Peter Lilly: Poems

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...

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...

This total aversion to movement has left the vehicle drifting because You are not contained in static, solid, stability. Just hit this wall and see it move see it bleed and hear it weep, as it knows it cannot grow, only slowly crack and fall apart. Denial of entropy is exhausting and accepting it is death... and the middle ground indecision is a twisting of rumours and a whispering of fact. The context of these chaotic patterns is one of a wider purpose. Revel in the insignificance of what is universally observable, and know that they are but measly matter in a reality that is under divinity, spheres within spheres of acceptance and denial. -so here we are... standing still, plummeting and breathing Written October 2011

Some of these questions break apart on impact, and some penetrate; hollowed darts injecting deathly poison, injecting rescuing medicine. Life-saving doubt defibrillates with pulses of reality from a zealous coma, so one can grow. Do not fear the weight or the stone will have already crushed you. Lift it and proceed, grow strong. Questions scaffold the steps of covenant and it all makes sense. Talk across the whispered answers to find yourself alone, there's not even sand in this desert. Sedative nerves trap stimulated eyes which dart from vacuum to abyss. There's no progress for content in monologue; Only for presentation. Listen to the answers, explore the essential taboo of questions until, apprehension no longer cracks your voice with conditioned guilt and it becomes, merely the way you live, and love. Grow with questions. Written 05/04/11.