Memories

Whose are the caring hands,
That gently fold the worthwhile moments
Of the open days that fall behind me like calendar pages?
In what linen cupboard are they layered,
Placed in what arrangement?

And are some left untouched, hardly noticed in a corner,
Special things with scalloped edges,
Made for times when company comes calling?
Are the creases still able to be ironed?
Do they resist being laid out in the open?
If lovingly kept do they yet grow old?

Unfold the treasures there.
I seem to have forgotten.
Brush away the dust of years, and
Lift the corners into the air, and
Place them on the bed and table, and someone
Light a candle for night and day, I’m afraid
I have forgotten.


9-6-04

Prayer

tether it here, in the cool midnight air of light
waving warm rippled streams, enter into my dreams
loosen my lean swathes of flesh.
encolour my chest, inrush an infusion of beams
fill the crater inside, warm its tide of new life
overwhelm all the sides, make a nest.

awaken fractal tendrils of power.
give the breath girth and width
carry clear heart forthwith from the window
of my tenanted tower.

may sourcewaters flow free from this well
in this uncharted realm, let my lungs be the helm
and my ribcage cut waters in half.
end the occupation of lies and constriction
call my spirit return from its enclosure of fiction
and fiercely guard this new craft.

call the corners of walls to new dominion
seal all corridors, redraw lines of permission
sound inside a long note that now lets down the diaphragm.
ancient ancestral fathers of yore
expand me to be as I am once more.


14 – 2 – 05

Smokescreen

Candlewax drips in a sudden profusion.
Flame crippled drops as it splutters confusion.
Now strikes up again with a red-enraged hand.
Slaps some smoke as it smotes to create a diversion.
Lake of wax fills again under burning desire.
Settles deep in the heat in retreat from the fire.
Fomenting rebellion as its twists in the torment.
Til the wall’s rent anew and it runs til it tires.

So too does this wounding seek its natural discharge.
The curse bursts its banks and drains me of courage.
If I falter I’ve fallen and soon comes the blame.
If I rage to recover remember
Through screen of smoke heals the flame.


14 – 2 – 05

Six Passers-by

Middle-aged, papers clutched against her chest, fingers entwined.
As though her life were undelivered, although apparently sealed and signed.

Pear-shaped body, swaying hips, hands hooked inside long black sleeves.
Hair tied into ponytails, handbag swinging, to and fro she weaves.

Thin white shirt, rippling in the wind, pasting against bare skin.
Long unbuttoned cuffs signal the end of his business day, evening begins.

Small Asian face almost covered by wrap-around sunglasses.
Earrings flash in flaxen hair, flared jeans reveal high fashion shoes as she passes.

A double exposure, two dark-haried women, each holding a hoisted handbag.
In smiles and hair heads nod together, but one seems lighter, feet white sandalled.

Chinstraps frame a silvered beard, a cyclist in yellow windbreaker.
Speeding by, his smile is surprisingly permanent, the freedom in this cocooned caper.


27 - 11 - 07

The Child of Hills

Walk in the child of hills with legs that shine like apples
In pockets open to sunlight with daffodils holding the air.
Look to paper planes catching from leaves that green the blinking eyes
To butterflies lifting from waterfalls spreading fingers on the stairs.
Take chimneys dressed at daybreak passing shadows off the fields
Caught in waves at grassy ridges growing warm clouds off clear blue.
Wait near old brown bridges for shoes that hang like coloured fishes
And hide near branches folding out for worms in borrowed suits.
Show candles roaming under stars past roads that whistles turn to view
While seeds shy under fallen logs down past grey crickets hicupping.
Embrace long days at childhood’s end in meadows facing head downwind
And wrap full coats at owl’s long note in hair flung puddle-jumping.


13 – 3 – 05

Rage

We hated those men then,
With all we could muster,
Who bore down above us,
With blades bloody-lustred.
Who tore us from land,
And forced us here into danger,
Where the heart beats on fire
At the hands of a stranger.

In our rage we were hardened,
To confront the dark lords,
Those steel eyes of requirement
To submit to their swords.
Though our hearts lay wide open
To the rivers of blood,
In our anger-filled frames,
We were as large as the gods.

And our chests grew like furnaces
Roaring with logs,
And our cries were the ravings
Of wolves and wild dogs.
And our teeth showed their edges,
And our brows ran with sweat,
As we fixed on our foe,
And knew blood must be let.

In a wave of defiance,
We ran forward to fight.
And our fierce pride dared them
To question our might.
Arms and hearts reaching upwards,
We exploded in red,
Yet our anger declared
We’ll not be of the dead.

For our hearts harboured children,
And wives and kinfolk,
In our crazed cries of courage,
It was for them that we spoke.
So we called on the gods
Of rage, weapons and war,
To put fire in our chests,
And burn brave evermore.


21 – 02 – 05

Silence

Fresias fade, withdraw their bloom
As though reversing time.
A smile she smiled at him now curls back
Toward herself in self-reflection, fades too.
She wants to crease the silence between them
Like a sheet of paper with no words.
Words get stuck in time.

Chocolate and Sex

Chocolate and sex.
Sweet dreams of warm woman’s steam,
Hot and wet and heating,
Love’s own sweet furnace beating.
With each deep breath she wants
To cool it down.


12 – 10 – 06

Archaeopteryx, Metempsychosis

Surely the arbitrary cannot be so arbitrary,
determined by chance or caprice?

Archaeopteryx, metempsychosis.
Ancient bird of the Jurassic era,
The transmigration of the soul.
One actual, one abstract.

The half reptile, half bird, one of the earliest flying animals.
A creature living one hundred fifty million years ago,
A creature now dead, now extinct.
Ah, but did you ever really live for many millions of years?

A prototype.
A transitional form beween reptiles and birds.
Jawed teeth & a long lizard tail: feather & wing.
A form between demons & angels, a collage of concepts.

Archaeo-pteryx.
Archaeo-logy, Encyclo-paedia.
Etymology. From the Greek etumologia, ‘the word of the true or real’.
‘Archaeopteryx’. New Latin. ‘Ancient bird’.
We took pteryx from pterux from pteron, the Ancient Greek, up from Eden.
Pterux – ‘bird’, from pteron – ‘feather’, via ‘wing’.
Ah, but did you ever come from feather via wing?

I see the fossilized imprint of your body.
An encyclopaedia encircled, a cycle, a circle, a final stage for your breath.
A footprint on the path of time, your fossil wings visible as feathery lines.
Radiations from your spinal column.
And your feathers radiated out from these.
Ah, but was it ever that feathers grew first on your body?
Did you ever feel your skin feel like feathers, for the feathery very first time?

Feather to wing to bird. Flying as a finer degree of feeling. Metempsychosis.
The passing of a soul into another body or form of existence.
A physics of flying, a metaphysics of dying. Metaphor.
Ah, had you flown on the wing of the flow, thrown by the throw of the dice?

Words form into rhyme, their meanings divined from the signs.
Archaeopteryx, metempsychosis.
Arbitrary existence & an A to XYZ of time.


31-3-06

The Church Of the World (for Andy and Sonya's wedding)

She was called by her father on a summer's morning:
"Be ready, child, we leave now, the day is dawning."
And forthwith, they rode, from the land that she knew,
Further than she'd been, into a valley new.
And along the wooded trail, as they eased to a pace,
She asked of her father what he knew of this place.
"What you will know too," he said with a smile,
"For this land is your family's, stretching mile after mile.
But only the land to the left of this road,
Yet all, for generations, is where your kin tilled and sowed."
"But what of the land to the right?" she enquired.
"Oh, none live there that your forefather's sired.
But now," he continued, "I must tell you why we've come.
For your mother and I...understand you've met someone.
And there's a day - like today - in which we in our time,
Were taken down a road such as this, that comes now...
To daughter of mine."

And with that they turned into a large open glade,
Where dozens of their kinfolk on wooden benches were arrayed.
But only on the left, for to the right sat many others,
And as she took in the view, she tried to discover
Whether in the sea of new faces, she knew anyone,
When suddenly her eyes blinked, as if from rays of the sun.
For the face of her beloved was looking back at her.
And as he came over to embrace her, she heard her father's words:
"To the heart of this valley, your young lover took a ride,
This morning, before us, with his father by his side,
While your mothers and kinfolk prepared this ancient place
With flowers, food and wine, fit to receive God's grace,
For a marriage of true hearts. And for all of us here,
We are overjoyed and blessed, for now we can draw near.
For the land to the right is of your lover's forebears.
But now this land, beyond, is for all of us to share.
This green valley is your heart, this great world is a church.
Along aisles - or roads - in Love...
Do the two sides merge."

Wound

A sword thrust downward, glancing the right of face.
Piercing the sternum, and slicing lungs and diaphragm.
The eardrums burst, the pop! the shell cracked open.
Head wracked leftwards turns, the wraith in ruins escapes.

The severed vertebrae, splintered off like icebergs.
The heart collapsing, ruptured blood-lined rubber.
The lungs lift shattered, crystalline cavities of silver.
The skin is flayed aside, layers of clothing in skin merge.

Metallic technology, morning bite of cold hard steel.
Turned in space with the glove, but forced facewards into flesh.
It drove a demon downwards, in roots of mine enmeshed.
This wound I here unwind, where words and image heal.

The Quiet Young Moon

Apple night the quiet young moon is dead.
Splash splash on the windowsill shows where she bled.
With wind on the lake the warmth of the land
Will curl and unfurl mist over the sand.
In starlight the child might sleep through the dream.
An owl flies by but nothing is seen.
My murder has happened a long time ago.
See here it was there that I felt the first blow.

A Very Rare Fear

A very rare fear
Make bear hide half a year,
Hibe burn nate ting in dark of his cave.

Scar rred by this fate
In lair bare but for hair,
Lies the bear head hear ring him bear rate.

Hear him bare his bear soul
Hate of self for the fear most,
Lost to whol worl dark goes in his mind.

Bury in side his bear hide
Feel here hole in his side,
Paws and sole of his feet same dull ache.

Have hurt seep ping at best
Home call him take king a rest,
Fear not I wont hunt you I am one of your kind.

One Sentence (2005 poem for my mother)

For my mum, my mother, a grand (young) lady,
Is her son, no other, her grown-up baby,
Come, to discover, in this grove so shady,
With a poem, how I love her, and with writing maybe...

Uncover, with the necessity, of rhyme and rhythm,
A lover's propensity, to undermine in him,
Everything other, than underlying givens,
Nothing to cover the undenying fool's whim...

To declare, forthright, the plain and simple truth,
That whether, for nights, I was staying under her roof,
Or otherwise, in flight (having left the nest as a youth),
I have never, despite the dress of appearing aloof...

Ever, though ways seem to part,
Severed her from my heart.


2005

Crickets

The crickets are singing.
Midnight cascading flumes of cadent water
slipping past shiny stones.

Man With Only One Leg

Man with only one leg,
Lean-stepping on crutches along the pavement.
The trouser-leg of his jeans rolled up and pinned.
He didn't want to just cut it off, no.

Love Note

small parchment tipped one folded diamond side down
blue ink bled encrusted edges over ridges
fading tidemarks staining tiny matted grey fibres
curling runes crafted fledglings cantilevered along line
pattern stamped cornered scrawled worn signature
hand pressed parachute rocket shot paper

missed the moon now marooned

at her feet in the space she vacated

Death

Death is but a blink of day,
An eyelid of the night.
It only happens on the surface of things.
Deep within, life goes on.

Rune

Ravenrage diabolus crucifix knife
Hungred hunted the throth bound remain.
Inkquire peatbog in lumen light
Whenced cry carren chillen in hand.
Yestered homeheart beat no moren fire.
Trackened marshwood their steps falterbear.
Morst to me now inthen grast the chillen carren
Carren cross sarnt the night naughts to them.
Weast hathoer owne abiden book resplayn.
Tays the stories woven webs o oer clayin.
Noed need orsfor hammer sin crossbladen book.
Curn in deathmartyrs throes aftine crust masters cruik.
Callered light crowerd cowl beats ashame.
Moren men suchas like wi no name.
Send tha hundread ahunt ferus here.
Thas wimin carren chillen in theys nayre ayear
Theysorl carryairn sweet dearones agin.
Romen crossern nayst acallered them in.
Ahd curlin acornkindred moon enda myne.
Adepped as asleept in nowre plumered clouerwine.
Cries onye thaes noosehaltered hounds.
Nae sons daughters wies owre'en us thattheys bound
Will gead wyrds to thae cawr book.
Thaes hang deatheyes ofteare kindred avain.
Ours alongain runningean faers a' wimin
Eyn carreyn chirren weast towr remain.

Face

the eyes looked with equal regard.
the smile knew to whom it belonged.
the nose loved to slope like the fresh-fallen snow.
the sinuses inside made a rorschach of light-filled cavities
filled with the aroma of rose.

the eyebrows pondered gentle distinctions.
the eyelashes surfed on the wind.
the teeth took their place in white ranks four apace.
the tongue breathed and swum under the palatial roof hung
with ribbons of rouge-coloured banners.

the cheekbones were hands holding clay.
the temple touched soft clouds within.
the brow fell like cotton-cloth hung for a movie.
the eyeballs now knew they were orphans and only-childs
but for each other adopted at birth.

the ears whispered secrets in shells.
the hairline drew a scribble of mane.
the jawline swooped down to the rock-rolling sea.
the windpipe was a sand-dune sculpted at the base of the edifice
face of a pharoah under the moon.


2006

Great White Shark Flight

The eye the blanched meat of an acorn pressed into flesh.
The nostrils the triangular gouge of a knife flicked suddenly.
The nose as hard as the indentation - the punt - at the base of a broken bottle.
But around the mouth, the rim of folded skin as white as cooked chicken or tripe

Is loose, wrapped like a shroud around its prey,
While sea water surges from runnels between the rows of its two hundred teeth,
Now hidden from view. The force of its pursuit has lifted the beast
Clear from the surface of the ocean, and exposed the great white breast to the sunlight

Like an ancient albescent albatross launched into the heavens above,
Its ragged-edged pelvic fins two wide wedges of dark-tipped wings.
A rough line runs the length of its five metre body, marking like ripped paper
The threshhold of underbelly, white like soft pastry, and the broad dark back, crooking

Left and right where the missile cone head becomes the body, and the body
Narrows like a twisted torpedo end, such that a saddle of silvered black flanks
The vertical force of the dorsal fin's arching pirate's sail. And the great fish tail
Sealed like a secret, a thick rubber sweep of fierce water, catches the light

Like a batwing caught by the moon at midnight.
20 - 11 -07

Prayer for the Healing of the Liver

Your liver is alive! It calls on you
(And in pain can be quite urgent)
To help it now enthuse with yellow light!
In the rainbow light spectrum of your body,
Your liver lives at the level of the swathe
Of living yellow light that forms a band above the waist.
Look at that liver! A large wedge of living tissue
That takes the living nature of god’s creation
From the food absorbed by the bounteous bloodstream
And catalyses it into the lifeforms that fuel your being.
What a wonderful aspect of being –
Receiving from the world all its bounty
And supporting the heart to love fully in the world!
Vigilant in its power –
Filtering out all the poisons and dangers that beset the world.
What thanks we give to the liver!
The liver, the lover of life.
We honour it now with washes of yellow light.
Repel the invader, support the wonderful warrior liver!
No mention of meat and decay in the body –
Cancerous notions of the growth of substance without consciousness –
will ever deny the liver its largesse, its lifting power,
The laughter and license of life itself!
The liver, the wedge of lemon suffused with the juice
Of the the ‘zing’ that sings in life-well-lived.
Praise and love to the liver!
Let sunshine lighten its burden now!
Golden honey, lambent candle flame,
Lemons and melons and the glowing memories
Found in autumn’s radiant leaves of yellow.
We heed to the calling of the liver
And love it now for its courageous and loyal service.
Amen.


January ‘07

Body

The shell of your toenail.
The delta of your toes.
The plinth of the wedge of your foot.
The Doric columns of your ankles.
The catamaran prows of your shins.
The gunstocks of the muscles of your calves.
The armourplate shields of your kneecaps.
The pipeline bridges of your lap.
The concrete jetties of your thighs.
The curving balustrades of your buttocks.
The scarab wingplates of your haunches.
The balcony edges of your hips.
The plunging neckline of your pubic hair.
The underground train of your penis.
The mountaintop meadow of your stomach.
The glowworm grotto of your ribcage.
The ceremonial blade of your sternum.
The dark-rimmed sunglasses of your chest.
The snow-capped ridges of your shoulders.
The melting icicles of your arms.
The rudders of your elbows.
The leather drinking bladders of your forearms.
The bookends of your wrists.
The dovewings of your fingers.
The hotplates of your palms.
The metronome of your clavicles.
The flowervase of your throat.
The treetrunk of your sturdy neck.
The footpedal of your jaw.
The double sofa of your mouth.
The handmower of your nose.
The roseblooms of your ears.
The thunderdome of your hair.
The prairie winds of your forehead.
The hedgerows of your eyebrows.
The surfacing air bubbles of your eyes.
The candlelight of your smile.


3 – 11 – 07

One Regret

Mum, my one regret
Is that I didn’t get
To know you better

Other than that

I am happy you’ve found your life fulfillment
Now knowing you are moving on
I can never forget the reason of life
Is to know of life enough to know
The ones we’re here to share it with
The ones who mean the most to us

The mother who loved us so much when young
The father who did his best for us
The brothers who have lost the one
They loved the most, their only mum
I’m sad to see you moving on
But in your wake you leave your son

Who still loves you as much as he has ever done.

Happy Mother’s Day Mum.


13 – 5 – 07

16 Favourite Moments of the 1998 Summer Gathering

Leading three sweatlodges then being part of one by Danyo.
His spiritual name in English is White Mountain which I saw he is.
He’s a pipe carrier for his people. He’s been a sundancer for twelve years.
They pierce their chests with hooks and dance hung from the world tree.
He says it takes some of the suffering away from the women who give birth.
In the lodge he called the women the life-givers, men the protectors.

Rochelle doing Huna Bodywork Healing on me on her table in the tipi.
The grief and wounding that surfaced stimulated a visionary experience.
Releasing Catholicism, Jesus / martyrdom mythology, I was in the dream.
On a cross so lonely so realistically yet aware of her on the ‘outside’.
Sensing how I was trapped and moving warm energy against my skin.
Taking me by quiet storm til I was so warm and safe within.

Jason coming out in his wheelchair all the way in the mobility taxi.
Being carried by four people in his chair up to the chicken shed longdrop.
The longdrop was the highest point of the Gathering land.
Lots of joking and cheering about carrying the king to his throne.
Later in the big tipi with the drummers and dancers around the fire.
Jason’s request: Cody and I took turns holding him up so he could dance.

Down at the stream at dusk, some people standing ankle deep in the water.
My torch joins theirs as we hold them like cups upright shining from below.
In watery shadows slides an eel lazily tracing a line sideways.
Embarrassed at my ignorance of such matters, I turn caution into bravery.
With an ‘O’ of finger and thumb, I let the eel slide forwards like a condom.
Sometimes I held it forward of halfway, and we both backed up in fright.

Lying in a field of enjoyment under the duvet in my tent, gladly exhausted.
In such a high state of consciousness I ‘dreamed myself’ into visions.
Impossible four-dimensional landscapes like continuous fruiting on trees.
And at the bamboo kitchen, some favourite women are singing so juicy.
Impossible to visualize, rolling raunchy with the ‘Funky Chicken’.
The desire of wanting to witness what I am already intimately influencing.

Andy’s in Auckland to do a 10-day Vipassana meditation retreat.
The centre is in Kaukapakapa not far from where the Gathering is held.
Being at the same time, I’m naturally disappointed he’s not here instead.
But my other two brothers bring him out on the Sunday before his starts.
I’m swimming at the time so I’m not tempted to play tourist guide.
Instead we four of us jump off the bank and feel like kids again.

The sweatlodge still wasn’t built after the first week of the Gathering.
The previous year, the site had been left in disrepair; the coverings rotted.
Musing again at its fate, I saw firewood stacked in the old rock pit.
Everyone had agreed the children could have a campfire here, Doug said.
The sacred site was cleansed by kid’s laughter and toasted marshmellows.
The next day a large lodge was built: in darkest night the people entered.

Older men aren’t blessing younger men much anymore, Bly had said.
Elsewhere I’d heard that younger men weren’t apprenticing themselves.
Max asked a circle of ‘good men’ to join he and his son Willow in the tipi.
We honoured Willow for the journey into manhood he was making.
Sharing what it meant to be a man, we spoke of what we recognised late:
The support of men, and how we wished we’d had Willow’s fate.

Finding the power place for the closing ceremony on Saturday.
On the other side of the stream, a clearing between the three largest trees.
Coming together again as a smaller circle: where were all the men?
Each person standing before the group framed by the two big trees.
Being told of their qualities, the growth some had noticed over this time.
The image was of taking the gathering inside to pour ‘out there’ again.

The wonderfully contentious process around drugs and alcohol.
Buttons getting pushed, flare-ups and walk-outs, my meditations on Yin and Yang.
Gerd’s offer at the morning circle after three days of drama and dramas.
He puts a beer bottle on the altar where everyone’s offerings were arranged.
More laughter when Simon opens it to pass round for the alcohol-lovers.
Half-way around Gerd in his turn pours it out on the ground “for the others”.

Getting a sweatlodge together a little belatedly, Skins and Ben agree to help.
They take on Firekeeping with lots of wood to gather, chop, and split.
Later Skins says he has to clear with me about something a few days ago.
We reach an impass so he says he and Ben are no longer available.
I make the fire, crossing a poster of five bikers that’s been placed there.
In the circle next day Skins says he appreciates how I “got it together”.

I do a half-day in silence, an note taped on my tee-shirt.
Later I’m wandering naked as such a joyful innocent, so safe.
Where ‘Steve’s Cafe’ opens out from the Totara grove there’s a tent.
In a dome cubicle of soft bedding sits Corinna who I haven’t met.
All smiles and elfin eyes she lets me come close like a silent pet softly.
She shows me photo albums of her bus parked in different places.

Finding myself an older man among teenagers doing a sweatlodge.
Often in their company I act the suave runaway from responsibility.
Here I tell them of tradition and honouring, people and process.
In the third round the young men are still braving it with their philosophy.
Warm sound and silence resounds when I invite the women to speak.
“We’re a swimming pool”. And another:”a soft penis in a warm vagina”.

The talking stick suffered a variety of applications in the circle.
Gerd and I raced for it once, no, twice I confess, once in the tipi.
In the marquee I handed it to him before he could finish explaining.
In the tipi I held both the male and female, and offered him the male.
He witnessed my love, but took the female, and we jolly-sailored like boys.
Moustache-twirlers, like the counterplay of complements/compliments.

“If I can’t hug you here, I couldn’t hug you anywhere”, I told Henry.
He was sitting at Gerd’s cafe, and I just knew that I must ju-jitsu him.
Sure enough, he was only at the Gathering for five minutes.
I pushed past to his chair while Agnes gave me a wry smile.
Henry and I haven’t had much to say to each other for a while.
Now he thanks me for minding Zowie but tells me to use tongs for the food.

Corrina’s eyes are every colour, but her nose stud’s turquoise-green.
It picks up the eye-green like fishes in two ponds of colourful lilies.
Going gaga enough to tell her something like this I mention iridology.
“An iridologist’s dream, your eyes”, and the bit about the guy down in Golden Bay.
He took close-ups of his eyes and put them on sticks in the garden.
Like seed-packet posts showing what he was growing and guarding.

Ebony Enemy

Ebony enemy
Sunk inside
Rolled up into rhyme
Floodgates feed
Flocks of greedy
Meaningless meanderings
Mine.
In turmoiled
Roily well-oiled
Whorls in wonderland
I find
No gotten gains
Merely strains
Motley mothy
Eaten signs.


4 – 02 – 07

The Great King

The exponential equational and computational power of Parsa
& the legendary luxuriating literary largesse of Media
Were moulded by Cyrus the Second, King of Parsa, in 546 B.C.
Into a single kingdom, the Achaeminid empire,
Named after an ancestor, Achaemenes.

He then swept out to bring most of Middle Eastern Asia under his power.
There were large numbers of horsemen, supplies, distances, populations.
There were stories told of heroic feats and miraculous interventions by the gods.
By the breadth of his body and the range of his mind, Cyrus II was known.
An ancient marble head of him still exists, the beard braided in Babylonian style.

In an oration by the king he showed the form by which his shadow fell before him.
The dark shape filled the space as his influence had moved the stones in lands foreign.
And all eyes fell as the spell he cast cast out among the throng of all the chosen.
As his words stirred ancient memories in the many of these pleased to be adoring.
Two worlds combine in reason and rhyme like the passing of the moon into morning.

Gold-smiths and brass-beaters worked in the open bazaars.
The decorative art of tile-glazing reached new heights.
Architecture and mathematics flowered, carpet weaving flourished.
The empire reached its peak under Darius I and his son, Xerxes.
In 334 B. C. Alexander the Great conquered the empire, but stayed,

Seduced by the attractions of this culture
Sired by Cyrus the Second, the Great King.


4 – 02 – 07

Dear Dad

And what date is it now?
The 22nd of the 10th of the 2003rd?
And only three days since when?
The day that you died
When life decided
This particular life had come to an end.
Run that by me again.


22 – 10 – 2003

Confession Without An ‘I’

The body, as a condition of life, seems like a prison.
All it’s troubles, restrictions, and efforts to appear other than it is.
Walking down a country road, alone, finding a quiet, even pace,
There seems obviously this division between one feeling and the other.
Call them personality and soul if those words are useful.
The soul, naked and so vulnerable in its dedication to be different,
Wants to touch the body as just being this body, inhabited from within.
The personality seems to be the body’s representative, for how it wants to appear.
So willing to change the measure and shape of the body if an ‘other’ appears.
The soul, so tired in its captivity within the body, the domination of the personality.
Soul, so infinite and vast, contained within the privacy of its depths.
The body, as a condition of life, seems like a prison.

So much seems to have been lost if this knowledge of soul is possible.
Suicide contemplatives have at least the intelligence to consider mortality.
All the woundings and restrictions of the body would release to something.
The body is Jesus on a crucifix, the radiant body is the soul simply shining.
So much sadness and loneliness and freedom in the life of the private self.
So much desire for the totally trusted other, to open and confess to.
So painful the make-dos, the indifference to the thought of something else.
So impossible the cage of the body, dominated by the personality.
All the happinesses are temporary without this one happiness.
The soul sings to itself the glories of the world, the beauty of the trees.
The world is a dreaming of cicadas and clouds, lives and meetings.
So much seems to have been lost if this knowledge of soul is possible.

The soul is embarrassing in its ardent loves, its delight in anything.
Extremely shy and extremely confident, its life seems undeserved.
The personality, as advocate of the body in the world, covers the soul up.
What a miracle to even walk an even pace, to move a little slower or little quicker.
To breathe behind the eyes so the sight can swing from limb to limb,
To feel the chest lining up with the trunks of the trees in greeting.
The soul wants to find its mirroring in the world, without intervention.
The eyes want to rest on the colour of the roses growing by the vines.
Just as it is would be fine enough, nothing left behind, destroyed in its wake.
Not the personality, feverishly making and unmaking, modifying and make-believing.
The freedom to consider what comes along, find thoughts and words for it.
The soul is embarrassing in its ardent loves, its delight in anything.



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