Arts Articles
Come to my house
Some would number us in lost accounting piles: a wind toppled abacus of old Quakers. Our vestments of truth may be frayed to lace, the burlap of equality clotted with centuries of mistakes. Some ask, ‘What was it all for anyway, The yea and the nay, the quiet hours millioned...
The shoes for college become the shoes for work
We’re in a rush, with errands here and there. The voice of Respect comes through the speaker, his first breath makes us think this is urgent. We tense: Rose without Thorns must concentrate is this Buses Only, or Low Emissions – are we in the right place, but wrong time?
David Jordan, by Ronald Kirkbride
Many Quaker libraries have an old copy of this book. I expect it has not been borrowed for years, although the cover proclaims it as ‘the great Quaker novel of our time’. My copy came from the Bogside in Derry, where a paramilitary drew my attention to it. I’m...
Journeymen Theatre – 2010-2023: Our legacy project, by Lynn and David Morris
This book contains the nine plays written and performed by Lynn and Dave Morris as Journeymen Theatre, between 2010 and 2023. Both players are members of Stourbridge Meeting. The plays were commissioned by a number of Quaker bodies, and have been performed throughout the UK. The company no longer tours its work,...
Peace of cake
They are killing women Children are dying Grandmothers weeping And I am making a cake Something must be made
Heaven
The final man is too good a friend to let me down without the sound of barking madness crowning every news bulletin with the hounds of heaven.
Solitude
How sweet is harmless Solitude? What can its Joys controul? Tumults and Noise may not intrude, To interrupt the Soul That here enjoys it self, retir’d From Earth’s seducing Charms; Leaving her Pomp, to be admir’d By such as Court their Harms; While she, on Contemplations Wings,...
Doppler
the distance of far away of far before this (now) and each day passing each night falling (behind) and stars signalling a universe a timeline of here and there a life of echoes of belonging (and leaving) a life smaller than a grain of sand.
Homecoming
Eyeless in the midst of chaos are the giants of concrete: windows shattered, knees bent beyond repair. Testaments to bombs and shells. An authentic, new reality.
I take my anger to Meetings
I take my anger to Meetings. He sits next to me. (On the left, actually) An urchin With greasy hair and grubby fingers His knees grey with ingrained dirt