Peter Lilly: Poems

'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, ...

If you are anywhere near Northwest London this Easter you should go along to the Easter Joy and Justice Arts Project in Northwood.   It's 'An amazing opportunity to engage with various art pieces, created by 13 local artists, and see the Easter narrative in a new light. The project combines the Easter narrative with issues of justice (e.g. homelessness, poverty, climate change, drought) and brings together these concepts through various pieces of reflective and transformative light.'   It's running from 11th to the 22nd of April, for specific times and more details follow the link.

Time occasionally escapes its narrow tube of transport in waves of influence. There is one event so significant it feels like it is ever repeating because it's always unfolding in freshly realised implications, new dimensions of completion and pristine epochs of accomplishment. It is an event of bloody terror, an event of merciful healing. It is an event of violent killing, and event of peaceful giving. It is an event of overwhelming sorrow, an even of heart-deep joy. It is an event of whips and nails, an event of captives freed. It is an event of a cry forsaken, an event comfort for the isolated. It is an event of naked humiliation, an event of shame concealed. It is an event of goodness silenced, an event of amplified perfection. It is an event of blind condemnation, an event of liberating conviction. It is an event of ultimate death, an event of unquenchable life. Time did escape its narrow ...

This is the celebration of: the hinge of history; the spine of the book of the universe; the apex of the temple of the presence of God. Throughout history Humanity has been lost, we have been known by our selfishness, and by our cruelty to humanity. The myth of progress only serves to make one culture feel superior. But this is where things change. The thick skin  of calloused sin is broken and dissolved by the creator; redeeming  filthy flesh  by becoming  what we can now become through him. This is where things change. His un-stainable surface sticks out from within the landfill of sin in every uncompromising step he communicated: God's love; The personality of the creator; Freedom from judgement; Emancipation from slavery of selfishness; Humanities' purpose; And healing from pain. This is where things ch...

Personified hope
 bleeds a new type of blood
 that changes everything.
 Day whispers the beauty of solar warmth 
to its successor,
 and night learns the depths of starry wisdom from its predecessor, each reminding this self-conscious sphere of the glory of our creator. But every day we slightly mishear, 
each distortion is magnified by years, 
 each childlike age chews at its own flesh in fear 
each, confused by pain searches the skies for answers,
 Because everything has its orbit. 


 Yet The Originator of it all stooped into this cell structure and was born with a guiding proclamation from the sky, he stepped inside matter and was tangible for evermore, he stretched out feeble infant-limbs with all the body's nerve endings to truly feel. The Originator grew in potent purifying grace; so putrid to a distorted universe that his life of self-less giving and shameless truth lead to gratuitous and agonising crucifixion. Th...

There is something in this nothing, this sorrowful gasp, this fast of disbelief. For the wave of excitement never expects the desert or death. Loss amnesia extracted memories of hope, hopeless insomnia gouged through rest with nihilist emptiness, yet purpose is enduring and truth is still breathing, despite every miss-belief and projections of human limitations. The truth of the pain is this; there is more than a consolation in this death. There were whispers of victory in the wind; but the noise of mourning drowned out its tender premonitions. There is something in this nothing, something more than consolation in this loss, this sorrowful gasp. How is one supposed to breath in this space between death and life? this Sheol on earth? this furrowed brow of question-mark day between redemption and vindication? How is one supposed to breath, eat or sleep in this vacuous void? What emptiness there was without expect...