Would You Help? - a poem by Martin Binnington

 

Prayer - a poem by (Anonymous), 2013

Prayer leads to every other response.

It’s the key that opens hearts.

It’s a time for grace, a time for the soul, for the heart to open.

It’s a time to prepare; a time to repair;

A time to repent; a time to relent;

It’s a time to reflect and a time to connect;

It’s a time to believe, to ask and receive;

A time to rest in God’s heart, to make a fresh start.

Prayer is a time for grace.

Anon, 2013

The Awakening - a poem by Martin Binnington

The Poetic Road - a video by Martin Binnington

The Path

by Alan Bold...

There is a path around a mile and a half from my house, which the local council commissioned a poet to write a poem on.

This video shows that poem. (The words are clarified underneath, as I realise that due to sunshine and shade, some of the words aren't clear)

“The Path” by Alan Bold

Watch where you are going,

These words you see are only growing,

You hop skip or jump into the game of life or death.

You look this way or that

Or wander from the given path

You can be almost an angel

Or purely a devil

You can give out warmth or embody cold evil

You can walk with your neighbour

Or run on ahead,

You can lie in your teeth

Or mean what you said,

This earth moves you through dark days and bright nights,

As you stand still on one of the sun’s satellites,

In perpetual motion,

Through space you spin round,

You can feel the emotion,

With your feet on the ground.

So though you are rooted,

You can never stand still

You can make this your heaven,

You can let it be hell,

Be it fair or bitter cold,

This is true.

The Quiet Man - Chapter Two

Jude awoke with a jolt. There was still a shaft of light streaming through a solitary clean spot in a grubby window, which partially illuminated the scene. He rubbed his eyes, and groggily took in his surroundings. 

He was sitting on a long bench which stretched along most of one wall. He had set his pack on the bench beside him, and this had stopped him falling over as he slept. The door, through which he had entered, was to his left, about half way between Jude and the far wall. Opposite him, there was an old fireplace which hadn't felt the warm of a wood fire for a long time; there were layers of grey and brown feathers strewn around the blackened hearth. There was still a hint of a smokey smell in the room though. Perhaps the bandits used the area for shelter, just as Jude had, but made fires in another area so they didn't disturb the birds nests.

To Jude's right, there were two windows. Both looked to have been hastily boarded up, and there were gaps where the boards had fallen off. The light was entering through one such gap, but the windows had not seen daylight or rain for a while.

In the centre of the room there was an empty table, with a couple of wooden chairs tucked in on one side. On the other side, Jude could see the remains of another chair. Did the bandits use the chairs to make a fire, instead of searching for fallen branches in the woodland outside? It was a miracle that the place hadn't burned down!

Jude stood up, his thighs and hamstrings aching in protest at the sudden movement, and made his way to the table, where he set his pack down. He walked to the doorway and heaved on the handle attached to the old dark hunk of wood. Stepping outside, he realised that it was not evening like he had thought. He had slept through most of the night; the sun was already lighting the sky above the horizon, chasing the stars to the other side of the world, before making its journey up towards its midday zenith.

It was still very early, perhaps 5 or 6 o'clock. Jude went back inside, leaving the door open, and took out a parcel of food he was going to eat last night before sleeping. He sat on one of the two chairs, hearing the wood creak as it shifted to a new position to support his weight. He tore off a hunk of bread and took a few slices of the dried meat he had lifted from his larder, and sat chewing. His eyes glazed as he stared unseeing at the wall, while his mind was racing. Why was the letter sent to him? Surely there were others who were closer than him, who could be there before him? They must know it would take him days to make the journey... or maybe letters had been sent to all of them, and the first person who made it back would do what needed to be done.

The letter didn't contain many clues, but it didn't have to. The words that had hastily been scrawled on the parchment were all that were needed to make Jude act. It read:

He had seen the insignia before; it was the emblem of the Society of The Reborn, an Order which his parents had founded with a dozen others many years before Jude's birth, when they had found the artifacts.

After his parents had died, when Jude was a teenager, the twelve other founders had attended their funerals. They always wore the same; long black trousers with a red stripe running down the outside of each leg, shiny black boots, a long black trenchcoat with the red phoenix sitting proud on double breast pockets, and a white jersey with red collar.

After the formal ceremony of his father's funeral, two years after his mother's passing, the abbot had approached Jude, during the informal gathering, about accepting his parents' roles in the Society.

"There really aren't many duties that you'll have to take care of on a regular basis," the abbot had said. "You can come and visit the sanctuary with us when we return tomorrow, and see what it is we do. It might help you to recover from the trauma of losing your parents. We will, of course, support and respect any decision you make."

Jude had answered, "Can I come and see what you do before I decide? My mum and dad have... had never really told me much about it."

The abbot nodded. "Of course you can! If you decided you don't want to take up your parents' place, we won't try to change your mind. We would only ask that if anyone asks you about us, you won't tell them where the sanctuary is. There are those who would prefer that our Order didn't exist, and that the artifacts remained lost forever."

Jude had agreed to go. His curiosity had been sparked at the mention of artifacts, and the trip might help take his mind off things here, not to mention the sympathetic looks he would get from the neighbours. The next morning, Jude had packed a bag, left the key with the lady next door, who promised to tend his vegetable gardens and fruit trees, and keep an eye on the house while he was gone.

Just as he had done yesterday, the Society had travelled the North Road past the mountain, and had stayed at the inn at the crossroads.

Jude shook his head to dislodge that old memory, finished the bread and meat, closed his pack and left the abandoned house, forcing the door closed behind him. He turned to his right. The East Road, which would eventually take him near the port, stretched out ahead of him. He set out on the second day of his long journey.

Alone - a poem by Martin Binningt

Alone

a poem by Martin Binnington

© May 2013

I'm in a room without a door,

A place I've never been before,

There's no way in, and no way out.

It's dark and dry, and oh so small,

My head's on the ceiling, my arms touch the wall,

There's no escape hatch, no way out!

There's scrabbling, as of little claws,

The constant buzz of tiny saws,

Why is there no way out?

It's claustrophobic, a trap perhaps?

Maybe a building has collapsed?

I try to yell, "Please, let me out!"

I realise I made no sound,

This room I'm in, it's underground,

That is why there's no way out.

I relax, accept my fate,

There is no sign of a heavenly gate,

I'm here forever, trapped, with no way out.

The Quiet Man - Chapter One

There once lived a man, who people called Jude. You might ask why they called him that. Frankly, I don't know. As far as I remember, everyone who knew him called him Jude. In fact, nobody in the village could remember his real name any more... This was his way though, he wouldn't correct people when they called him by this name; he actually preferred it to the one his parents had given him all those years ago, before they has succumbed to old age when he was in his teens.

There was no family nearby to look after him after they died, so the house they all shared was left to Jude, and his next-door neighbours kept an eye on him until he was old enough to look after his own affairs.

Jude was a quiet man, and had always been this way, by all accounts. He would stay out of people's way, which was difficult because he stood out from the crowd with his tall, lanky stature, his bright red hair, and his wide, almost stupid grin. If he was able to, he would help his friends and anyone else he could. He had virtually no money to spare, but would allow people to spend the night in his spare room, or would invite them in for some food if he saw that they were hungry.

He was considered wise by his friends, but stupid to those outside his small circle.

One day, Jude received a letter. This was unusual in itself; most of the people he knew lived in the same village, and most of his other friends didn't live too far away. He opened the letter, and felt for a chair behind him. He sat, without taking his eyes off the parchment in his hand, and leaned forward so his forearms rested on his knees. He took a deep breath, and appeared to be deep in thought for a few moments. Then, suddenly, he sprang from the wicker stool he had sat upon, dashed around the house with the letter still in his grasp, gathered some clothes, a few other supplies and some food, packed them into a backpack which he kept in a cupboard by the door, and strode out of his home, only stopping to lock the front door and give the key to an elderly neighbour.

This all happened around midmorning. He told nobody where he was going.

Jude lived on the south side of a fairly small island. In the spring and summer months, it was warm enough to grow all sorts of fruits, vegetables and herbs in his garden which stretched back from his house to the slopes of a hill. The hill sheltered his village from cold northerly winds in winter, and reflected the heat back into Jude's garden when the sun shone.

The day Jude left, he was spotted by a few men who were hunting deer in the forest to the west of the village. He looked to be heading up the North road, which was rumoured to be bandit country, so the men asked him where he was heading.

"There's a port at the north-west side of the island," Jude shouted back to them. "I have to see if there's a ship heading west across the Empty Ocean." And with that remark, he turned and continued on his way. The men looked at each other, puzzled.

"I didn't think he'd ever left the village," one said.

"Me neither, but he wouldn't leave if it wasn't important," the second man replied.

The third, the taller of the three, watched Jude disappear over the brow of the hill. Then he said, "I wonder if we should follow him, and make sure no harm comes to him?"

"Nah, he's a smart lad. At the first sight of trouble, he'll be lost in a cloud of dust as he runs away!"

For the whole day, Jude walked the long North Road, only stopping for a short break to eat some of the cake that he had packed, and to refill his water container at a waterfall which fell from a cliff overhaning the road. He reached a crossroads just as the sun was setting. There were a few houses and an inn. It looked to Jude as though none had been lived in for years, which was odd because this was where the North Road met the main highway from the east to the west of the island. He knocked on the old, sunbaked doors of each house, to see if anyone answered, after he had tried the door to the inn.

There was no answer from any house. They all lay vacant, with broken windows that looked like portals to the darkness which sometimes haunted Jude's dreams. He pushed open the door to the only house without broken windows. He didn't feel safe enough to sleep outside, and who knows what creatures may have crept into the open windows of the others.

He dropped his pack onto the bare wooden floor, grateful that the weight had been taken off his shoulders. He found the letter that he had hastily stuffed into the side pocket of the pack, and read it again...

To be continued...