Potem - ways with words

Below Myself

2013-09-08T20:59:00.004+12:00

What lives below myself is feeling.

What rind I find myself needs peeling.

I want to knife myself while kneeling.

Unwind the surface self til reeling.

My heart in treasure chest is heaving.

What is this life I live achieving?

But what’s this angry face so seething?

Where comes this cloven hoof now cleaving?

Who cuts the lock on casket hidden,

Who foists the force upon unbidden?

Who diving drops to depths so leaden,

To slice the tangled roots that deaden?

If I, who am ‘I’ when freedom comes?

So I am the feeling that was numbed.

What lives above this Self can be summed

As two entwined in doubt and not the

One.

I Hear About These Ocean Planets

2013-09-03T13:44:00.000+12:00

I hear about these ocean planets
Where water may be kilometres deep
Where don’t exist the coastlines of continents
No shoreline at all, no waves gently lapping on beaches.

No shirr and tumble on soft sand
No suck and tidal tug of broken shells
No constant fingering at the edges of estuary
Just the sphere of shimmering and surging and still sea.

I hear about the primordial forest
Where the air is unbroken by birdsong
No sudden liquid eruption or casual chirruping
Where the movement is only of beetles and dragonflies.

The flit and rustle and stir of wing
Humming and droning and murmuring
The swarm and coruscation of chitinous flight
But no cool cadence of evening song by a bird on a limb.

I hear of some meditations within
Attention drops below covering clouds
In the rare atmosphere the silent mind dwells
And extends all around until circumnavigation complete.

And I hear from this forest below
The walk and stirring of the Lord of life
When by a pool ripples up the one clear note
On resplendent wings I now fly to draw near the source.

2-9-2013

The Mosque on the Moon

2013-07-08T21:24:00.000+12:00

On the twenty-third of June in the year

Two thousand and thirteen, sudden motion

Was detected on the surface of the

Moon. By November ninth it was clear that

We were not alone and had not been lost

On the move. The mosque on the moon confirmed

All of that. We had just not been listening.

Glistening glint, the hint of light was what

Our telescopic eyes could see, but not

Microphonic, our ears were the problem.

The call had been made for millions of years.

We now know that the first movement was a

Momentary anomaly, a flick

Of a foot by a member of the faith.

But the heads had been touched to the prayer rugs

By the faithful many millennia.

The backs had been arched over eons of

Time. The marble colonnaded courtyard

Had been still, and the pigeons had roosted

On edges of the enclosure, and all

In grey and white shades were invisible.

So minarets had seemed like mountainous

Pillars on the edges of craters on

The surface of the moon. And the backs of

The worshippers like greyed-over moonrocks,

But more to the fact, when not expected,

The eyes of man had not been trained, and ears

Most certainly had been blocked many years.

- - - - - - -

That first movement disturbed the prayer of time.

The birds were sent wheeling in unison.

Dozens of shapes swept like shifting saccades.

One in its wingshape seemed like the foreground,

Its wings angled upward like the crescent

Of the sphere, and the observer on Earth

Saw it was a sign, when the sound was heard.

Only he knew the sign came before sound.

For all others the sound filled the air, and

Ears everywhere knew the tune of the moon.

The muezzin was calling from the high

Minaret, from the roof of the world, as

The prophet of the seventh century

Had called for, and prophets before as well.

That the sound came with the sign was a great

Mystery. Only homo sapiens

Had been deaf to the call. In milky sea

The Earthship would list, lenses of ocean

Pulled by the tide, like two ears on the sphere

Of a mother’s round face, or two whites to

The sides of an iris, waters displaced.

In the mosque on the moon, no eyes had been

Turned to the blue and green jewel on the sea.

For the moon is the unborn sister of

Earth, the caul of its fortunes hiding from

Sight the footprints on Earth, til the turn of

Fate in ’69, a Yin-Yang of signs,

Left a footprint of man on its shoreline.

- - - - - - - -

Wherefore forty-four years man’s eyes had been

Blinded when the eye of the moon had been

Opened. A mould was made of the mark of

Man, and placed in the mihrab built in the

Wall where the worshippers faced to pray to

The Source, to reinforce their one focus,

Knowing then that man could not hear at all.

All the creatures of Earth had always heard

The sound, the call to come to the prayer hall.

To the music of the spheres had their ears

All attended, to one hundred thousand

Million stars in an ocean of milk

One hundred thousand light years across in

A jug, crescent moon the lip of the spout.

The whales in their sounds in the singular

Water, ululations fluctuating

In the subsidence of tidal movements,

Knew the tune cast on the nighttime moonbeams.

And newborn foals too cocooned in their stalls

Felt reassured by the muezzin’s call,

And heard fully the extent of his song.

But for the humans who thought that the moon

Was a place, and not a portal or veil,

A speaker cone thrumming with the rhythm

Of space, a round music box wound with the

Thread of time, a skein of wool spooled on a

Bright bobbin in the mind, in memory

And imagination, analogy

And rhyme, the moon was indeed a dry place.

- - - - - -

And so the moon was marked with man’s feet, a

Feat of literal comprehension, to

Knock on the dry wall of a deserted

Village in the heat of the desert, and

Not realize, that within the blank walls,

Had they arrived a little later, would

Be a welcome and water from the well.

Typical of the building traditions

Of the desert regions of the Earth, the

Mosque on the moon was featureless from the

Outside. The dust of the dunes covered

Man’s feet, mariners marooned on the moon,

lunatics lost from the loom, a balloon

That sailed off into space without a clue.

When the muezzin’s call was heard at first,

A madness entered the Earth, for the sound

Was merely a monotone, a drone just

Past mute, a low mellow toll of hollow

Bell, more a murmuring from a deep sleep,

Mutterings from the other half of the

Brain, a call ‘cross the corpus callosum.

Only the mystics heard the true sound, and

Communed with the mosque’s moguls and mullahs,

The imams and moolvis and African

Moors on their mosaic-paved paths on the

Moon. In the monastery of Mont St.

Michel, the monks there knew only too well

What it was like to be isolated.

- - - - - -

In silences the monks meditated

In their cells like bivalve molluscs that strained

The sea of sound for meaning, til all was

Quiet and yet was heard the muezzin’s

Call as feeling, and a sense of inner

Movement, as though a mushroom were forming

Under the earth, and soon to be revealed.

The sadhus in the Himalayas were

Likewise occupied, as they rode the tide

Of sound from the meniscus of the moon

To full, and heard the pull like an oar through

The foam, like the spores in the loam, like a

Scythe as it sweeps through the field in the late

Afternoon, in their tympanum eardrums.

The artists and mooncalves and usual

Fools of society also grew still,

And stayed in their rooms and wound down to a

Pause, stowed in the shadows, and slowed to a

Crawl, and grew their antennae like moths in

The dark, and so heard all the goings-on

Relayed from the moon’s white radio disc.

In such ways for some the sickle moon sang

Like a venetian blind hung, turned from the

Sun. Or with curved blades bent flat, tuned to a

Varying degree such that that was the

Waxing and waning of feelings and sound,

Until moonlight was spilled on windowsills

Inside, and they walked and talked on the moon.

- - - - - -

But those in the citadels of reason,

Shrouded in science and shored up against

Nature, only heard the tinnitus tone,

A ringing, an unanswered telephone

Reverberating in their craniums,

Machine-like titanium singeing

Nerve endings never sending along song.

Not for them was the white geranium

Of the moon blossomed in the woad blue sky,

But like a coin tossed, lost on dark pavement

Jealously possessed, a dollar, money,

Moolah, Moloch addressed, obsessed over

If it seemed that some other nation was

Mining on it with machines on the sly.

Or worse, if some alien entity

Had designs on the pride of the father,

And had thought they could take the dowry

Of the moon, and via the bride, spy on

The Earth, the groom of the moon and charge of

The paternalistic tribe of elders,

Monopolistic monarchs of Terra.

Training their telescopes further, they saw

Not a whit of the mosque, but straining with

Unbridled fervour, only saw more of

The feathers tempest-tossed, but witnessed as

A molecular disturbance, motion

Like snow in a blizzard of moondust so

They thought, not having eyes to see clearer.

- - - - - -

With dry eyes and dry minds they saw moondust,

Like pockmarks on the Mona Lisa’s face.

They saw not the gaze of the mother-of-

Pearl-lustred sister of Earth, a goddess

Like she, twin at the birth but covered in

Night and unborn to the days of the Sun,

But festooned in her changes like moonstone.

They knew not the silvery spoon, dipped in

The soup bowl of sparkling sesame

Oil drops floating on dark miso soup,

The bleached wood wine cork bobbing on the sea

Under atmospheric mists amid waves

Of stellar cosmic rays, a pale doorknob

Opening to the landscape of nightfall.

They had not halved the feijoa moonfruit,

With the cool taste like the grapes from Bordeaux.

Or drunk lemonade in a tall glass in

The shade of a beach umbrella by a

Sparkling ocean. The moon is a shell

Caught in swollen swell of tidal motion,

Calciferous iridescent omen.

The milk teeth of the moon leave only a

Temporary bitemark on the passage

Of time. When full, her mouth is a moue of

Pout til the nipple is out again and

Fed, she sleeps once more, round belly growing

Smaller and turning into the blanket

Of night, grows hungry in her dreaming head.

- - - - - -

Well, the merchants of enterprise chimed in,

And said expedition to the moon was

Timely, to determine the source of the

Sound. So with consummate skill they designed

A great vessel, a double-hulled schooner

Hung from a dirigible, an airship

Of technical splendour, Gondola One.

It set sail on the solar wind, ‘cross the

Swale of sky, like a coracle on the

Sea caulked watertight with oakum,

Anchor rope freed from the bollard of Earth,

From its mooring, and cast to the shivering

Stars, a glissade of light like the passage

Of past ships sailing the Straits of Dover.

Large lateen sails, slung fore and aft from the

Mastheads on loose-fitted booms, could accept

The solar wind on either side, and thus

With the voyage timed close to an eclipse,

The clipper spaceship tacked to and fro through

The tidal zone between the two planets,

A boat floating on the moat of the moon.

In its hubris it mimicked the moon phases,

With white robes of gossamer cobweb sails

billowing from sickle to albescent

Fullness, like the embroidered handkerchiefs

Of morris dancers flicked on the wind or,

Weighted with beads, placed over the rims of

Wooden milk pails pooled brimful with liquid.

- - - - - -

Across the gulf of space, with the faint stars

Twinkling in their masses like milk sprinkled

On a bowl of black molasses, the bow

Of the zeppelin gondola ship sailed,

The long guyropes holding like a hand on

The pommel of a saddle steadying

Its course, the inky sea an ambling horse.

In the distance the moon loomed, murmuring

With the sound waves of the muezzin’s call

That emanated from craters deep in

The Sea of Serenity, formed over

Three thousand million years ago, by

Meteorites causing lava to flow,

Making the maria, the dark hollows.

Apollo never discovered the mosque.

Eleven landed on Tranquillity,
And Seventeen on Serenity, but

Even with this last mission, the result

Eventually on Earth, was that none

Heard much of anything, and never learned

That the moon was in truth a tambourine.

The moon was made out a monument of

Dust, a dowdy doppelgänger, a dry

Crust in a petri dish riddled with mould,

A millstone grinding the husks of science,

While the mass media relayed only

Talcum powder and dandruff to the young

And the old, and calcium for your bones.

- - - - - -

10.

As scientists pored over dry moon rocks

From the solar Apollo moon missions,

And telescoped into the empty eye

Sockets of the maria craters in

Porous skull bone of their own mongrel moon,

The Gondola One seafaring crew fell

Into orbit to circle la Luna.

And mutatis mutandis, the sound of

The shimmering, tremulous gong of the

Moon underwent a sea change, as a sine

Wave vibration lifted it into a

Modulating melodious music

And even an incantation, as the

Muezzin’s voice of the Muse was now heard.

The starship passed over the mountainous

Moonscape below, and the maria were

Arrayed like a montage of photos in

A row, the thickness between crust and the

Mantle of the moon, Mohorovičić

Discontinuity-like in thickness,

Thinnest where the ancient lava had flowed.

And it was as if the whole planet played

In a moderato tempo, with a

Mutable mellifluous melody

Swimming among the multiform moonrock

Like a meandering minnow below,

The moiré ripples of sound moistening

The moon’s dry atmosphere like monsoon rains.

- - - - - - -

11.

The Mandelbrot set of overlapping

Craters were mandalas of mantra, a

Plangent pattern of plate tectonics, a

Vibraphone or Moog synthesizer, a

Resonating drum kit of cymbals and

Symbols, like that of the surface of a

Pond suffused with syncopating raindrops.

The galleon gull of Gondola One

Sailed an elliptical path, over the

Artemesian satellite of Earth,

And felt the symphonious current

Reverberate in its hull, sharp-ridged keel,

Rudder and tiller, and wheel in the bridge,

And the magnetic coils of its turbines.

Now the albatross wings of its mainsails

Lifted the vessel to the height of the

Apocynthion, furthest point from the

Moon below, and over the edge of the

Curved horizon darkness grew, and thus swooped

Into deep dark lunar side, the diving

Almond mandorla vesica pisces.

A manhole cover slipped over the night,

The moon a dark bubble under sea, the

Monkshood wolfsbane octopus tentacle

Sucker surrounding and suffocating

Its prey, the sound now muffled suffering

Catacoustically, and crew onboard

In a form of forgetfulness trauma.

- - - - - -

12.

Cuticle of light, melt of butter on
Toast, a shoal of quick fishscales flashing in

Slant of sunbeam. A luminous hoop of

Lunisolar light tipped over the ship’s

Proscenium deck. And muffled bassoon

Turned mandolin, chimes and bodhrán again

In the flashbulb of the full melon moon.

Farinaceous host set in silver

Monstrance illuminated in a

Glass lunette, was raised by a priest dressed in

Black cassock, not moth-proofed such that the stars

Shone through. Rosary beads of nebulae

Glowed in curlicues, as the roaming craft

Of Gondola One reached its rendezvous.

Boosters flared, the windjammer’s momentum

Was moderated, and many miles the

Fair airship descended, til into a

Synchronous orbit it fell, above a

Floury flocculent ice-floe lagoon at

The edge of the Sea of Serenity,

Like flotsam floating above the seafloor.

Zoom lenses would see the mote in the eye,

Speck of metal, wood and muslin. Minute

Matchwood masts in a microgroove of space,

Zooplankton organisms in a vast

Watery waste, grains of pollen strewn by

The wind, while the Muslim muezzin’s call

Anchored them all, a harmonic harpoon.

- - - - - -

13.

Out in the boondocks of the galactic

Hinterland, the Gondola cosmonauts

On the observation deck scanned their eyes

Through the vacuum, looking for the source of

The euphonious sound – and the lustrous,

Gilded, turquoise and eggshell-blue tiles of

The golden mosque’s great onion dome answered.

The geometry and mosaics of

The iris of the dome were plumage of

Peacocks in opalescent polychrome

Arabesques of ornate decoration,

Calligraphic swirls and interlaced vines,

Fractal-like tendrils in elemental

Motifs with endless knot scrolling entwined.

The stationary crew fell into a

Swoon, realization rolling over them.

How jejune their mentation not to see

The moon was a convex mirror, onion

Dome pearl the microcosmic blue-green Earth,

And the calling, the reflected crying

For the moon of Earth’s inhabitants’ dreams.

The mosque on the moon has a cinnamon

Tree where all creatures go to pray, fed by

A gourd of water from Lourdes, memory,

Emotion, imagination, wonder,

Mystery and mood, liminal light and

Noosphere loosened in pungency, moon a

Corm storing water, fortune and story.

- - - - - -

Winter Solstice

Full Moon 2013

Centre Sphere

2013-05-02T15:04:00.005+12:00

If half a sphere sat on a square

Such that the circle was intersected

Tangentially where it touched

The midpoints of the four sides

And centred then at cardinal points

Of East and North West and South

So that it formed the upper story

Of a constructed cross of tall hallways

Placed upon platforms of many steps

That led to avenues lined with trees

Surrounded by grounds filled with birds

That flew from forests all around

Laced with roads that winding ran

Along the sides of valleys dividing

Rocky promontories facing plains

Reaching out toward the horizon

Then we might wander to that place

And place our feet upon those steps

Pass through hallways rich with arches
Until we came to that central space

And looking up into that dome

Recognise our sacred home

The heart’s interior in blue of mind

The golden dome in the sky a sign

Echoes of angels in the songs of birds

Mosaic paths to gardened earth

Pillars of virtues guiding the living

Fountains of nourishing waters giving

Peace to the air of dappled sunlight

Leafy shade at edges where we might

Circle the circumference with songs that rhyme

Weave body and soul and words and time

Wellspring Parau Retreat

2013-05-02T15:02:00.000+12:00

The land with stand of kauri, crown of copper leaves

(That rests on brow of Parau headland), weaves

From understory and undergrowth, a cloak

Of green that drapes on shoulders, gentle slopes

(The cloth of rimu, kahikatea, miro, and ponga grows,

Harakeke flax and grasses fall like fringe below,

Nearly touching where rocky toes reach into the sea,

Mighty Manukau’s tidal waters keep soles of the feet clean).

And in the soft cloak’s embrace is warmed the heart – those

Drawn to take a part in (what the future only knows

Will be achieved) – the path of Wellspring Parau Retreat.

Wanting Words That Touch

2013-05-02T15:01:00.000+12:00

Wanting words that touch

That sound hollow when knocked

With your eyes on the page

Wanting to hear emptiness

Like the rush of spider’s web on the face

Crave the internal space

Open up like underwater

Knowing you are there on the mountain

Can’t see, can’t feel, can’t almost breathe

Wanting the heat to pass through

The pain believed relieved aglow

Incandescent even the sunset hue

No you, no me, laugh life let go

No words just touch

But open space an aftershock

A sky below above but touch

Wanting the unmistakeable truth

Arrived like insects homed after dark

Surrendered like light like a symphony played

Discovered like a cat asleep in the shade

But yes, not that, not anything made

Ceremony

2013-05-02T15:00:00.000+12:00

Yesterday we sat on cushions

Underneath a tree.

Cake and chocolate muffins we ate

And conversed with cups of tea.

Today I looked at an illustrated book of poems

By the mystic Rumi.

Almost every Islamic image was of figures

Bent at the knee.

In apple orchards or garden courtyards these lovers

Met in beauty.

Adorations in every gesture whether serving

Food or poetry.

Their garments flowed into the earth via

The cloth at their feet.

Bowls and pots and cups and plates were rocks

In an embroidered stream.

In the undergrowth of plants around might crouch

A hare unseen.

Or peer behind a distant bough a deer

As though paying heed.

For still were the minds in such sunlit glades

In such a ceremony.

Good Men At Large

2012-06-17T00:52:00.000+12:00

(in the spirit of Leonard Cohen)

You see them in conversation,

With open gestures and open hearts.

They’re generous with their attention.

The talking flows: it’s no fits and starts.

The defences are done,

It’s a heartfelt sound,

This dialogue has no camouflage. Watch out –

There’s good men at large.

They’re standing in their power,

Steady eyes and feet on the ground.

Their bodies are like a watchtower.

And their hearts they shine all around.

They’re sovereign kings

But they don’t need to bring

A bunch of followers or no entourage. Watch out –

There’s good men at large.

They’re speaking their truth in relationship,

Their voices gentle, kind and strong.

In their loving, it’s not a dictatorship.

They like to listen; they don’t speak too long.

They’re honest and open,

It’s what their women were hopin’

Was the truth – there’s no need for espionage. Watch out –

There’s good men at large.

These men are generous lovers.

They like to touch, be tender, and smile.

They’re sensitive when under the covers.

And they’re straight-up; there’s no need for guile.

But they’re not P.C.

When they see a sexy

Woman, they like to look at her decolletage. Watch out –

There’s good men at large.

These men are fierce, with clear boundaries.

They’re warriors and not a walk-over.

With a fiery spirit, they defend with ease/

With a spark, a flame, or supernova.

Like a spitfire plane,

They’re true with their aim.

There’s a tally of scores on the fuselage. Watch out –

There’s good men at large.

These pioneering men are changing the times.

You wouldn’t know it if you watched the T.V.

But if you’re out on the land, you would see the signs,

At the gathering: GOTC

Get Off The Concrete!

Don’t be a donkey!

If you’re thirsty, try it, it’s not a mirage. Watch out –

There’s good men at large.

Feb 2012

2011-09-08T20:04:00.000+12:00

Outside The Window Snow Was Sailing Through The Sky

Outside the window snow was sailing through the sky.

The slope of the side of the mountain dissolved before the eye.

Clouds came crowding down while wind carried the flurries high.

The white surf washed against grey granite bulks til nothing there was dry.

And this was a scene in a dream.

Tinted window went from floor to past eye.

The scene was a scene in a dream.

Like on a screen of a world beyond I.

The strength of the mountain was like the slope of one shoulder.

The head was in the clouds above reach.

And the rolling snow caught by the wind was a spirit.

Waves of light pouring down and along a shining beach.

The height and the light and the cold and the cloud.

The flurry and the falling and the rolling and pouring.

So where was the heart as this weather made its way?

Where was the watcher inside in the foreground?

What company did he keep in warm room by the window?

Did the fire in the hearth tint the window and surrounds?

I remember the distraction of the beautiful scene.

The softness and the swirl and the whiteness and kindness.

The slope so smooth like some tilted horizon.

The slow-motion presence of this world beyond mine.

But I was listening to the words I was making in response.

Feeling utterly unable to trust in their labels.

What conjurations I could speak could compare with this beauty?

And it cried out for justice for at least one or two words.

Dissolving inside in the challenge of this beauty I spoke.

The words something ‘awareness’ and ‘consciousness’ too came out.

And a feeling inside multiplied just behind the words and within.

Not talking ‘about’ but being the very words that came forth.

‘Awareness’ and ‘consciousness’ filled the room like a wave.

A warm-coloured ocean radiating and carrying smiles.

And the eye for who I was in the dream expanded outward,

Becoming a circle of friends and the window and outside.

3-9-11

Stifled - A Voice For The Animals

2011-01-29T23:16:00.000+13:00

(inspired by the film ‘Earthlings’)

Our lives have been stifled

We’re rife with tension.

Our children are condemned.

Our cries don’t get much mention.

What wild dream did you have for your life?

What fanciful fantasy did you feel you possessed?

What hope for a good life did you feel you had lost

Been left bereft of, dispossessed?

We’ve been held back, held down, bound and gagged.

We’ve been stripped of what’s legit,

Throttled, bottled …and bagged.

We’ve been packaged and labelled,

We’ve been set upon the table.

The fat cats have gathered,

They’ve got the gravy boats and ladles.

We’ve been used and abused,

Mis-used and bruised.

Misunderstood, trod underfoot, and misconstrued.

The big washing machine’s

passed us through the mangle.

We’ve been wrung out by the wringer,

We’ve been strung out and strangled.

What wild dream did you have for your life?

What fanciful fantasy did you feel you possessed?

What hope for a good life did you feel you had lost

Been left bereft of, dispossessed?

We’ve been caged and chained,

Maimed and made lame.

We’ve been twisted and wrenched, strained and sprained

We’ve been arranged and tamed, contained and constrained.

We’ve been estranged from our kin, cut off from our land,

Cut down in our prime, cut out of our hand.

We’ve been locked up and knocked up,

We’ve been docked and shocked.

We’ve been shut off from sunlight and chained to blocks.

We’ve been jammed in, rammed in, hemmed in and slammed in.

We’ve been managed and damaged, sandwiched in and crushed.

We’ve been force-fed and force-bled,

Medicated and sedated,

Pumped, plumped, and dumped with a diet of lead.

We’ve been shoved down and shackled and shunted along

They’ve put shutters on our minds

They shut up our songs.

They’ve shat upon and crapped upon us,

Zapped and sapped us of strength.

Hacked at us and wrapped us up on the butcher’s bench.

We’ve been corralled off and held off

And walled off in stalls.

We’ve been hauled off to the slaughterhouse

While we called out and bawled.

We’ve been rounded up and hounded, thrown around and knocked down.

We’ve been goaded and railroaded and loaded on trucks bound for town.

We’ve been towed and mowed under and snowed under with stress.

We’ve been stowed on the road where some are crushed to their death.

We’ve been jerked around and jarred, jostled and jammed.

We’ve been nabbed, grabbed and stabbed, jabbed and slammed.

We’ve been bullied and sullied, worried and hurried.

We’ve been harangued and hampered, clamped and penned.

We’ve been left perturbed and disturbed, in turmoil and trouble.

We’ve been seized with disease, left confused and muddled.

We’ve been left needing medicine, food and water.

We’ve been mauled and tortured, slaughtered and quartered.

We’ve been knocked and socked, clocked, bopped, whopped, and dropped.

We’ve been topped and lopped, sliced up and chopped.

Our blood been mopped up, our bodies sent to the shops.

What wild dream did you have for your life?

What fanciful fantasy did you feel you possessed?

What hope for a good life did you feel you had lost

Been left bereft of, dispossessed?

We’ve been herded and bewildered, murdered and killed.

Stabbed and skewered, flamed and grilled.

We’ve been bludgeoned and bashed, lashed, broken and thrashed.

Smashed and gashed open, lives and hopes dashed.

We’ve been robbed and ransacked, ravaged and ruined.

Fleeced and plucked, sent to our doom.

We’ve been presumed and imposed upon

Opposed, and suppressed,

Deposed, dispossessed, truly oppressed.

While you’re inundated with inanity,

Your sanity seems more like vanity.

How can you call yourselves humanity?

29 – 1 - 2011

For Who Might See

2011-01-29T13:36:00.002+13:00

You – did you know me when

I fell into the ageless well within?

And you – did you watch me while

I lingered before the flame

Of my Beloved’s smile?

Perhaps you – you saw me dance.

Did you taste the kiss of who

I touched in trance?

Maybe you – in your eyes I recall

A fleeting light:

A moon between clouds

On a stillborn night.

1997

AEIOU

2011-01-29T13:29:00.002+13:00

A - ambition to jump over the fence
E - the horizontal effort of the event
I - the stile side-on over which I stride
O - over I go onto the other side
U - the bump as I land down again

14 - 4- 06

Protagonist (Limerick)

2011-01-29T13:27:00.005+13:00

In a movie was trapped a protagonist

In a death machine with an unusual twist.

‘Dam!’ he said with dejection,

“I’d prefer lethal injection,

But I’m afraid my doctor’s gone west!”

2007

DJ (Limerick)

2011-01-29T13:26:00.003+13:00

A DJ with a vinyl appreciation

Started a ‘CD-destroying’ foundation.

The membership so grew

It was shocking when he knew

That it was a record-breaking sensation!

2007

Thresh-hold (1980)

2011-01-29T13:18:00.002+13:00

Light

And sound

and you

and I on the ground

beneath you, loving you with my eyes

Can we not find each other’s surprise?

For changes

conceal, the days

…we used to run through grass

The ways?

only time has passed; no strangers

to each other now

the same delight, the moonlight, the beach

we cannot reach…into..somehow…

And I on the wave

You in the sea, for me for me for me

And you, yes

my love I’d do anything for you

you for me, save

the days now faded in time

For we have still to find our way

in ceaseless entwine the days

ahead

the same delight a changed insight

and love, my Love, I’m only so new

for you.

Will you see us now, no longer me

and us on the tide of time just starting to be free?

1980

I, Fish, Wall, Parents, Snap! (1980)

2011-01-29T13:13:00.000+13:00

They dart like shadow upon shadow

Content in their regulated, placid world.

Enclosed from above by fluorescent light,

Behind them a wall that’s more that wood and plaster,

A mile wide yet paper-thick, which is strength enough.

The wallpaper endures no tricks from the light

That is diffused through the veil that is a curtain

Which will never seek audience.

Morning, and behind the wall, a world of voices hurting

Without precaution, while I am forced to listen

For fears, of detection, or of curiosity?

I won’t go, where were you, I was depressed, two days?

The echoes hang and then absorbed through the wall

For my benefit.

The wall, that separates the tranquillity, ignorance, bliss,

From the harsh oppressive reality of marital mistrust.

All’s quiet of the home front: the smile falls with the face.

1980

My World (1980)

2011-01-29T13:00:00.003+13:00

I fought on the wind that began before time

In the beginning it wasn’t this way.

But now the risks I take are all mine

And I alone reap the pay

The cry of the wild, the effortless climb

The speed relative to none.

These are the qualities I want to find,

The careless risk of waking up blind

If only to look at the sun.

The relationships too difficult to grasp,

Of self-seeking people among

Whom I’m left in a world of my own with the task

Of having to reach their one.

If only so I have this paper to show

That I think like all the others.

Well, you won’t find me there, I’m enjoying the air

Of my world, their ideals, it smothers.

1980

Awakening to Memory (1980)

2011-01-29T12:52:00.001+13:00

(Note: refers to a time when, awaking from chaotic dreams of medieval chaos and ruin, I recalled a happy memory to calm me. I remembered a time at the lights in Newmarket with my lover, when she asked for her ‘drug’, and I kissed her, thinking impulsively she meant ‘me’. Two guys in a van behind us clapped – such romantic spirit? My lover explained after that it was a cigarette she meant. In the poem this memory is translated into medieval garb from the dream traces).

Carrouselled past Shavian

Flowersellers, to days of when

Medieval knights and damsels

Fled from evil sights to castles,

And past bombardment of quaking towers

The last enchantment, for waking now,

My dreams have gone, and I’ve lost the battle,

And streams of consciousness now grapple

With thoughts of sleep and safety’s shore

For fraught with deep pangs greatly more

Of love and loneliness, my mind

A dove on a lonely quest to find

A memory

Of when we

Were carefree

And laughing

Reminisced when, on trusty steed,

The damsel was kissed, when just such a deed

Was requested of the prince, who confused the words

In the message rather, since it amused the bards

In the minstrel troupe behind, who clapped for more

And the damsel looked blind to what the kiss was for.

Not a kiss was the request for the task, nor a hug,

But for Turkish cigarettes when she asked for her ‘drug’.

And awakening to memory, I welcome reality.

In taking you with me in my dreams, you are in me.

1980.

Mushrooming (1980)

2011-01-29T12:34:00.003+13:00

1, 2, 3, 4

Naga Saki

When will the rain with the wind wash down.

The death toll sound in this peaceful town.

His…tory

Hor…izon

Clouds in the south lie limp on the line.

Watch as they wash over memories in time.

Her…story

Her...eyes on

Me.

The Sun Trip: Suicide In Space (1980)

2011-01-29T12:29:00.001+13:00

It was the flight of the Icon Tester.

I was taking it for her first run.

When I thought of how I missed her,

And flew into the sun.

The video hummed by my side,

The technician’s hands were wrung.

He said, ‘Look man, you can’t commit suicide,

We just can’t let it be done.

That Icon Tester’s brand new,

It’s worth a heavy sum.

And top-grade pilot’s are few,

We can’t afford to lose another one.

I said, ‘You try and stop me, for

I’m looking after number one,

And life’s not worth living anymore,

I’m making the final run.

My wife died two days ago,

And life’s no longer fun.

And now I’m going to join her, so

Say goodbye for me to everyone.

The pain I felt grew more and more,

But the instructions couldn’t be undone.

The last thing I saw was the white of the core,

As the ship and I melted into one.

5 -7- 80

Song For Daphne (1982)

2011-01-29T12:18:00.000+13:00

Tree of the cascades

Visage swathed in green

The robe of winter’s queen.

How the night wind races in your memory,

Though the darts of dawn

Silver the dew

Adorning your limbs.

Deep-rooted memories echoing

Like lyric strains of birdsong

Filtered through your leaves

That shimmer in the breeze.

When once you ran you cried ‘Diana!

My limbs are like the wild wind.”

And, green nymph, your legs would ache,

Your body taut

While stalking prey.

O fledgling!

In dewy youth

Summer’s song was golden.

Now your supple leaves are falling.

In their wake you find none forming

A royal wreath

To still your aching heart.

12 - 11 - 82

Frog Prince (1980)

2011-01-29T12:09:00.001+13:00

Occasionally
A frog,
in jumping
From lily-pad
To lily-pad,
Misses

The jump,
Falls in the water,
And wonders
Whether he is
Swimming or
Drowning.

23 Vows (1999)

2011-01-29T11:50:00.001+13:00

To feed the little mouths,

To sexually arouse,

To be a good man around the house,

To keep my fury doused,

To stay with you til home come the cows.

To heal the bitter rows,

To fill the day with wows,

To keep wearing the trous’,

To convince you of my powers,

To be with you to wile away the hours.

To appreciate your vows,

To work on being good pals,

To be tidy as a mouse,

To forego the mood that sours,

To praise what’s inside your blouse.

To work to have what’s ours,

To remember to give you flowers,

To in your mind take a browse,

To make sure old skin sloughs,

To heal you of your ow!s

To in love-making nip your brows,

To show you now the hour is

To remake our mutual vows.

Seasons Of The Soul (1998)

2011-01-29T11:13:00.002+13:00

Life (unfortunately?) is not a linear progression of continual transcendence.

We loop-the-loop in periodic cycles whose zenith

Is the acquisition of higher consciousness given as grace or guidance,

And whose nadir is the sacrificial ordeal of the redemption of lower consciousness

And the gift of initiation.

A catalyst kicks it off, a season of the soul.

Looking back I can reflect ‘that was the period of my life when..’

How did that one begin? What started the wheel to spin?

We were on a roll, a spark ignited, something fired the imagination,

And we got caught on the rising tide, the movement of transformation.

The ‘New Age’ is largely a solar cult, fashioned from sunny California.

The sparkle of spiritual images from the commodity capital of Hollywood.

Bought in the marketplace we must make them our own,

Bringing image together with shadow to become real,

Find what is uniquely ours from all the ideas that appeal.

A calling turns us inward, beyond the public domain.

What got us kudos was not enough, the outward expression is flagging.

What was once professed we must now confess we know not where it came from.

And we ask in declining days of summer if we might humble ourselves to listen

and accept the lessons of the guiding ones.

Grace is the gift of those who have stopped seeking or struggling.

Outward confidence becomes the inner ability to confide in oneself.

Something nudges us from our certainty and calls into question

The mission we thought we were on.

Sweet season of touching the future self where it’s already all been done.

A crisis takes us full circumstance, opposite where we began.

We must enter the underworld embrace and allow an understanding.

Every aspect of ourselves wants to be accounted for and included.

The stretch in ourselves as we remind ourselves of the light while in the shadows.

It is the shamanic ordeal to use these tools for transformation.

And in that said period of your life, wasn’t there the determination,

To break several cycles of similar fate to gain an initiation?

The gift you receive becomes your service to see where others are caught.

What gold did you uncover? The rhythm and pulse of life discovered.

Seasons of the soul beyond which realization is sought.

Radical Revision

2011-01-29T10:52:00.002+13:00

Thomas undertook a radical revision of his life.

His life he felt to be a fiction unread by most men.

By ‘most men’ he reckoned anyone unacquainted with strife.

With strife at his roots, is there anyone who could not understand,

Not understand more than a superficial gloss or first glance?

“First glances won’t tell a thing about me”, he declared.

He declared to himself a radical revision the only chance,

The only chance to be read where the level of fact was bared.

Was bared and naked of fictions the place where he’d see?

He’d see if the answer was to be found at the roots.

The roots were where no words could capture such truth.

Such truth was not the various versions of him it suits…

“It ‘suits’ of others, yes!” he said, “but not of me.

Of me they know so little. Deep at my core is pain.

Is pain and strife the ‘fact’ of my deep enquiry?

Deep enquiry then is at least a form of vision I gain.”

I gainsay you’ll guess the insight that occurred to Thomas.

To Thomas was given a gift when indeed he saw again.

A gain begotten when the light of awareness is on us.

On us the onus to clear the path of our life of the slain.

The slain are the dead-eyed men we see ourselves as,

Ourselves as lonely and unwitnessed by others at the core.

The core in truth has always possessed the light that it has.

It has been covered by a fear that it’s only ourselves that we saw.

We saw that without others loneliness seems to win.

To win new eyes to see we must give up one more view.

More view in fact that to see only ourselves here is to sin.

To sin is to see the ‘I’ and not become the ‘Eye’ that’s all of you.

16-5-10