A man is running.
Is he fleeing from
His darkest
torment?
Or racing joyfully
Towards his
vision?
He does not know.
He is just
running.
So the lotus
grows.
Forgetful of muddy
root
Ignorant of sun
dappled bloom.
Just growing
Upward through dim
waters.
Rise
and Rise of the Invisible Woman
The
other day I looked around
And found that I had disappeared.
After years
Of making my mark on the world
Somebody has rubbed me out.
It might have been me.
The world continues to revolve
Without my super multi-tasking.
After years
Of organising the nest
I settle into silent emptiness.
It feels like feathers.
Un-dead my figure casts no image
In White Van Man's rear view mirror.
After years
Of twinkling on the brink of recognition
I've collapsed into a black hole.
Inky anonymity.
The radio says hostages in solitary
Go mad after only three seconds.
How quickly
I transform into crazy, eccentric,
Individual, unconventional me.
And nobody will notice.
My
Friend the Tree
Look at
you,
All bursting with optimism,
Proudly flaunting your new summer outfit.
But do you realise
You've got an old bird's nest stuck in your hair.
It happens.
We’ve had a rough winter
And I'm feeling a bit broken twigged myself.
But nobody cares
So I think we'll both get away with it.
I envy you
All patience and calm.
Swaying a bit, but firmly rooted.
You're content to be old
And just stand there watching the grass grow.
You reassure me,
While I rush about
Not creating so much as an acorn.
I'm glad we're friends.
Come here. I want to give you a great big hug.
My Father Was a Mountain
My father was a mountain,
Soaring granite cliffs
Overshadowing
The small valley of my childhood.
Insignificant,
In the lee of that mighty presence,
I wandered solitary
Piping my own tune
Knowing only a micro climate
Of flash storms
And burning sunshine
Unpredictable
All powerful.
When those ancient rocks crumbled
To a bed of sand.
He descended to a place
Where I could sit
Hand holding
As he passed away.
Now walking alone in desert places
The mountain remains a mirage
On my horizon.
In remoteness it inspires wonder
At such brilliance
Such grandeur
Such strength
Which was, in the end,
Insubstantial
A Life in Excel
(the result of too many late nights with the accounts)
Page One.
Open a brand new worksheet
Clean and empty
Ready to be written upon.
Except for some locked cells
Carried over from previous accounts
And other people's contributions.
Begin to enter data.
Rows and columns
Listing who I am and who I know
And what the world expects of me.
Page Two.
Begin to create the formulae.
Increasingly complex
As the world delivers
Visual and sensory input.
Add rules and inhibitions,
Subtract freedom of choice
Divide loyalty and
Multiply responsibility.
A picture appears of one individual
Living in the world.
Page Three.
Apply the formula to daily life.
Unexpected results
Arise from a faulty entry
Way back on Page One.
Delightful surprises
Spring from hidden benefits
Within imported data.
Permutations grow more complex
And it's impossible to grasp
A rational picture of
The whole account.
Page Four.
Identify the errors.
Ask for expert help
In trawling back through
A lifetime of entries.
Just a small adjustment
To a memorised report
Can change the picture
And all future calculations.
Quantify every action
By adding love in brackets.
Page Five
Complete the accounts.
Some columns don't add up.
How can this be justified
Under the close scrutiny
Of the ultimate examiner.
Review the years,
Calculate the balance
Of profit and of loss
Of duties paid, interest received.
Sign off a worthwhile undertaking.
Microsoft
Sonnet
I search
the engine of the Universe,
Scan Java's script and Roman type, but find
No swatch of knowledge that can reimburse
My empty soul for all I left behind.
Scrolling through this human life on Earth,
Imprisoned by a social firewall,
I yearn to find some value or some worth
Embedded in the pattern of it all.
And so I dot my coms and cross my cheques,
Forever scanning virtual ways to learn
Survival for my drowning heart, that wrecks
On shores where Googles crash and CDs burn.
Could I download that sacred mystery
The web of life would melt in ecstasy.
Vegetable Soup
I am the provider
of vegetable soup.
Chop chop chopping
on a hard board.
So if the knife twists
and my finger bleeds
I bind it tight
with sticky plaster
and carry on.
Chop chop chopping.
Because
if there were no need
to feed
other people's hunger
I might run away
and cry with pain.
When everyone
has been attended to
I rip the plaster off
and see the wound is healing.
In time it will leave
no visible scar.
What's In A Name
When I truly know who I am
I will not need a name.
But now I live here
In this world of veils and mysteries,
And I search for who I am,
Tripping over small truths
Picking up grains of wisdom
As they fall across the pathway of my life.
Because I do not truly know who I am
I need a name
So I can believe in me.
Something neatly typed on envelopes
And printed on documents
To prove that I exist.
To fix me safely in an ever changing world.
I need a name
So you will recognise me when we meet
And remember me when I am gone.
When I see my name written down
Or hear it spoken in public places
It reassures my doubting mind.
For surely I belong in a world
Where other people say
Ah yes ... I know that name.
But who is the traveller in the vehicle of my name?
And would I still exist
If I slipped into anonymity?
I only know that I create myself
From infinite emptiness.
Just one small splinter
Holding the hologram of the divine.
Briefly placed in this identity.
So until I truly know who I am
I will always need a name.
The Ballad of Jack and the Beanstalk
Now here’s a tale of idle Jack
The giant killer bold
He sold his cow for magic beans
And stole a giant’s gold.
Oh Jack my son, my only child
Don’t climb that beanstalk high,
For I am feared you’ll come to harm
In the land beyond the sky.
Oh Mother dearest do not fear
For I am young and bold
Just once I’ll climb the beanstalk high
And steal the giant’s gold.
Oh Jack my son, my only child
Don’t climb that beanstalk green
We’ve gold enough to keep us fed
And danger you have seen.
Oh Mother dearest do not fear
I’ll climb with nimble legs,
For I desire that wondrous hen
That lays the golden eggs.
Oh Jack my son, my only child
Don’t climb that beanstalk tall
We now have clothes to keep us warm
And gold enough for all.
Oh Mother dearest do not fear
A third time I’ll be gone,
I long to won the golden harp
That plays the sweetest song
Oh Jack my son, my only child
What trouble does befall.
The giant wakes, the whole earth shakes
And he will slay us all.
Oh Mother dearest do not fear
His shouts of Fie, Foe, Fum.
Just pass the axe, I’ll cut the stalk
And the giant’s death will come.
And so Jack and his mother lived
With wealth beyond their dreams.
So always trust a magic gift
That is not what it seems.
Unhappy
Anniversary of .........
a Visit from the
Police
April 2004
A year ago
today
They knocked on my front door
Rapped iron on wood denial
Of right to silence, and
The peace of innocence.
My doorstep brain said smile
And thank the messengers
It's just their daily job
To say with well trained care
He has been found dead
Their message cut my heart
My life bled from one phrase.
So why were they the ones
Who wore the stab proof vests
A year ago today.
The
Cliff Edge
Fascinated
By Insecurity.
Magnetised
To the cliff edge.
Creep closer.
Peer down
On the dark rocks.
Hold back.
Suppress
All yearning
To fly
Or to leap
Into unsupported
Emptiness.
Falling.
Out of control.
Unheard
In the snatching wind.
Anger rising
Swamping like
The incoming tide.
Pinned
By fear.
Clinging
Weakly
In desperation
To this bitter
Low down place.
Lifted
By life.
Rising
In hope.
Riding
The thermals
Of continuing existence
Longing
For safety.
Rejecting
Green pastures.
Drawn again
To the edge
Where gulls scream.
Memories
Perception's
mementos
Packed in life's luggage.
Precious cargo,
Weary burden.
Carelessly gathered,
Randomly stored,
Neatly framed and mounted,
Or lost or simply drained away.
Those high tides of intensity
Anger, passion, ecstasy
That briefly seemed
Unforgettably overwhelming.
Where are they now?
So much flooding juicy passion
Dwindled to insignificance
As life recedes
Over the broad sands of time.
And those wild days
Erupting, blistering, burning.
Were they vapourised
In the cooling lava flow of history.
Or buried
Intact and unreachable
In the archaeology of a life.
Nothing dies.
Everything lives on
Hard wired in the brain's structure of
Miraculous assimilation.
In the glorious moment of death
Will memories arise
Run shrieking to the light
And meet extinction.
Or does each one cling to the raft of my soul.
To live again
On a different shore.
Two Ways To Be
Perhaps we should have moved to
The language there embraces permanence.
Ser is for things that are and always are
Estar reflects those shifting states of being
That are, then disappear, like happiness.
But we talked in a way that understood
How nothing ever can remain the same.
Things are until their natural course is run
We had no words to hold back destiny.
I looked into your eyes and saw you'd changed
And I could never be the same again.
Perhaps we should have moved to
Ancient, sun gold
Brightly waiting
Beyond a wide sleeve
Of restless water.
Here my life is an island
Solitary, wind chilled.
On empty cliff tops
I dream of the warm south
Searching the mist blurred horizon.
One day I'll take a boat
And live the dream.
Content at last to rest
In fields of flowers
Facing the sun.
Or will I stand
On haunted beaches,
Remembering the clear light
Of long summer evenings
And secret
Where grass grows greener.
Winter
Snow
Snow falling
In the night
Spins silently
While we are sleeping
Like the touch of angels.
Rests softly
On the hard earth
As a mother lays her Child to sleep
On a white blanket.
Morning dawns bright
Lighter than day
Illuminated again
And again
By its own brightness.
Snow falling
On frozen earth
Like love on a battlefield
Much
Work
(from My
Sister’s Song)
There is much work to be done.
Greed and suffering and ignorance
Rob our world of its nobility.
The pure flame of Love burns in every heart;
The light of Compassion guides us
Through the darkness.
In the sweetness of music
The rhythm of our duty will be revealed.
Seek Life!
Seek Duty!
Seek to awaken the songs of this new age.
There is much work to be done.
Farewell
As you walk away
I’m travelling with you
belonging nowhere
but inside your heart.
for as you weave the thread
to bind me to you
you bind yourself to me
in the mutual entanglement
of love.
Hungry
Ghosts
Why weep for the starving
With their single problem
Of staying alive
With its simple alternative.
Rather cry for the greedy
Whose hungry souls
Are insatiable
Even in the hour of their death.
Not
Now
Not now -
In the Time appointed
Not now -
In the Moment Ordained.
Not when we sleep
But when we wake
Inspiration shines