Peter Lilly: Poems

You took on flesh, True flesh and grew With the same astonishing  Life-long quickness  Of my one-year-old son. You had a first birthday,  Finding your feet, The Word, imitating language With sighs and groans, The Word of Life, so deep within, So clear and true, In unadulterated expression Of a conviction beyond Language. On the 28th of December my son, Gabriel, will have his first birthday. The year has been indescribable. Yet throughout all the challenges, just revelling in the privilege of being with our little boy as he grows has brought such sheer joy. At this time of year I'm obviously thinking about the incarnation. But rather than Jesus' birth, I'm thinking of him at the same stage of life as our little boy, as a one-year-old. Gabriel has been walking for a couple of months now, and often makes long convicted speeches in sounds that no one else understands, waving his hands like he's teaching some essential truth to a captiv...

'Two others also, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him.' Calendar's rhythm thuds. The kick drum rattles your rib cage As collective memories and communal routines Plume like dust from that undulating skin. ..... You must wrap gifts in superfluous paper, ..... That's tradition. ..... Yet repeating acts to underline thankfulness, ..... That's superstition. Calendar's rhythm thuds And we bellow through that dust cloud, Clearing our throats and averting our eyes. THUD For the drum announces the sales THUD The rhythm is the anthem of vacation gifts. So discard the old and ugly, To find the beauty, To spend and to own.  'They came to the place that is called The Skull ' Excited skin bristles. Chill shivers the spine in want For purpose and ergonomics dim in contrast To the lights, and the efficacious movement of the crowd. ..... So much spectacle, ..... All these plate glass doors, ...

Surrounded by the displaced I will work tirelessly To renounce my citizenship. My silhouette in this system Is cast by the shadow of my ego, The me that belongs was made for death And I will no longer conform to its will.  With everything that happened in 2016, the question of national identity and citizenship is a hot topic. This poem is named after the book by Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon which discusses the nature of the church and its relationships to the cultures it exists within.  Christians are not supposed to be citizens belonging to the cultures of this world, but Resident Aliens, living  uncomfortably  within yet with our identity firmly planted in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. At a time when the world has more displaced people than ever on record, most of us in our comfortable western lives, will be encountering 'aliens' on a regular basis. Let this new year be an opportunity to extend grace to those who do not f...

peterlillypoetry · Displaced redemption There was a world, displaced from its axis by repeated tragedies of its own making, as the inhabitants attempt to grasp the credit for it's own creating. An entire macrocosm misaligned by embezzling clutches and throning lusts. Who's history is marked by a needless taking, and just in case, a pious faking to appease a possible divinity as either a patsy or a machine. There was a world, decomposing in it's own folly. Spinning itself dizzy flailing after impervious redemption. And inside that world there was a people displaced from its milk and honey by a ruling superpower. As the globalising tar of Rome spread to paint the Empire one culture, this people had been waiting. Listening in silence for the reason of their plight, Waiting for the sword of a rallying leader to severe their shackles, and the throats of the chain-bearers, alike. Waiting with the same attitude ...

I am disappearing, down into the linen that caresses my body as my mind criss-crosses, chasing through meandering crises of nocturnal fabrication. I am full of hope, and dread... and whispers. Soft chalk runs out before the lesson is learnt. I was truant anyway, day dreaming of summer. I am disappearing into something, yet I still see my shuffling footprints, scoring a perforation through this continuum; a seam to tear and a void to feel expanding. Fields of livestock and houses of television faces, all lost in the gap that is left. It is potential hidden in false humility. I am disappearing, if I fight it I sever the umbilical cord that attaches me to my Father. It is an artery, with flow too fast to cauterise. I would disappear in the dirty needles and forgotten-butt fires. Lucid, as I feel my significance hang its head from my skin in shame...

Crayon fingers clasp at the pictures of another's mind. Leaving you to salivate over silhouettes of broken pieces of conversation: chiming a random anthem as they settle in the sad lifelessness of silent fragments, and I want to hide from the ocean beneath the sand of the coastline you fashioned with those crayon fingers. Rain peppered beaches sigh moments of fresh water at the salt of the inhalation waves. It waves me farewell to your listening. So make a water world of your speaking and dream the abyss of walls away. Contact your forgotten ambition in the misassembled shapes of frozen water and draw what you see in your own contrition taste the flavours that your art tried to achieve and feel  the purity  of all dimensions  of this creation as it awaits the artist's  restoration: injecting pure colour into the hearts of each willing figure of this moving canvas ...