New* for Summer 2026: Patterns, The Clown, Hidden.

* "New" means new to this blog. Some of these were written years ago but were never published. Some needed a lot of updating!

Patterns

Holy and undivided Trinity

Three persons are a perfect unity

Giving yourself in love eternally

One to another giving, majesty

Forever moving, though immutably,

Pouring yourselves away all sinlessly

Giving yourself in love eternally

None reaches up to press for primacy

No shade when light is shed so liquidly

Can find a masking place: all holily

Three persons are a perfect unity

A stillness pulsing with all energy

A giving that reverses entropy

Action unblemished, thought a radiancy

Holy and undivided Trinity

Love is the name of God, and lovelily

Three are composed of One, and One of Three

Love, joy and peace embrace infinity

Giving yourself in love eternally

Three persons are a perfect unity

Holy and undivided Trinity…

The Clown

If I must inhabit

Venus’ happy court

I would be her jester,

Make her joys my sport.

I’d threaten all the lovebirds

To turn them into pie,

Arraign the silly butterflies

For thinking they could fly.

“Nymph? She’s just a peasant,

Her swain is just a churl.”

I’d mock the moonstruck gallant

And his maudlin girl.

With sweet acerbic jibing

I’d follow them all day.

Though they’d just say I’m teasing

I’d ease my tears away.

They’d be too busy loving

To give much mind to me

And I’d forget in laughter

The pain they never see.

Hidden

Set your mind on things above… For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. Colossians 3

My life is hidden in God with Christ my Lord

My death an echo of his sundered grave

My song is tuning to a distant chord

My soul, dawn stirring in a twilit wood

In longing for his light is all my love

My life is hidden in God with Christ my Lord

Hear now the chirrup of a waking bird

While light is yet to creep through clouds above

My song is tuning to a distant chord

Waste shall fall from me and become the food

That cycles through the earth and makes it move

My life is hidden in God with Christ my Lord

World swirls around me with unwearying word

Selling the trash that glitters in its trove

My song is tuning to a distant chord

Here in the heavens with you is all my hoard

Here is the soul you spent yourself to save

My life is hidden in God with Christ my Lord

My song is tuning to a distant chord.

For poetic structure nerds, the form of "Hidden" is a villanelle. I don't usually mess with these complicated formats, in fact this is my very first one. However I felt the delicate chiming of the repeated lines would bring out the feeling of that far off and faint, yet ever present, life and longing, like distant bells. I also decided to leave out punctuation to let the sounds run into each other more, with the same intention. I leave it with you to decide whether it worked. 

The twentieth century produced many fine examples of villanelles, including "Do not go gentle into that good night" by Dylan Thomas and "If I could tell you" by W H Auden.