18 Tuesday Sep 2018
My first grapes!
Kept thinking about The Vine and the need to ‘abide’ if one is a branch.
I am a minor twig, but I want to be fruitful so I am not pruned and
thrown on the fire.
08 Saturday Sep 2018
Tags
Benjamin's sack, Croatians, diptych, football, Henry Bolingbroke, Joseph, King Edward, King Richard, livery badge, martlet, Pope, Revenge Parliament, shrines, St George, WAGS, Wilton diptych, World Cup
Viewing The Wilton Diptych on the Day England Realised
‘It [wasn’t] coming home.’
We knelt with King Richard – supplicated;
wanted to wave that pennant of St George,
which was frustratingly just out of reach.
There was no revolt; the ‘peasants’ behaved.
Why did the Virgin reward Croatians?
Why did Henry Bolingbroke take the crown?
Why is the Pope a Catholic?
All our hearts were couchant and chained today.
The shock of failure was epiphanal.
Our livery badge was the three lions.
The angel team seemed to be in clover,
while we were brought to our knees in wasteland.
After four years the Revenge Parliament
will sit. We will challenge hollow power.
Our heraldic past was manufactured –
attributed, as Edward’s martlet shield.
Our feet seemed to be made of feathers
like the little birds thereon depicted.
Shrines and treasures are often portable
and they can be exchanged across countries,
like trophy WAGS. We would have kissed the feet
of anyone who’d helped us win the cup;
not let it pass from us
into some thieving Benjamin’s rucksack.
With sainted management behind us, we,
like Joseph, will recover the chalice.
03 Monday Sep 2018
Tags
archetypes, collage, myths, Poetry, prayer, self, transitional state
02 Sunday Sep 2018
Posted in Architecture, art, Arts, Celebrities, Community, Education, History, Literature, Personal, Photography, Relationships, Religion, Sculpture, Summer, Travel
Tags
Alice in Wonderland, Alice Liddell, Christ Church, Henry Liddell, Lewis Carroll, Oxford, Peter Eugene Ball
Peter Eugene Ball’s Madonna and Child; statue of Henry Liddell
(father of Alice, as in ‘Wonderland’)
Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart
31 Friday Aug 2018
18 Saturday Aug 2018
This gallery contains 6 photos.
17 Friday Aug 2018
Posted in art, Bible, Personal, Photography, Religion
by Ian McKillop
Photos by Candia Dixon-Stuart
16 Thursday Aug 2018
Posted in art, Photography, Religion
This gallery contains 6 photos.
14 Tuesday Aug 2018
Tags
Engraving by Bernhard Rode, c 1775
Photo by James Steakley, 2009. Wiki Commons
My friends let me down
and they vandalised the house.
I went through the roof –
deus ex machina (not).
Still, theatrical.
Talk about vertiginous!
I felt suspended,
like those spies in Jericho
whom Rahab rescued.
Well, I was a stretcher case,
until Joshua –
this one – spoke to me.
I do believe that
He could make the sun stand still.
(My friends will repair the roof.)
12 Sunday Aug 2018
Posted in Bible, Education, Literature, Poetry, Psychology, Religion, Social Comment, Writing
I have always liked this dialogue from ‘Jane Eyre’
but I have put it into metre and expanded it a little.
Where do the wicked go when their death knell
has been tolled, you insignificant child?
Good sir, I believe that they go to Hell.
Describe this place reserved for those not mild,
nor meek.
Sir, it is a pit full of fire.
Should you like to fall into such a place?
(Then you would not join the Heavenly choir.)
I hope to reach Paradise, by God’s grace.
So, how might you avoid a dark decree?
I must try to keep in the best of health;
I must not listen to a Pharisee,
nor to those who slavishly amass wealth.
In short, I must take care never to die.
My God is Truth and yours, Sir, is a Lie.
