All Hallows Eve

Sweet chestnuts

Underfoot

Chanterelles beside us

Summer sunshine

In a ditch

All around me

The soft sweet scent

Of damp decay

The fondliest fondness

Of the year

All hallows eve

Be not tricked by

Summer's fickleness

Consigned to certain memory

Now the surety of dark cloud

Geese and redwing wheel and drop

Across the marsh a distant window lit

Set upon the glowing hearth

There's a treat.

Church v The clocks

This morning I lay abed,

Clocks waking me too soon

To be radio jacked

By the Baptists of Solihull

Whose mission was come

To clamber into bed with me.

I heard their call

Evangelical of  zeal

Being sent to spread

The good news

No doubt with cymbal

And with trumpet blast,

As the psalmist might say

Then did I

Being from sleep untimely snatched

And turning to the autumn sky

Did solace seek

And in my silence listen

To the voice that comes with prayer

And so to know again

I have within me what I seek.

Given time and quiet

He will be given to me

In the still small voice of calm.

I could not help but feel

With all those sharp delivered words

The meaning

Did all but slip away.

Softly closing a door behind it

To taste the tang of Autumn in the air.

JL Oct 30 2011

Sweet Dreams

 In the dream

All is well accordingly.

I fear the dream

For being the dream,

Interrogate the dream,

Ask them the date.

Then I know

It predates the Event.

Then I know

The dream

For what it is

A dream.

And in contrary fashion

Enter the nightmare

Quite cold

And wide awake.

JL Oct 29 2011

Interned

Hyper dermic laughter
In  a jugular vein
Or deathless prose
To ward off evil

No sound of screens
On Nightingale ward
No Florence on her round
Winifred or Madge
Wearing their noble
Sisterly badge

Just bay watch
Without the bikinis.

Don't nurse a grudge
Or grudge a nurse
If the night staff
Seem too terse


Are you comfortable
Just watch that drip
All tucked up
Could take a trip

On the midnight
No watch we keep
Just the high
Interminable bleep

Dawn breaks on us
Holed above the waistline
Listing to port
But hoping for a rising tide
And other movements beside.

Weigh anchor I hear the capstan grind
Thank you all for keeping me in mind.





Having returned I was short on humour. Maybe it will come later, when I have fully mastered my feeding tube. For the moment I will describe her thus. (Percutaneous Endoscopic Gastrostomy), quite a mouthful which she certainly is not.

  She can appear as aunty Peg and needs careful manipulation to come through, I thought to say, smelling of roses, however it is more likely to be vanilla: a warm and rounded little number who becomes rather flushed as we begin.  She has a saucy daughter, cousin Peg, who is made of sterner stuff and who seems to have set her cap at me and promises to be quite the little mover. It's always best in stressful situations, I think, to loosen up and I am trying very hard. More of this later.

Just noticed am still wearing  identity bracelet.   (17:08)

JL 28     Oct 2011.

Tomorrow and Tomorrow .....

Oh No!!  He's not home until tomorrow now - he was much more cheerful today though!!


Nora

Hospital update

Hello everybody, 


Jeff is much better this evening although very tired.  He is hoping to be coming home tomorrow but I'll have to wait for official confirmation of his 'opinion' from the Doctor.  He had a bit of a wobble in the middle of the day, went pale and dramatic but put it down to codeine pain relief.  It worked though because the pain has gone. He says the hospital staff are all very good and kind.  Look out for some rather amusing hospital related poetry when he gets back to his keyboard!!!! 


Nora

Dear Friends and followers of Jeff's blog, This is Nora (on his behalf).  He was admitted to Preston Royal Infirmary yesterday to have a PEG fitted - no idea what that stands for but it is a feeding tube.  He was not happy about this step but became resigned.  The operation was successful but this afternoon he was in a lot of pain, which was awful for him and upsetting for me.  This evening he was a little bit more comfortable.  He has surrounded himself with his technology  - iPod,very expensive head phones, iPad, smart phone and Kindle.   I hope that he will be feeling a lot better tomorrow.  As he isn't connected to the internet he can't post a blog himself (doubt he felt much like it today anyway) but I'm sure he will be back on line as soon as he can.   Will update you all tomorrow.
Nora

My Forest Trees

My forest trees

Claw their fingers

Through the leaves

Just now.

Burnished tatters

Blown to ground

Summer's litter

Jettisoned aloft

Dark ragged rooks

Flap their flags

Fly Jolly rogers

In the rigging

I alas no pirate king

A mariner ashore

Praying for a fair wind

And a rising tide.

A patch over one eye

Searching for a blue patch

In the sky.

JL  24 Oct  2011

Fighting Talk

Faith is not certainty

But having the courage to live with uncertainty.

Jacob wrestles with the angel.

He refuses to let go

The angel the messenger.

The message bringer from God.

So must we wrestle with the word

Even to the door of uncertainty

Refuse to let go.

Faith is the wrestling with the angel.

wrestling with the message.

On this wet Sunday morning

I set out to make my act of faith.

JL 23 Oct 

A Tender Moment

Today let us think

Of tenderness

An infant touch

Of cheek

The merest touch

Of lips along

A rising breast

The enfoldment

In the christening shawl

My hand supports

Your head

I feel the rising

Of your  cry.

Come O Holy Spirit

Fill the hearts of the faithful

With a tenderness of love.

No fire needed.

Unsettled

Unsettled

By silver sixpences

And things

That don't make sense.

Shook by

Bits of happenstance

And things

That come by chance

And the frightfulness of objects

Between the hours of two and four

That dance about my eyes and ears

And shake me to the core.

A tremble worthy night

For sure.

JL 20 Oct 2011