PETE'S BLOG
0 Comments2 Minutes
Now
I believe in God Almighty and in Jesus Messiah his only Son our Lord
Who so loved the world he gave us blue skies
And all those other things that go nowhere
Like a song in an empty house
A river without a boat
And a broken heart as an answer.
Who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
Who played and laughed, wept and slept
Worked late; drank and ate.
Offended preachers who pretended
Fuddled teachers who were leeches
Lawyered lawyers who lawyered
Rocked Romans and Jews on six o'clock news
Delighted children
Excited me
Had fun under the sun
Performed miracles in coracles.
Was crucified under the enlightenment of Pontius Pilate
Rose from the dead on Day Three of my shopping spree
Ascended into heaven's leaven
And sits at the right hand of the Father in that house across the road.
And now! … is the song in my empty house
The ripple in my river
The sweetness of the silence
In the broken-hearted faces on my street
Which come to judge and bless the living and the dead.
Peter Volkofsky (Spring 2012)
0 Comments1 Minute
Kvetch
Hey Kvetch!
Cut the cavil, the carp
The gripe, the trite
The whine-dine-line!
0 Comments10 Minutes
The Catch
Talking of a colourless dream
Floating in the pin-stripes, drinks
And speechified air
Is a father: his wound is closed.
The only one who knows it ... almost.
There is one other
A boy with a clock ticking
In a tight tie
Checking the walls
His wound is open.
He opens his mouth before his mind
Can bolt the gate and slam the cell
And play a colourless game
Feel a colourless feeling
And talk in a colourless language.
Heart out on the sleeve
Caution to the wind
He capsizes and swims
A cold flood of thoughtfulness
A drowning flood of kindness
A correcting, tidying, mopping flood of darkness.
In one searching, furtive glance
The stricken boy in the crowded room
Swings his searchlight round.
The clock runs down
The eyes meet
The father stumbles and almost drops the catch
Like an ungainly slips fieldsman
The boy smiles inside, happy.
For one, the moment’s lost in a blur of childhood dreams,
But for the other
That furtive glance
Has stamped a fearful mark in the gilded halls of spirit memory.
(Peter Volkofsky. Winter 2006)
