Poems – Page 35 – hymnsandbooks

No armistice – Remembrance – every year

No armistice
and every day a memory,
not remembrance.
Survival’s guilt hangs heavy
like a shroud.
The frightened eyes,
the failing breath,
the flailing limbs,
I will never forget.
Never forget.
Decades pass,
yet nothing fades,
vivid as yesterday
the violence,
the carnage,
flamed on the retina
of my mind.
I hold his hand,
hear his voice,
he slips away,
is,
yet is no more,
And
at the going down of the sun
and in every blazing,
blinding moment
I will remember him.
God where is your victory?
Death, I feel your sting.
Christ!
hold me.

Dysfunctional people? The state of society witnessed by politics

Dysfunctional people still seeking direction,
still blindly pursuing our selfish desires,
we’re longing for certainty, vision distorted,
embers of hate blown to wild, raging fires.

Struggling persistently, stirring up prejudice,
fuelling the hatred that labels the poor;
storing our wealth, yet more grasping than giving,
hoarding what’s worthless in life’s endless store.

When will we learn that our Godless humanity
faults every plan, undermines every hope,
leaving us desolate, fearing the future,
putting the love that we crave beyond scope?

Good God forgive us, restore and renew us,
knit a community woven with grace,
help us to live held by love for each other,
here, in this moment, right here in this place.

Andrew Pratt (7/11/2018)

Reflecting on the state of society in the UK and USA following mid-term elections in the USA.
Words © 2018 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England,
http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.

Nothing fixed or final

Mystery and wonder,

love and compassion have freedom

when we recognise that

no ‘religious’ creed can ever be
fixed or final.

Then love can encompass those we have,

in our wisdom,

deemed to be beyond love

even if our scripture and tradition

seem to tell us otherwise.

How can we sing of that sad conflagration

How can we sing of that sad conflagration:
cauldron of misery, mud, gas and fire?
Young men had gone, some inspired and excited,
then all too soon hanging dead on the wire.

Here amid blood tattered, writhing humanity,
can we find Christ? Is this glorious, this death?
Here, where the best of a whole generation
gave of their all and had breathed their last breath?

They lived and died through the lie of their ‘betters’,
others had said that this war would end war.
Subsequent history unfolded the story,
showing humanity hankers for more.

God let us learn how to love every neighbour,
living our lives in the style of the cross,
valuing others as sisters and brothers,
giving our all, never counting the loss.

Then is the Spirit of Christ found among us,
then are we worthy to stand in his name,
then we can say that we truly are Christian,
love is the evidence, this is our claim.
Andrew E Pratt
Tune: STEWARDSHIP
Words © 2018 Stainer & Bell Ltd, London, England, http://www.stainer.co.uk.
Please include any reproduction for local church use on your CCL Licence returns. All wider and any commercial use requires prior application to Stainer & Bell Ltd.
11 10 11 10

In response to the Grenfell Tower fire

Through a glass darkly the smoke is obscuring
flames that are burning – hell come upon earth;
hell made by hands with a human intention –
housing? entrapment? a prison of death?

People of all faiths cry out in their anguish,
horror and anger inflamed by their grief;
others reach out through the fierce conflagration,
risking their lives just to offer relief.

This is salvation in practical action,
not some theology – heartless – obscure;
hands reaching out like the strong hands of Jesus,
offering love, but can hope be secure?
© Andrew Pratt 15/6/2017