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music Poetry

“The Known Great Composer”

A few years ago I was online scanning the concert listings at a world-class venue in London. On this particular occasion I was looking for small scale music-making. The Baroque era is a favourite of mine, and I chose a recorder and theorbo programme.

On the day of the concert I was early, and so decided to spend some time in a book shop. Afterwards, I went to the concert hall and started my packed lunch. Before I could finish it was time for the concert to begin.

During the concert sometimes the instruments played together, sometimes they played solo. For one recorder solo, the recordist played two recorders simultaneously! When the theorboist played solo pieces, one of them was introduced as a passacaglia – which, to my amusement, collected philistinic giggles. If only the pictures of musical aristocracy on the walls of the concert room had ears of flesh!

This poem, The Known Great Composer, is about the concert. Head and shoulders above, one composer and his music made my whole time in London memorable. Memorable for the right reason – music.

No prizes, but if you can guess the Great Composer I don’t mention, you are a winner! Clue: Imagine the accompanying music in this clip being played two octaves lower on a solo cello…

First verse

“The Known Great Composer”

“The window blinds close

The stage lights are adjusted

Two musicians walk on stage

And we welcome them warmly…”

On the way home, I happened to see someone I knew. We talked for a while, and I expressed that I would be writing a poem about the concert. By this time, my mind had already begun putting the poem together.

Furthermore, before arriving home, I visited a local art gallery and talked more about poetry to the exhibiting Artist, referencing the couple of books I bought earlier that day written by the Poet Laureate.

Categories
Poetry

This is the Month – Eastertide

This is the month

When they say that it rains and pours

Down come the showers

From heaven’s open doors

But in-between the cascades

There are beams of sunlight 

Shining through clouds

Heavy laden and fluffy white

This is the month

When the daylight grows longer and longer

With the sun rising earlier

And setting later and later

There is also a change

In the quality of light visible in the atmosphere

This phenomenon only happens

Once in the northern hemisphere 

This is the month

When spring is well and truly here 

It’s time for leaping of the lamb

And the young deer

Buds are prising open

Seeds and bulbs germinate

O’ the splendour

Of nature’s natural nascency about this date

This is the month

That brings high tides to our shores

As the moon orbits closer

And waxes more and more

These signs are where

The Jewish people take their Passover

And from where Christians

Take the major holiday called Easter

There is nothing like Eastertide

Celebrating a fantastic event

It happened 2000 years ago

And I, in a sense, was present

The most spectacular display

Of God’s agape love

Crucifixion and Resurrection

The only plan from above

On a Friday God laid sin on His Son

The sin of men nailed to a cross

He crucified the sinless Lamb

And took away our dross

On a Sunday Christ is raised

And we are raised with Him

This same Resurrection Power

— The Spirit — is at work within

And now we can live righteously

The old has gone, the new has come

Spreading the Good News Gospel

Of what Jesus Christ has done

This is the Month (audio)

Categories
poetry

The Garden of Eden

God created the Garden of Eden

A pure unspoiled paradise

An ordered beautiful landscape

That could grow and increase in size

God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden

And said, “Be fruitful and multiply

Fill the earth and subdue it

And govern all that creep, swim and fly”

In the Garden a love story began

Adam and Eve enjoying flesh-of-my-flesh

The two became an unashamed one

In the first marriage with a world to bless

Adam and Eve experienced the joy of God

His presence with them was unbroken

As strong as a three-stranded cord

That’s how it was in the Paradise Garden

In the Garden was the forbidden tree

That could cause catastrophic strife

In the midst of the Garden, though

Was another tree, the Tree of Life

“In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”

God plainly said to Adam and Eve

All they had to do was not eat from the forbidden tree

Believe God, Adam and Eve, just believe!

It was the cunning, slippery serpent

That tempted Eve to sin

Adam fell too and their eyes were opened

And the Cosmos became cursed as death entered in

God then drove them out of Eden

And placed a cherubim at the east

And a flaming sword that turned every way

Guarding the Tree of Life and its feast

However, this is not how it all ends

We will not return to the lost Eden

Redemption and Consummation is coming

There’s no plan for that Ancient Garden

In the future will be a Greater Garden

With the Tree of Life on both sides of the River

Its leaves are for the healing of the nations

And the juicy, sweet fruit we will savour

Yes, we will eat from the Tree of Life

Its branches regularly fully laden

Yielding a new crop every month

In the new and Everlasting Eden

The Garden of Eden (audio)

Categories
poetry

‘What Is There In All Creation…?’

One evening when it was warm I took a walk to the shops. It was still daylight and the atmospheric conditions were good. The lighting was that which accompanies the setting of the sun. However, it wasn’t the setting sun that caught my senses, glorious as it may have been, but the quality of the ambient light. It was as if I was looking through a veil.

As I walked home, I found myself thinking about the first line to a Shakespeare sonnet: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? (sonnet 18). Much of my preoccupation at the time concerned the sky – particularly writing about it. Within 24 to 48 hours I had drafted three poems about the sky. The feel of the first line of sonnet 18 lead me to write my first line: What is there in all creation…?

The ‘What Is There In All Creation…?’ poem is written in four verses, each verse with an ABBA rhyming form. That is: line 1 rhymes with line 4 and line 2 rhymes with line 3. At the time of composing the poem, I had no knowledge of any other poem written in this style. This knowledge came later.

‘What Is There In All Creation…?

What is there in all creation that can compare to the sky?

She, at times, can be quite calm as well as electrifying

Also, sometimes, conveys sadness and happiness — quite confusing

This is because she is pure and 3 times very high…’

In my videobook, the music that accompanies this poem is J. S. Bach’s Prelude No. 1 from his Well-Tempered Clavier, Book One.

Here is a video clip from the poem: What Is There In All Creation…? (verse 1)

For those willing to go further, the music that concludes the video is the Ave Maria by Gounod which is based on the Prelude.

Categories
Poetry

‘A Natural Virtuoso!’

I went to the National Poetry Library in London earlier this year. I was on a mission: to find out which magazines published similar poetry to mine. For the next two hours I looked at everything that was available. All, bar one, had absolutely no poems about music — not even remotely! In my first poetry book ‘Soaring Higher’ (see ‘books’ page) there are six full length poems with such tasty flavours!

This poem is about a musician — and no ordinary musician at that — but a Virtuoso. “But what is a Virtuoso?” I hear you cry. According to Grove Music Online:

“Virtuoso ( It., from Lat. virtus : ‘excellence’, ‘worth’ ) A person of notable accomplishment; a musician of extraordinary technical skill. In its original Italian usage (particularly in the 16th and 17th centuries) ‘virtuoso’ was a term of honour reserved for a person distinguished in any intellectual or artistic field: a poet, architect, scholar etc. A virtuoso in music might be a skilful performer, but more importantly he was a composer, a theorist or at least a famous maestro di cappella. In the late 17th and 18th centuries a great number of Italian”

“A Natural Virtuoso!”

“Just a few words I’ve penned over tea

That I hope will warm your heart and bless

Who in all the wide-world could it be?

An appreciative music lover no less…”

A piece of music that requires virtuosic technique is J. S. Bach’s famous showstopper: Toccata and Fugue in D minor. Fragments of the Toccata are included in a video of myself performing the poem.

For the full poem click here: A Natural Virtuoso!

This video is one of eighteen poems available in my VideoBook. Click here for more details: Soaring Higher (videobook)

Categories
musical poetry

‘The Ultimate Renewed Environment’

What are your thoughts and opinions on the world around us? Are you happy or content with life, the universe and everything? What would you change? Considering the history of everything around us, would you change anything and everything? Do you long for everything to be perfect? And, do you want this to never end?

In my poem, The Ultimate Renewed Environment, I include an interpretation of the universal state beyond the end of the world.

“The Ultimate Renewed Environment”

“At the end of time

When the new order has begun

And everything as we know it

Has been changed in the twinkling of an eye…”

The music in this video is Beethoven’s 5th symphony. Although the piece is known world-over for its ‘fate knocking at the door’ opening, the second movement is comparatively serene, with elements of a longing tranquility. As if to say that there is a beautiful existence beyond cosmic judgement that will be well — very well, indeed!

For the complete musical version of this poem, click: The Ultimate Renewed Environment

Categories
musical poetry

‘My Peace’

Quotes about ‘peace’ from the worldwide-web:

“People have been trying by all means to gain peace. Therefore history of human beings, in one aspect, is the history of searching for peace. Peace has been talked, thought, taught and studied in many ways and many aspects”

“It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart”

“tranquility with harmony”

“love”

“authenticity”

“intuition”

“freedom from disquieting or oppressive thoughts or emotions”

“the state of peace within man himself that means there is no conflict inside one‘s mind’

Below is the first verse of my poem about peace followed by the full YouTube musical verson.

“My Peace”

“🍊  Before my eyes open in the morning

        At the instance of emerging from sleep

        Even before I am aware of anything external

        I experience something so powerful and so deep…”

The music in the audiobook version of this poem, as here, is Erik Satie’s Gymnopedie No. 1.

Click here for the full poem: My Peace

Categories
Poetry

‘This is the Month – Eastertide

Facts around the writing of this poem:

In the Spring of 1990 I set about writing a poem about Easter with the intention of having it published in a journal that would be available at that time. When the poem was eventually finished, it was without ‘Eastertide’ in the title. Although I had virtually no church attendance since childhood, I found myself including elements of the Easter story.

Then, before summer was in full swing, some Christians started to befriend me. They were from a local church canvassing the area. I was eventually invited to a Sunday morning meeting and someone named Colin Spurdle was due to pick me up. However, for a good reason he forgot and said he would come the following week. That Sunday came and I was so eager to go that I decided to go by myself. I have now been attending the same church for thirty years, plus.

During my years at this church, the poem was redrafted, extended and finally finished.

“This Is The Month — Eastertide”

“This is the month

When they say that it rains and pours

Down come the showers

From heaven’s open doors…”

I hope you enjoy this extract: “This Is The Month — Eastertide”

Categories
Poetry

‘The Garden of Eden’

This rhyming poem is based on the Biblical events that took place in the Garden of Eden — and includes a reading of the future. When writing these verses, care was taken to adhere to the fidelity and the sequence of events as given in the Bible.

The music that goes with this poem is the Elizabethan Serenade by Ronald Binge. It is light and grandiose with such positive, live giving vigour.

“The Garden of Eden”

“God created the garden of Eden

A pure unspoiled paradise

An ordered beautiful landscape

That could grow and increase in size…”

For the first verse of this poem, click: The Garden of Eden

Categories
Poetry

‘Swaying, Swaying in the Breeze’

It was a windy May afternoon when I was walking down the garden path. I happened to notice, it seemed for the first time, an array of beautiful flowers in bloom. Maybe it was their swaying that caught my attention. Anyway, I stopped for a closer look and saw bumble-bees indiscriminately landing on them; one, then the other. To capture this nature in action, I made a video recording with my phone.

The following morning this scene, with words, was going round my head, and before breakfast the poem was complete.

The music I paired with the poem, Beethoven’s Pathétique Sonata, echoes the back and forth movement of the flowers. For added imagination, one could imagine dancing ladies instead of flowers.

“Swaying, Swaying in the Breeze”

“Swaying, swaying in the breeze

Dancing, dancing beneath tall tree

Moving another way in slight air

So handsome, so pretty, so fair

Hues and shades, rare and fine

What invention, what design…”

Click here for: Swaying, Swaying in the Breeze