Arts Articles

‘For younger readers: Balthasar’s Cloak’, by Geoffrey Weeden, from December 22, 1972

21 December 2023 | by Geoffrey Weeden

‘What a glorious night!’ Caspar exclaimed, ‘it’s as if the whole sky was singing!’ ‘I hear nothing,’ said Balthasar. |

In a church in Ravenna in Italy there is a very old mosaic picture. It shows the three Wise Men, Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar, carrying their gifts to Bethlehem. Balthasar wears a rich purple cloak with a gold hem and a jewelled clasp. This story is about Balthasar’s cloak. ...

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Nuclear family Christmas

21 December 2023 | by Joan Dunleavy | 1 comment

There are lights in all the houses, she says to herself, (no one else being available). Standing deep, in discarded wrapping paper, by the window in a darkened room, she stares…

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The tall red candles

21 December 2023 | by Edith Simpson

‘The holly bears a bark as bitter as any gall.’ – Old Carol

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Between

07 December 2023 | by Dana Smith

'Between thee and me: Burnt acres of lemon and fig. Maybe a seed.' | by Tucker Tangeman on Unsplash

Between bullet and flesh, a spirit rising like mist, mostly unseen. Between the thought and the deed a sliver of time that makes the earth quake.

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In the Atlas mountains

30 November 2023 | by Roger Iredale

'Five faces and a white-nose ass disrupting dust rise up the slope of olive trees past bearing.' | Patrick Ogilvie on Unsplash

Five faces and a white-nose ass disrupting dust rise up the slope of olive trees

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Beneath sufferance stones

16 November 2023 | by Steve Day

'From the comfort of our sofa we went there with you. Took her scented candle to a vigil saw your sorrow in the flame asking us to waste some silence.' | by Eyasu Etsub on Unsplash

He had been digging his four year old daughter out of the earth. We know this because there was no choice, witnessing him burst his straining back, splitting spinal minor chords of both himself, as in parent       and child, as in dead daughter. Now he lies fixed...

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Garden lessons

09 November 2023 | by Jennie Osborne

'A woman may sit in a garden of young blossoms showing their faces to sun for the first time, and wait for words to take root.' |

There is more than one way of calling in the seed. A woman may sit in a garden of young blossoms showing their faces to sun for the first time, and wait for words to take root. Soil knows the spell of waiting just as the robin knows the right...

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Ashes and diamonds

02 November 2023 | by Roger Iredale

'There are no diamonds in the ashes of despair.' | by Chris Coe on Unsplash

There are no diamonds in the ashes of despair.  Anger writhes along each cortège as broken souls go down to brandished flags and guns. Hope seems lost.

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Listening post

26 October 2023 | by Bob Ward

Elijah Went Up by a Whirlwind into Heaven (Chariot of Fire), by Shlomo Katz,1985 |

Silence is hardly pure. Life engenders Breathing aloud, spider steps, and white noise – Your nerves fretting to their own agendas – But there seems to be a spirit that employs What rises from near quiet. Just recall When Elijah, bloodied by raw righteousness, In hiding unclear how fate might befall, Heard...

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The dance

19 October 2023 | by Dorothy Lindsay

'And so, the Poplars-pair, lanky and beautiful, in their newly-sprung green, now fully clothed, danced in unison....' | by Mitchell Griest on Unsplash

Not like Matisse’s ‘Dance’, as Touch for now, is merely a hopeful thing, and for them, not a dancing ring of five; nor, it seems, just communal friendship, but something more: a longing to embrace, but never quite achieving that closeness.

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