Skip to main content

Leper Chapel - Mosaics of Time

Mudstone mosaics and jumbled fractures -
an uneven puzzle waiting;
holy stone with leper marks,
dotted and spotted black.

Ever expanding lichen rings
with double oil-spotted rainbow;
angular rust-like stains
Testing the presence of time.

Clenched into cracks
Of weathered rocks and broken messages;
scarlet snapdragons
trailing their cardinal stems.

Damp buttress of moss clinging,
Festooning the flint;
ink spots, stone measles,
proud thistle commanding the base.

Random yet structured,
closely inter-twined cobwebs
Fastened carefully
to parched and pocketed stones.

Chaotic yet ordered
toad-like grotesque within;
marking essences of
devoted and hidden faces.

Picture flints grinning
their caramel coffee smiles
amongst Anglian crags,
embracing their forgotten cousins.

Stephanie

To see the inspiration for this poem and hear it being narrated at the remains of the Leper Chapel, Dunwich, visit this page from our Chronicles of Greyfriars project website.

Poetry Theme(s):

Currently Popular Poems:

A Way of Life

It’s become a way of life this summer, the canvas bag slung over my shoulder hoping not to need it hoping the sky will stay blue long enough to get a walk by the sea. It’s become a way of life this summer, wearing my green jeans, wearing a matching sweatshirt to keep the wind out, wearing green wherever possible to match my green cagoule in case I need it. It’s becoming a way of life, it’s true, this life of uncertainty which nags at the back of your mind and keeps you constantly looking up the weather on your phone. It’s a way of life, this anxiety which sends me scurrying for help when it mushrooms out of control in the middle of the night. Julia
View Poem »

Eucalyptus Grove, Nowton Park, Bury St Edmunds

Where koalas climb Your essence exudes Striped bark,  An Everlasting glade Of inspiration Comfort and reassurance In a changing world. Oval olive leaves With yellow veins enriching  The aroma, Crisp and sturdy. Your ghost white-dusted Cigarillo rolls, Like long brittle fingers Scattering the ground. Sometimes smooth and simple, Sometimes crispy and rough, your colourful patchwork;  my secret makers-stamp revealed. Louise
View Poem »

Woodpecker Squall

The five feathers of Autumn weather Were a woodpecker’s downed chatter Under an Oaks wings And the rain’s prism sang in my lashes Over and over Ring in fast skies September October The beak of the sky Pummelled the wood But I dried it’s staccato why By waving the feathers of my hand Until the spots merged Back to fine weather Then left altogether. Stephen Kirin
View Poem »

Ringtides

With a rising tide My heart holds no boundaries between waves. Thomas
View Poem »

Erosion

Unerring yet erratic The weight of water never waits for readiness Sandstone is proven to be a two-faced liar a pretence of solidity written into the features of its rockface which crumbles under a wave’s supremacy and we wave goodbye to all we knew Lynne Nesbit
View Poem »

Feathers

It’s as if all the birds In every weather Had dropped every feather The weight sometimes Of all those why's A ton of lead Or a ton of words unsaid Down on a feathered bed The weight belies The width of squawks When the birds are dead And they sing remembering When a ton of song Weighed the same as Fly away Autumns Flu away fall Feather or not Bird at all. Stephen Kirin
View Poem »

Greyfriars

If ever there were dragons they left their passion here in garnet schist and granite,  crazy migmatite of marbled black and white: hot scramblings of the pluton. What's left of monks is bony, hard to see: a grassy field where horses crop and starlings pop and bubble natter-songs of seed and insect, feeding over buried walls. Cobble-flocks and boulders Cluster; mortared stone reliques tell crustal stories deeper than our poor humanity. Churches pass and minsters fall: the pagan flints remain. Tim
View Poem »

From one frog to humans, or 'Go dig a Pond'

Burnt summer, Another hot summer Without a drop of water I wait It’s only June. With ochre hives And forgotten tones Of emerald green Parched fields and thorny hegderows. A dead speckled wood I’d rather eat fresh Is on the menu today, tomorrow unknown. A bleak summer ahead, Our long forgotten cousins Creep steathily unseen Waiting silently for clouds. A buttercup-yellow Marsh marigold forest Croaked from Floating reeds and choked crispy chickweed. Andrew Toms
View Poem »

Winter

As the words of yesterday and the events of last year, crunch crisply beneath my feet, Gone are the evening summers, the long walks and the talks, in the lazy, balmy heat. For now is a time of reflection, for even the trees and the grass; Recovery has seasons of respite, just like winter, the bad times will pass.     by Jess  
View Poem »

Shaping the Landscape

  I am enclosed under a canopy of overhanging shade, where majestic trees rustle in dappled sunlight.  I am surrounded by shapes, by twisted fronds  of birds’ nest ferns and leaf spikes that  thrust sharply upwards against the light.   A spring bubbles through cushions  of moss. Dark green waters trail  water lilies; water boatmen  judder across the surface of the pond. Softness,  sharpness, textured and structured, mingle together,  cradling me in  the shelter of their arms.   Julia Duke  
View Poem »