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notes from a small vicar
from a parish
in Liverpool, UK
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Friday, June 12, 2009
The Healing House
posted by John Davies at 11:58 PM
 As ever, Billy Bragg showcases some fine support acts on his current tour of Wales' ex-mining areas, 25 years on from the Miners Strike. In Wrexham tonight the poet Patrick Jones (who, it would appear, has attracted some controversy for his progressive views) treated us to a rendition (accompanied by BB on guitar) of this mystic, moving, tribute to the NHS sixty years on from its foundation.
THE HEALING HOUSE
"the public interest is taken care of by the private interest of wanting to make money"
John Redwood 1994
"we have been the dreamers, we have been the sufferers, now we are the builders"
Aneurin Bevan, 1945
bring your children to the nursery
with their disease and sickness,
this is the place where I hope to cure all illness
at the point of need, this is an emergency
come now, our tomorrow
rest yourself
as i halt fear and heal bone marrow,
and, from an early death
i promise emancipation,
with my doctors, nurses
and vaccinations
let in the mothers
the pool is ready for another,
carer of the next generation,
sleep, prepare for this new birth,
I offer you protection,
as you grow the roots of our new earth
welcome, people from other nations,
with troubled faces from distant places,
i have room for you, my new patients,
i have no borders to caring,
pain has no dialect, this language is for sharing
let love be found in translation
sit, eat from my pantry,
become healthy
as you, you are my ultimate test,
bring me your tortured tongues
so you may speak again
from far off battlefields show your scarred flesh
so i can stem the blood and heal your pain.
to you, the wiser, the elderly, the old,
do not be afraid, do not huddle in the cold,
my door is open,
come in, come in,
it is warm, trust us,
and i shall lance the boils of poverty's injustice,
and drain the infection,
as in my house these rooms
offer cure by prevention,
and so to the sick, to the dying, those crippled with
disease
stay, in my garden,
breath,
lay, beneath the trees
i shall provide peace and serenity
to strengthen the health of vulnerablity
no matter what age, sex, class, race or country,
my windows pour penicillin
my library, the words of the masters,
Simpson, Pasteur and Fleming
not market forces or ignorant capitalists
so be careful how you treat your house, our home
never neglect or leave alone
keep clean, add extensions
but never damage the bricks or remove my foundations
from the wasteland of squalor, disease and
dereliction,
I am the safe place
the healing home
injecting cells with reconstruction,
the everlasting bandage
to deliver all from illnessed bondage
I am the suture
to stitch the wounds of the past
but i am the scalpel
to carve the future
to make this dream last
to make this dream last.
"the verb is more important than the noun"
Aneurin Bevan
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john davies
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