the Restoration of the Jews. In early March 1896, Hechler had been perusing the Viennese book stalls when he happened upon a book, Der Judenstaat, by Theodor Herzl. It had been published just a few weeks earlier.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hechler

Yahweh commanded, Noah obeyed: but his vow-believing brain
had unexpected challenges - no experienced engineer at hand.

His wife and daughters laboured, weaving, salting meat, gathering grain
as the large barge was planned, lofting shapes stick-drawn in sand.

Eccentric ancient prophet, Noah, crafted cubit-sized, jigsaw-shaped
joints; his sons sawed gopher-wood planks, piles lay on the ground.

An atheist audience laughed, many sceptics mocked and gaped 
at boat built far from sea; unusual wildlife activity suddenly sounded.

Angel drovers guided gender-paired flocks to the desert dry-dock,
barometric pressure dropped, infrasound electrified, unknown dread.

Beasts were herded onto readied ark, people sensed seismic shock:
the sky reservoir burst banks, abyss erupted, tsunami torrent spread.

The seven unseasoned seasick sailors sat in the amateur-built boat’s
dark humid hold; timbers groaned with deadweight, fully tested.

Wind moaned, corpses' flotsam bumped hull, the crew's throats 
filled with faithless fears, female tears - until boat halted, rested.

Water slowly receded; forty more days, all creatures waited,
hopeful hostages in the pungent ark, awaiting execution of oath.

Noah’s scouting raven never returned, all his hopes deflated;
later, rock dove delivered living olive leaf, proof of plant growth.

Then tar-sealed door hammered open, gangplank set in place;
after year-long voyage, sight of dry land stunned, welcome relief.

Noah led restless animals out, all exited at almost orderly pace;
his rudder of faith rewarded, the rainbow promise verified belief.

 Genesis 7: Noah & The Flood 

Intellect-denied, Ella escaped domestic duties:
sinks and cookers spurned; eminent interests 
learned beyond suburban groupthink -
neighbours disliked her far-flung female freedom;
strait-lace society scandalised by bloomers and bikes.

Hardly Victorian female fashion - 
to pedal solo, on step-through bicycle...
What mentor-impelled her eccentric passion,
searching out old folk songs -  recreating rhymes anew?

Was she warmly-welcomed by wary Romani
in their shetl-like, ragged tent dwellings?
Outsider outliers, smelling of wood-smoke;
her senses amazed by their beloved oral lore - 
phrases remade for Christmas carols.

Ignored unkind aspersions of her musical mission,
she recorded four-score folk songs and stories 
on wind-up,wax cylinder phonograph - 
God’s gospel, seasonally sung, harking us back…

Hibernia’s heroes champion all oppressed,
peacock people, puffing feathered chests;
wrongly conflated, Palestinian-possessed.

Our virtue-signalling proudly professed;
political prejudice, no debate or contest,
except demonise, drub and divest.

Sceptic questions censored, suppressed,
sectarian  conclusions pre-assessed;
pugilist passions, protocol trope -dressed.

Armchair academics, arguments abscessed,
online warriors put free speech to test;
Gaza grievances: Greek tragedy at Hamas behest.

Insidious tropes spread, infest,
language inversion, empathy stress-test
canaries in coal mine, apt acid test.

Cuckoo eggs well-placed in eagle nest,
society easily subverted: failed democratic test -
What messiah will save both east and west?

Down boreen the ancient cottage waited • thatch tinted grey, braided with weeds • foot-thick walls, building famine-dated •in false ceiling, mice multiplied at speed; vermin gristle got kitten-teeth crunched under kitchen table • I gagged as I lunched.  

Often vintage typewriter keys clattered • long letters, pithy poems & sceptical screeds to editors • truth over literary tradition more mattered. • those critics correct, this amateur concedes: • “Hemmings like hammer flying through glass window •  zealous Christian convert without nous. 

No female muse but Daisy, crazy rescue dog and kind companion • she often led the way up overgrown lanes, through gates, onto bog • ever faithful bitch, she would willingly obey spoken directions • unlike her muddled master • (angels frequently rescued him from disaster). 

Once with blunt saw, I vainly pruned lichen-mottled, ancient apple trees • wind rocked unstable ladder, transistor tuned to World Service BBC• incremental breeze spattered showers on spectacles, obscured amateur gardening effort • poor end-result assured. 

In memorable Mountmellick doomed dwelling miracles made manifest: • earth-hidden hundredfold buried bulbs were secretly sprouting, swelling • green bullet-buds flared into yellow-gold windmills, petalled flowers • God’s glory unfurled • poet struck wordless by wondrous rural world… 

You smear and slur, such sectarian spite: 
Israel demon black - Palestine pure white
snipers, paragliders and incendiary kites. 

Buildings aflame, glass smashed at night, 
inverted red triangles mark tumult sites; 
terrorists in tunnels, eyes burn bright. 

Speech shut down, foreign flags fly -
hearts spew hatred, othered people die. 
internet idiots omit - "when, where, why?”

Police tolerate terror, haloed Hamas hate 
toxic politic, interdicted any debate; 
Salafists test western walls and gates. 

Few need nuance, closed most minds
spittle screamed slogans, sectarian blind, 
no common ground: steel blades grind. 

Ancient dispute, poisoned promised land, 
axis of the world, hope hidden in sand; 
sly shayāṭīn serpent makes crazy demands. 

Satan spirit flexes, stormy seas and lands:
unending jinn nightmare, tight iron band;
distant drums boom, Armageddon at hand.

Unacknowledged king enters like night thief,
subdues rebel hearts, fortifies weak belief; 
angel legions foresee, exhale in relief.

Wonderfully reckless O wind and waves:
maritime shoreline storm spray paved:
unruly swell, surge batters, badly behaved.

Wonderfully reckless and badly behaved.
Wonderfully reckless and badly behaved

Tumbling tumult makes voice hoarse,
tight hands rail-anchored, of course:
wind-blown body bows, God’s gale force.

Tumbling tumult, God’s gale force

Turbulent tide surge, spraying, splashing,
Hear kettle-drum boom, cymbals crashing:
Drench-damped clothes, wind hard flapping,

Turbulent Turbulent  Turbulent tide surge, 
clash cymbals crashing


Exhilarating, energetic, stirring composition,
rugged waves writhe, percussive in mission,
Sea symphony operatic, turbulent audition.

Exhilarating, energetic - turbulent audition
turbulent turbulent turbulent ...God’s audition.

Boarding school was where we met,
breaking gender apartheid rules,
snogging, smoking illicit cigarettes,
Bach & Black Sabbath blends cool.

breaking breaking breaking apartheid rules

My hungry hands snaked under
your virgin-white school shirt,
eros obsessed, soft womanly wonder,
- afterwards charged tears and hurt.

afterwards, afterwards, afterwards tears and hurt

This boy's boorish heart quite unkind,
your dramatic overdose failed
to ignite lyrical ideals: so snowblind…
close to the edge we both sailed.

dramatic, dramatic, dramatic overdose failed

Each detente attempt quite short ,
some weeks later you ran away,
Certainly not I, Not I the strong port
where your sore heart could safely stay.

not I, not I, not I …your safe strong port

You Found my rumoured first verse,
class bin kept teen trauma penned,
Such emotional nudity I quietly cursed:
easy to break… ever ready to mend.

easy to break, easy to break, but ready to mend

Now on web-page I see your smile,
years later I recall keen amatory:
Svelte, sensual, hippy dress style
- No camera capture, unfinished story.

No camera capture, No camera capture
unfinished our sad story

newsy note then sent, tentatively sealed
with prayer, I hoped for requited reply -
ignored this late-prodigal poet's appeal
no chance for last gracious - goodbye…

ignored, ignored, ignored, late prodigal appeal
ignored, ignored, ignored, late prodigal appeal

Hear that hammer hitting, coffin-birthed sorrow,
stillborn baby silent, heavy heart unhallowed:
motherhood murdered, O spiteful, poisoned arrow.

hear that hammer, hear that hammer,
hear that hammer...hitting

O un-baptised baby, dead gaze, glazed eyes;
parents’ plaintive kiss stiffening body goodbye;
creation vomit-heaves, their heavenly Father cries.

heavenly Father, heavenly Father, 
heavenly Father cries…

Stubborn spades dig secret graves so deep,
midnight guardian angels watch and weep,
keening, greiving mothers refuse all sleep.

keening mothers, keening mothers
keening mothers refuse all sleep

Accursed limbo lies! Cruel Cillini plots moan,
profound pain unseen by priests, hearts of stone:
storms will pitifully uncover, scatter baby bones….

accursed limbo, accursed limbo, accursed limbo 
accursed limbo, cruel Cillini plots moan

Countless aching arms, countless empty wombs:
human hope can not fill such a starving vacuum,
stillborn babies apparently await fate’s godless gloom.

stillborn babies, stillborn babies, stillborn babies 
await fate’s godless gloom.

‘Unknown souls’ Catholic clergy wrongly claimed…
biblical assurances explicit, erased all social shame:
baby hairs God-numbered, parental pain re-framed.

God-numbered, God-numbered
God-numbered baby hairs …..
parental pain re-framed

As an Irish evangelical Anglican parent of a stillborn, I was shocked to read of the shameful stillborn burial practices in Catholic Ireland, going back in history. Due to the mistaken, unbiblical belief in “limbo”, those babies were not “allowed” proper graveyard burials. The grieving mother was not supposed to hold her baby or mourn it.

Instead, these sad stillborns were secretly buried near rivers and beaches, without any comforting priestly ministration. The sad burial journey to the 'cillin' was conducted by a male member of the family, in darkness. Other family members were not encouraged to recognise the birth of the child or to accompany it on its final journey…. small white stones were left as “markers” to the site.

As if that wasn’t enough parental pain, the unbaptised dead were believed to be capable of malevolence, ill will and capable of bringing bad luck on a house, even if they were only infants.

I hope that some parents broke such terrible taboos and made it their business to make secret, lonely journeys to mourn their lost children.

A Place that Harbours Memory

“The grave-markers at cillíní are always simple: nothing more than a small stone, standing or fallen, or perhaps a clutch of the white quartz pebbles. There are never names….

I have never found a single inscription to remember a child’s passing, no message of hope or mourning. Often there are no markers of any kind, so that a swell in the lie of a field and a note on a Victorian map are all there is to show that the dead are here. That and the tears.

Is that because these dead had no name?”

A Place that Harbours Memory

Flare of firework-rockets frighten
confined bulls, senses heightened;
gates flung open, loud crowd goads.
Stampeding bulls on cobble-stone roads:
primal animal anger explodes.

Macho males, testosterone reckless,
run with bulls, fearless and feckless;
cloven-footed hooves slip and slide,
horns bloody men's white shirt sides:
hundreds get injured, some have died.

Festival trumpets jocularly mock,
slow pendulum, death-ticking clock;
stick swords penetrate your spine:
blood seeps out, sweat-like shine;
your body broken by sadistic design.

O titanic toro - there’s no escape!
Matador teases with blood-red cape;
spectators celebrate while you die,
speechless beast, you cannot cry.
Who will shout stop? Not I…

Wounded and weary, now you kneel,
matador ignores impassive appeal:
now no longer feared mythic beast;
sword-plunge causes breathing to cease:
...no last rites, no summoned priest.

Such visceral cruelty should be banned,
blood graffiti shouts to God from sand.
sentient creatures so oppressed
in such an unequal, barbaric contest...

Let your shrivelled soul be distressed…

his middle-aged marathon, breathing fast:
the finish line would soon be passed.

the finish line soon passed.

diaphragm undulated under shroud-like sheet:
drum solo driven  Deep Purple beat.

drum solo driven, drum solo driven

post-operation a battered feeble frame;
long-written in the Book of Life, Roger’s name.

long-written, long-written, in the Book of Life
 
did he hear me speak assurances absolute? 
his once-weak, stammering speech now mute.

assurances, assurances  - assurances absolute 

later, I marvelled at his stark bedside:
seeing his brown eyes open, bright and wide.

brown eyes, brown eyes, open bright and wide

parable that symbolism; God had spoken,
eternity’s curtain suddenly pulled open,

eternity’s curtain, eternity’s curtain, suddenly pulled open

the end had come, Roger started to pale,
breathing slowed, heart started to fail.

end had come, end had come, 
Roger …..started to pale

almost-sacred silence soon descended,
seventy-two years …. gracefully ended.

seventy-two years, seventy-two years 
gracefully ended

later I left his lifeless body, slowly stiffening,
dawn paths glittered, faint frost star-glistening.

dawn paths glittered, dawn paths glittered
faint frost star-glistening
 
en-route to train: cold wind, dark clouds;
jubilant birdsong sang sweet and loud.

cold cold wind, dark dark clouds;
jubilant birdsong, sang sweet and loud...