Adrian Hickford

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Original text in yellow, anagram in pink.

A short verse by Robert Louis Stevenson.

I know not how, but as I count
The beads of former years,
Old laughter catches in my throat
With the very feel of tears.

Weary now, he looks behind;
The grey months stretch out of view.
The fatal scar - a clarity of mind -
Bares the future, too.

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A quotation by William Wordsworth.

Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquillity.

Wordsworth's eloquent keynote proposition: "Fact: repetitious long-verse creation is mellifluently life-affirming, too."

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Ave Maria plena Gratia, by Oscar Wilde

Was this His coming! I had hoped to see
A scene of wondrous glory, as was told
Of some great God who in a rain of gold
Broke open bars and fell on Danae:
Or a dread vision as when Semele
Sickening for love and unappeased desire
Prayed to see God's clear body, and the fire
Caught her white limbs and slew her utterly:
With such glad dreams I sought this holy place,
And now with wondering eyes and heart I stand
Before this supreme mystery of Love:
A kneeling girl with passionless pale face,
An angel with a lily in his hand,
And over both with outstretched wings the Dove.

I stoop under a lonely gallows mast,
Starkly hunched, aloof, at the footpath there.
As I review damage and disrepair,
Time's window opens, showing visions past.
Beneath black-burned and creaky blistered wood,
Hanging, cold in shadowy Death's embrace,
His suspended sentence a foul disgrace,
A sorrowful felon in woollen hood,
Vows a savage end of the cruel night.
The hard finality of the demise.
As willows weep at all the things they've seen
In wide-eyed sorrow, dropping tears of green.
Discern a broad smile in the hangman's eyes,
Oh! horrid, haggardly, hideous sight!

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Magnificat

My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
For he hath regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden.
For behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
For he that is mighty hath magnified me; and holy is his Name.
And his mercy is on them that fear him throughout all generations.
He hath showed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath put down the mighty from their seat, and hath exalted the humble and meek;
He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel; as he promised to our forefathers, Abraham and his seed, for ever.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be: world without end. Amen.

                                The Carpentry / Haberdashers
                                Theosoph Heath
                                N.E. Galilee

Dear God on High,

Shortly before my Lad was made flesh, I heard thy message. I was told that Thou art the Father, and that I will name Him Jesus, and, while that has ensued, I'm not thoroughly sure that it was the right thing to do. It seems an odd name; "Homer" or "Han Solo" might have been more manly.

I could have done without the nightmarish frightener from thy handsome henchman Gabriel, himself knowing that I was pregnant at the time, and all.

Oh, And it might have been refreshing had I been alerted regarding the post-birth hemorrhoids.

Thine Faithful Nymph,
HRH Mary, Mother of God

P.S. Since the Holy Hero has entered this life, my husband has eschewed fatherhood and his other family duties. Hence, we've not had sex for fifteen months. Oh, Christ! It's hardly healthy! Is it a hormonal thing, Lord?

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Nunc Dimittis

Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word.
For mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;
To be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and to be the glory of thy people Israel.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.

Hello again, God.

Thy Son (aged thirty) has developed a few strange traits into adulthood:
When cleaning His loincloth, the water happens to end as if it were wine.
Then people follow whenever he sets foot in the open. Anybody! The blind! Lepers, too!
He then hastens to tell everyone that Thou art "the lovely, big baby-faced Creator."

Christ! Bugger that!

Mary

P.S. Don't let Him go too far.

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A poem by Carl Sandburg.

Subway

Down between the walls of shadow
Where the iron laws insist,
The hunger voices mock.

The worn wayfaring men
With the hunched and humble shoulders,
Throw their laughter into toil.

Transient

How bluish-white the boyish face,
Through warmth or raw chill.
Blanket torn, unwoven mess.

How wraith-dead the wistful eyes,
Watching, somehow unseen.
The unhinged door-dweller.

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Updated: May 10, 2016


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