The Vessel

The old woman sits,
her milky eyes see nought now
but shapes bent out 
by the flames of the fire beside her.

Her bones still strong,
her skin the give away,
made as it is of the sheerest silk
crumpled and dyed in hues of purple and blue.

She can no longer hear the stories
which now fill her belly, her heart:
her mind, though bright, has absorbed
all the cries for attention it can absorb.

So she sits and others gather
While she pours forth her timelessness,
speaking of the love she learned
in a lifetime of heartache and joy.

A strong voice radiates her light, her dark,
valueless and priceless in equal measure.
She is who she is with no apology
and all who hear her rest in that.

In the lav with Charles

I'm spending ten minutes per wee
just to hang out with him,
which is a lot of time
in a person's day.

It's a dirty kind of lust:
one of pleasurable grunts
in hidden dark corners,
subterfuge and coveting.

He either makes the profane sacred
or the sacred profane,
I'm not sure which,
maybe both. But I do know

this dead man reaches
down, into my guts,
dragging my heart with him,
messes around there

makes me moan
oh yes thank you god
for this
and I want more.

Do not give me your heart

I do not want you to give me your heart,
Nor will I give you mine.
The world spins here,
The heart-centre of being,
So you exist in me already,
I in you.

I want you to keep yourself,
As I intend to;
To call yourself home:
No one ever said
You've spread yourself too thick.

We can never know each other
The way we know ourselves
So let's share what that's like:
Tell me the experience of your heart
In this moment and the next,
What makes it laugh and long for,
Weep and sing about.

Oh please God
Do not give your heart
But love it holy,
Wholly for you;
Let mine open and close to you,
As yours will close and open.

Everything lives here:
Let us walk this life alone together,
All one.

Let's share that.

The Truth?

So many thoughts that never become things,
Remain intangible:
Ah, there we are,
It is spirit which has form!
Thought is the abstract!
I wasn't sure before.

There is a feeling one gets
When one recognises truth:
A truth
The truth
Any truth.

There is no 'the' truth:
That becomes a path to follow,
A rule to bellow at your fellow man
In order to maintain a
Something that is not, truly, maintainable.

What is true
Here, now?
For me,
For you?
Can we find shared ground?
Even if it is only in
A moment of recognition
That we each can say
I see you see things
Differently to me,
Laugh at our humanity
That prizes belief
Over this commonality.

Let me go let me go let me go
Says the truth;
Let me go
So you can truly see:
Truth is not opinion or belief,
Truth's only form
Is here and now,
You and me.

Run

Run run run with me!
Let's see the world
Fresh-eyed each day,
Nothing guiding us on our way,
Showing us all that 
Delights.

Can you value a slug and a lion the same?
Compare the magnificence 
Of dolphin and bluebottle?

Then run with me,
Not away but together;
Know that I will never stop:
The wild mare,
Alive with inspiration,
Sleeps in the wind,
Untameable.

So run with her
Through rain, over mountain,
With sun and snow on your face;
Remember to taste
What life is for:
The knowledge of spirit
Through body.

Let's take hands
And run.

There are Old Sayings and New Ages

My heart speaks to me
In curves, pictures, zen.
It does not remember like the mind,
It simply lives.
Open, it touches all it sees;
Closed, it softly restores;
Always in perfect balance,
Though I may not always
Understand it's odd rhythms -
The times it skips a beat
Or runs away with itself.

There are no words
But those of my heart
And it is boundless,
Its armour lighter now
Than years gone by:
Heavy plate turned to
Nimble leather, a second skin
To clothe me when I need it.

When you feel as light as air
Something is needed to
Keep your feet on the ground:
My heart has an untethered nature
Conscious of its many layers,
So throws down anchors 
From time to time.
But it knows to cast off often,
For, unbound,
It can let go of what it loves,
Trust that leaps of faith
Bring untold riches
That all the positive wishing in the world
Can never hope
To manifest.

The Path

We awaken.
Our minds imagine pain enough
To pull us from deep slumber,
To make our bodies wake
To change
A situation no longer tenable.
There is no clarity
Like that post-storm,
When the wild winds
Are behind you now,
When you can emerge
From cool safe depths
To a surface of waves
Which arrive gently
On the lap of the shore.

The rocks over which you scrambled,
The pools through which you waded
Are still there,
Though no one again will tread
The path you made with your two feet.
The almost-distraction of a peaceful lagoon,
The green stone that shone:
Perhaps no other being will see them,
Certainly not the way you did
On that day,
So here we are,
Left with the story of them now.

And here still, the beautiful shell
You collected,
A reminder to hold
What you learned:
That your way was perfect
Because it was yours;
That you could tread carefully and pause
To cause no harm
And also find joy in risk and swiftness,
In the deep, intuitive knowing
Of where you needed to go
To make a life that was your own.

The Wheat and the Chaff

The ripples of fear
That kept me from landing
Were in anticipation
Of the grief here present
When I arrived.

Expressing truth at every turn
Takes courage
The like of which 
I have never known.

Who I am now
Is not who I was then
Or then or then,
Though I may seem familiar.

The owned words of others in this circle
Give clarity
But outside, so often,
I hear the opinions 
Of those who think they know me,
Who offer with love and kind intention
The story of their own heart,
Telling me it's mine.

I wait.
I listen.
Until I hear my own voice sing,
My own tears weep;
Until I know
It is time for the loss,
That Nothing can prevent it,
Only allow a rebirth
Of Something else
With a flavour of me
Combined with a seed
Which arrived in my hand
When I left the old stem
Behind.

And the dawning joyful chorus
Will not be held back
With cries of too much
Too soon, too early:
The wheat is ripe for new living,
The chaff ash happy to be fuel
For what lies ahead.

I leap......

Listen

In the quiet mystery,
Softness beckons.
In that place beyond words,
Thought-less,
Where aliveness is not
Mind-measured,
You can hear it call
With something other than ears.

Listen.

Oh, dear heart
Listen without listening:

Sit in pre-sense
In the stem of sensual life;
Let it sweep you
Into open, waiting arms,
Its gentle voice telling you
Yes,
Beloved,
You are home.

Something Important

There was something important
I was supposed to be doing.
Something so vital
That to do anything else
Was impossible.
I sat all day
Trying to do other things
With a wandering mind
To what I could not remember.

I knew it then,
In the wild days of drugs and sex,
Drinking and dancing,
When I saved myself
For a whole year
From the needs of others - 
At least just enough
So I could also hear myself.

And I knew it then,
Before the depths of injustice
Became apparent.
When days were play and music,
Togetherness, pretence and imagination.
When the sense of
Not belonging began - 
The unrelated outsider
Arriving late,
Welcome but afraid.

And oh for years
I made a life of
Holding suffering for others,
Always seeking deeper meaning
To understand the cause
In God, childhood,
Him, Her, Them.....

Until I gave it back.
Till this voice had a chance 
To speak its own calamities,
Distress and celebrations.
Till I was heard and held with love
And no expectation.

And then I remembered
There was something important
I was supposed to be doing.
The thing that was always there
In my heart
Spirit-strong
Soul-shaped
Body-enlivening
Mind-expanding.

So now I do that
Whenever I can,
Whenever the fear and distraction
Is not in the way.
I still forget
But I'm getting better
At remembering
Myself.

The Hidden Path of Plain Sight

Do you know where it is you are going?
Or whose blood is upon the stone?
Do your dreams lie so far behind you
They are nought but dust and bone?
 
Do you pray to God or a Buddha?
Do you worship the moon or the sun?
Is your life lived only through mindset?
Has your spiritual journey begun?
 
And what of your heart and emotions?
Tell me what ails you now?
Does your soul ever sing uninhibited?
Do you know when to let it, or how?
 
Bones can be sung into being -
Don't fear to gather them hence;
For there comes a time in your life
When you can no longer sit on the fence.
 
God can be found in the Nothing - 
There's nothing to fear or to love;
Just open your life to experience
The union of below and above.
 
For it's all just the same anywhichway
You choose to see it or not:
Born together, these Something's from Nothing,
We are all that we've got.
 
So we cling together in darkness,
Rejoice together in light;
Collect your courage and come hear the truth now -
It's only hidden in plain sight.

The Pulse

I pressed and pressed
Could not digest
The story with no name:
That one will keep
You from your sleep;
My finger was the pulse.
 
Until in time
With reason and rhyme
Some understanding came;
I danced and danced
I took no chance:
My finger was the pulse.
 
And then I knew
Unless I threw
That story right away,
My life would feel wrong,

I'd lack my own song:
My finger was the pulse.

So I decided

I'll not be divided
The song of my heart I will play:
Oh how the sun beams
When your soul lives its dreams!
My finger is the pulse.

The Meaning of Simplicity

The leaves reach out over the path,

Longing to brush across,

To know, skin;

To leave their mark on it -

A reminder they were there

That would last for hours, even days.

Sun shines,

Neither hiding nor relentless,

Effortless in its being.

Meaning can be found

Without looking;

Or there is always 

Nothing to understand.

Does the butterfly search

For something in particular,

Or flit from place to place

For the sheer joy of it?

Does the spider sit,

Perpetually waiting an arrival in its web,

Or does it dream,

Pondering the world and its own

Existence?

The smell of rain,

A magnificent tree,

This loving gaze:

You can, still,

Breathe in simplicity.

A Moment of Moment

I allowed one moment
To define me
For years and years.

Now,
I let it
                                    go.
I could choose
                            another
     In its place.

How about this one?
This one
Or this one?

The possibilities are
                                 .
                               .
                             .
                           .
                         s
                       s
                     e
                   l
                d
              n
           E

On Realising

Cobweb-covered fingers:

The flesh of eons 

One might think was stone 

As it had always been there,

Was in its perfect place.

Yet here it breathed, 

Despite the dust settled on its skin 

That changed its sheen 

To a misty mirage. 

Realising its aliveness 

The hand shook off its shroud, 

Danced from still to wild,

And though it moved 

Until at last again 

It found stillness, 

It would never go back.

A Poem for Moments of Anxiety

We move through hot and cold,
Hot and cold.

There is grass;
There is sky;
There is breath.....

Are you paying attention to the
Punctuation?
The pauses:
There to let you take your time;
There to allow a slowing down.

There is no hurry.

Let's start again.

We move through hot and cold,
Hot and cold.

There is grass;
There is sky;
There is breath.....
Solid earth supports us;
And there is more air
Than we can ever draw into our lungs.

There is a woman of years,
Her thin, soft skin
Sags gently in paper wrinkles:
I want to follow them with my finger,
Experience such delicacy
That could tear open,
If pressed with more than the lightest touch.

Dragonflies dance,
Flashing their iridescence
In waves of sunlight.
Their turquoise hue matches my mascara,
Though I don't think they've noticed:
They are utterly absorbed in what they are doing.

Here is breath;
Here are fingers;
Here is flesh.....

I am steadfast as a tree trunk,
As light as a leaf.

In-spire.....
Out-spire.....
No need for anything more.

Yodok: The Concentration Camps of North Korea

(Trigger Warning for those of sensitive disposition - 

but please read it if you can and spread the word to raise awareness)

I do not want to read any more.

But I will not do them the disservice of denial.

So I carry on – as they somehow do -

Carrying my heartbreak with me.

Here we have freedom of expression;

There to roll a cigarette from a scrap of newspaper

Which may have once contained a portrait of their leader

Lands you and three generations of your family

In living hell.

Here we can watch and laugh

At celebrities on tv eating grubs

For points in pointless gameshows.

There, their hunger gnaws at their insides,

Turns beautiful humans into living shells;

Where children, yes children,

Given no food,

Are forced to eat rats and insects,

The bark from trees;

Where a man is so desperate

He tries to eat a whip

Because it's made of oxtail.

But a guard catches him;

Forces him to eat intestinal worms from the latrine.

Unsurprisingly he dies.

Here we have healthcare, contraception, family planning, ivf, midwives;

Choice.

There, your child is born a slave

Or an unauthorised pregnancy

Means giving birth then being made

To drown your baby in a bucket of water.

Here we have freedom of movement;

There, no-one escapes.

Here we have the opportunity to live to our full potential;

There, indignity and suffering

Is all life has to offer.

There, they are raped,

Shackled in chains,

Forced to work 16 hour days of hard labour

Where at times they choose to do something

They know will result in being beaten

Simply so they get a chance to rest.

Where they live in rags in their own filth mixed with lice

In cages with no heat in -20degrees;

Where they are made to dig their own graves,

See their families executed in front of them.

Here, our officers and guards

Are prosecuted for misconduct;

There they are rewarded with college

If they kill people trying to flee:

They do it,disguising their own terror,

Their 'thank God it's not me'

With the fiercest brutality.

And the ones with conscious hearts

Who try to smuggle food to prisoners

Are demoted;

Moved away.

The horror is relentless.

I could feel guilt at my own aliveness.

Instead I use it to

Read on, to write, to speak

In hope

I carry for those with none,

That if enough people wake up

To the truth

Then we can, together,

Light a candle in the darkness.

For once, we said

'Never again';

Yet for the people of Yodok,

It still is.

You can donate to Amnesty by clicking here to help bring light to those with none

What it Means to You

Don't tell me what you don't want.
Tell me what fires your spirit into action.
Tell me what you dream of in those fleeting moments 
Before you're interrupted by mundanity.
I want to hear what you love;
What breaks your heart open;
What makes your being sing!

I want to hear about your sorrows,
The things that truly terrify you,
The things which make you enraged,
The deepest grief, despair and disappointments
Your heart has ever had to bear -
I want to know them all
Because I want to know you.

The you who is filled with all the world offers,
Emptied of all hope, all faith - 
Utterly human whether or not you want to be.
Tell me what you want to fight for,
What you want to love with your whole self,
For I want to know, to you,
What it means to be alive.

The Nameless I

I dream of past and future
The same way I dream of flying
Or being chased by zombies:
It all exists some place else,
Somewhere other than here,
Now.
Here and now consists of pen and paper,
A hot cup of tea,
Cosy slippers
And a feeling of openness 
To new understanding - 
Layer upon layer of knowledge
Sinking ever deeper into
Flesh and bone,
Radiating out with growing vibrancy
The powerful pulse
Of this nameless I.

Shorts No. 5

Chocolate and sex:
Two necessities for a spicy,
Icing-on-the-cake life.
If you're not getting enough of one,
Be sure to have more of the other!

Shorts No. 4

Stop looking and instead
Relax.....
There is nothing to do.
Now you can see me
And I can see you.

Shorts No.3

Soft moon globes glowed on the street.

You were there
With a towel wrapped around your head;
                                                and I.......

I just watched.

Shorts No. 2

Did you want to smile
Or be smiled at?
I don't know what to do in the rain
Except enjoy the drops on my face.
There is nothing for you here:
I can't make that ok.
Now I can smile.