A couple of film references turned up in my Facebook feed today which jogged the memory and set this off in motion.
Bound
He is shaking the way I imagine typists
produce diatribes
when they think the internet is wrong.
"She's infectious human waste, good luck saving HER!"
The release of hate drains his skin, his clothes,
as grey as concrete.
I show him no response,
brain locked on the Fisher King.
Wondering if her wounds are mine
held open by a knight wreathed in flame.
Dreaming this might be my feat to accomplish,
that we might both get to go home.
Yet I don't reach out to help her.
Monday, 29 April 2013
Sunday, 28 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 28: Last of a line
The next Northern Oak song is going to be about the pagan goddess Nerthus and starting the research for the lyrics I read the words carved bones and this came out.
Last of a line
I could barely crouch in the hovel
that had seen hundreds healed,
tilled by a heritage of women
who forgo-ed pleasure to anoint pain.
For the past hour, with a mother's grace,
she has placed bones like fragile lives.
Each seems older than the one before.
All are resplendent
in an emerald script
that whispers directly inside me
with a language I feel I once knew.
I have survived my last rain.
I will teach you how to bind me
like my sisters here before us.
Then I will guide you through your seasons
to work in the half light between soul and spirit.
Why would I help the one who failed my son?
Because now you understand the importance.
Last of a line
I could barely crouch in the hovel
that had seen hundreds healed,
tilled by a heritage of women
who forgo-ed pleasure to anoint pain.
For the past hour, with a mother's grace,
she has placed bones like fragile lives.
Each seems older than the one before.
All are resplendent
in an emerald script
that whispers directly inside me
with a language I feel I once knew.
I have survived my last rain.
I will teach you how to bind me
like my sisters here before us.
Then I will guide you through your seasons
to work in the half light between soul and spirit.
Why would I help the one who failed my son?
Because now you understand the importance.
NaPoWriMo Day 27: The view from South Road
I ran a writing workshop at the Sheffield Buddhist Centre this evening for the younger Sangha. The theme was Re-Imagining the Buddha and engaging with what an enlightened one meant to us. This was taken from an exercise about engaging with a place as being alive and connected to us rather than taking the materialistic view that it is dead. You may potentially see more of what came out of this workshop if I run out of time over the next few days!
The view from south road
is vexed when I ignore it in the morning.
With my bleary vision and brain hampered
by headphone parasites deep in the ears.
It tries all manner of things to grab my attention
but only ever succeeds by donning robes
of fierce orange, pastel blue and rose pink.
Waiting until I turn down Barber Road
to commence the dance,
to set free a shifting celestial palette.
These pinhole camera eyes
barely take in the magnificence
before my film of mindless movements combusts
and the shock benumbs my body with awe.
The view from south road
is vexed when I ignore it in the morning.
With my bleary vision and brain hampered
by headphone parasites deep in the ears.
It tries all manner of things to grab my attention
but only ever succeeds by donning robes
of fierce orange, pastel blue and rose pink.
Waiting until I turn down Barber Road
to commence the dance,
to set free a shifting celestial palette.
These pinhole camera eyes
barely take in the magnificence
before my film of mindless movements combusts
and the shock benumbs my body with awe.
Saturday, 27 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 26: You can see the house from here
I was told about the serial killer H H Holmes before heading back home yesterday so he was the only subject that really came up. Doesn't feel like I've really captured anything here but in terms of 30 poems in 30 days it fulfills that purpose.
You can see the house from here
Built near the fair
of symmetry and splendour.
Whose sewer carried those,
drowning not waving,
in broken attachments.
Where the rooms were cheap
and check out in the basement.
Where hopes were stripped
down to the curves of their anxiety
and exploited.
Where a man believed he was separate.
That the earth was raw and mindless,
fuel for his architecture
but all he could work was pain
the material that scores the soul.
His legacy a weight of suffering
and the promise of endless towers.
You can see the house from here
Built near the fair
of symmetry and splendour.
Whose sewer carried those,
drowning not waving,
in broken attachments.
Where the rooms were cheap
and check out in the basement.
Where hopes were stripped
down to the curves of their anxiety
and exploited.
Where a man believed he was separate.
That the earth was raw and mindless,
fuel for his architecture
but all he could work was pain
the material that scores the soul.
His legacy a weight of suffering
and the promise of endless towers.
Thursday, 25 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 25: Practice room in a derelict warehouse
Where ever you go, there you are. Take it as inspiration.
Practice room in a derelict warehouse
I rest my back against the rusted steel door
wondering if I blend in with this wasted body
of screen dried eyes
smoke withered skin
and coke rotted teeth.
Wondering if like this door
my true nature is buried.
That I could free
something cool and brilliant
if I could just peel off
the dead skin of past failure.
Only picking up the mic will tell.
Practice room in a derelict warehouse
I rest my back against the rusted steel door
wondering if I blend in with this wasted body
of screen dried eyes
smoke withered skin
and coke rotted teeth.
Wondering if like this door
my true nature is buried.
That I could free
something cool and brilliant
if I could just peel off
the dead skin of past failure.
Only picking up the mic will tell.
Wednesday, 24 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 24: Stop the Narrator
This had the potential to be a lot longer but time ran out on it.
Stop the Narrator
Let this day be like no other.
Free it from waiting for Tomorrow.
Grant Ease no chance to dissuade you
from the toil of what needs to be done.
If Delight should grant you audience,
remember how fickle her courting can be.
Do not let the arms of Apathy drag you
into a complicity of murdered minutes.
Shield your eyes from the glare of Anger
and the violent holes it burns in vision.
Give no shelter to thoughts of Misfortune
for they will grow and capsize these hours.
Actually experience this day's wonder
without that veil of Narrative.
Stop the Narrator
Let this day be like no other.
Free it from waiting for Tomorrow.
Grant Ease no chance to dissuade you
from the toil of what needs to be done.
If Delight should grant you audience,
remember how fickle her courting can be.
Do not let the arms of Apathy drag you
into a complicity of murdered minutes.
Shield your eyes from the glare of Anger
and the violent holes it burns in vision.
Give no shelter to thoughts of Misfortune
for they will grow and capsize these hours.
Actually experience this day's wonder
without that veil of Narrative.
NaPoWriMo Day 23: When your desire withers
The final lines really show that syllabics aren't better suited to languages other than English.
When your desire withers...
I would always open to you
like a plum blossom
opening not for the spring but stars.
They linger with me
like your love holds my restless form
both gone by the dawn.
Your lyrics haunting my breathing.
Fervid breath of muse,
how your absence dines on my spirit,
bones sagging like chains.
Karashi ito atashi
shinde shimau no.
When your desire withers...
I would always open to you
like a plum blossom
opening not for the spring but stars.
They linger with me
like your love holds my restless form
both gone by the dawn.
Your lyrics haunting my breathing.
Fervid breath of muse,
how your absence dines on my spirit,
bones sagging like chains.
Karashi ito atashi
shinde shimau no.
Monday, 22 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 22: Legends
Legends
I know they did something extraordinary.
Tore up corrupt roots with the courage of a lion
or focused their energies to move beyond human.
Perhaps just a simple and incredible act of kindness.
Why can't we leave the telling to that?
Why do we obsess with the embellishment?
If this truth does not impress upon everyone
the way it conducts the beats of our heart
then that is fine.
That is inevitable.
Instead we insist on laying foundations
for the most beautiful and towering of falsehoods.
Like a lighthouse guiding our aspirations to shore
where we must confront the weight of our lie
and have the audacity to feel cheated.
Sunday, 21 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 21: Memory like fire, whirling from the wasteland
I read T. S. Eliot's The Wasteland for the first time this weekend and was absolutely spellbound by it. This is a response of sorts to it.
Memory like fire, whirling from the wasteland
There was a time when there was something dark in me,
like the void that feeds on colour.
You could put your ear to my chest
think you'd heard my heart
it was the dark.
Forcing out something thick and crude
to well in my capillaries
collect under the skin
where it burned each day
until my mind prayed
to revel with Maenads
and beg for excoriation.
I can't remember how it was worked loose.
I would guess a human hand
with warmth and patience
and something
agreed for a time
as love.
Like a cool flame, Temptation
would have me forget.
Like it would have me forget
the softness of thighs.
So the wish to relive
feels not like desire
but something vital
for this puppet form
to jerk its strings.
Would have me forget
there is a part of me
that drags its slimy belly
down rats' alley
that knows and delights
in what took the bones
of those dead men.
But the dark in me that once held court
like the void which feeds on colour
is part of this puppet form,
its past, present and future.
Just as you would not pierce an eye
to release a viewpoint down your cheek
as vitreous humour
you would not silence that resource
that speaks other tongues
that leads you down passages of poetry
so you might know how the dark
manifested in a man a century ago
(Who would kept telling,
retelling the sermon of fire
to the ear-less wasteland)
and guide you out again.
Like the prophet who knew both sides of the vice.
Leaving no taints but something richer;
footprints of a precarious middle way.
Memory like fire, whirling from the wasteland
There was a time when there was something dark in me,
like the void that feeds on colour.
You could put your ear to my chest
think you'd heard my heart
it was the dark.
Forcing out something thick and crude
to well in my capillaries
collect under the skin
where it burned each day
until my mind prayed
to revel with Maenads
and beg for excoriation.
I can't remember how it was worked loose.
I would guess a human hand
with warmth and patience
and something
agreed for a time
as love.
Like a cool flame, Temptation
would have me forget.
Like it would have me forget
the softness of thighs.
So the wish to relive
feels not like desire
but something vital
for this puppet form
to jerk its strings.
Would have me forget
there is a part of me
that drags its slimy belly
down rats' alley
that knows and delights
in what took the bones
of those dead men.
But the dark in me that once held court
like the void which feeds on colour
is part of this puppet form,
its past, present and future.
Just as you would not pierce an eye
to release a viewpoint down your cheek
as vitreous humour
you would not silence that resource
that speaks other tongues
that leads you down passages of poetry
so you might know how the dark
manifested in a man a century ago
(Who would kept telling,
retelling the sermon of fire
to the ear-less wasteland)
and guide you out again.
Like the prophet who knew both sides of the vice.
Leaving no taints but something richer;
footprints of a precarious middle way.
NaPoWriMo Day 20: First Lines
Sorry for the delay but wasn't able to post this due to my Aunt's 60th birthday, this started in my head on the journey over there.
First Lines
Can be found everywhere
if you train yourself to see them.
A strange turn of language in an article.
The cadence of a thought on a stranger's face.
Nature composing a hillside with a palette of trees.
They hold that glimmer of a first line
like the seam of a rich ore,
waiting for you to excavate.
To hue the strata of reality
until that unconditioned beauty
is revealed in a poem.
Your hand will not always produce
the priceless jewels that delight the eye.
Sometimes it can't quite hold the structure,
manage to excite the depths with polish
or dent it with the chisel of cliche.
Other times they just collapse
into fragments of rhyme and idea.
No matter.
No matter how many days crumple like pages.
No matter how much the shadows of ink lengthen.
There's still time for that boundless seam,
Keep mining.
First Lines
Can be found everywhere
if you train yourself to see them.
A strange turn of language in an article.
The cadence of a thought on a stranger's face.
Nature composing a hillside with a palette of trees.
They hold that glimmer of a first line
like the seam of a rich ore,
waiting for you to excavate.
To hue the strata of reality
until that unconditioned beauty
is revealed in a poem.
Your hand will not always produce
the priceless jewels that delight the eye.
Sometimes it can't quite hold the structure,
manage to excite the depths with polish
or dent it with the chisel of cliche.
Other times they just collapse
into fragments of rhyme and idea.
No matter.
No matter how many days crumple like pages.
No matter how much the shadows of ink lengthen.
There's still time for that boundless seam,
Keep mining.
Friday, 19 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 19: The Dark of the Matinee
A mention of the cinema, spurred this train of thought on and yes I've pinched the title!
The Dark of the Matinee
I wish this was cinema.
I'd splice out the static,
remove the monotomy
of what I ate and defecate.
Only speak with purpose
(a script writer at my back.)
Slow steady progression, over
in the blink of a montage.
For now I only feel the drag.
The same scene gestating
before an arthose camera.
So I lose myself in the matinee
with the lovers, lost and lonely.
Learn that buried in this life,
this series of passing frames,
there is an arc.
Then climb from subterranean wonder
to find they are still showing
The Afternoon Sun
It's like the audience is on your side
and there's still time to change the reel.
The Dark of the Matinee
I wish this was cinema.
I'd splice out the static,
remove the monotomy
of what I ate and defecate.
Only speak with purpose
(a script writer at my back.)
Slow steady progression, over
in the blink of a montage.
For now I only feel the drag.
The same scene gestating
before an arthose camera.
So I lose myself in the matinee
with the lovers, lost and lonely.
Learn that buried in this life,
this series of passing frames,
there is an arc.
Then climb from subterranean wonder
to find they are still showing
The Afternoon Sun
It's like the audience is on your side
and there's still time to change the reel.
Thursday, 18 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 18: Point of Origin
I was listening to 'You're Not Here' from the Silent Hill 3 soundtrack and it helped summon this.
Point of Origin
They'll continue to grind
my flesh under their gears,
spraying gore and viscera
until they hit something deeper.
Smooth as glass yet sharp as diamond.
The stench of rotting meat will part
for the scent of jasmine
from that night when,
lying beside another,
base passion was transmuted into love.
As they pause and try to understand,
my blood will take its leave
until I am as clear as the pools
in those last few woodland shrines
and they won't be able to tell,
if the light shines through or from me.
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
NaPoWrimo Day 17: Blessing
Weary is definitely how I would tag myself right now but we shall succeed!
Blessing
You tore down the hall like leaves
at the mercy of a kindly wind.
May your pulse find rest here
and unquiet thoughts leave you.
May the wheel cease to turn
and the upward spiral begin.
May your actions bear fruit
long past that final winter
and if you find your wings,
don't doubt, take them.
Blessing
You tore down the hall like leaves
at the mercy of a kindly wind.
May your pulse find rest here
and unquiet thoughts leave you.
May the wheel cease to turn
and the upward spiral begin.
May your actions bear fruit
long past that final winter
and if you find your wings,
don't doubt, take them.
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 16: Stupidity
Once again, I'm not talking about bus routes...
Stupidity
That feeling you get
after months of scaling that hill,
waiting shelter-less beneath the torrent
for the bus to take you round the houses,
all the houses
and still not quite take you where you need to be.
Only to realise that the whole time
you were ignoring the route that could take you home.
NaPoWriMo Day 15: Alone Again
After getting everything else typed up all I could write about was the complete disarray and I'm currently living in.
Alone again
I slouch in the detritus of life and love
with the drained gaze of entertainers
looking into the maw of the same old encore.
They say a tidy home is a tidy mind
so I rise from torpor to reclaim floorboards
from the marshland of papers.
As I re-home each wayward book, CD and blue ray
it's like sliding bullets into the chamber.
Bracing to pull the trigger on the next adventure.
Alone again
I slouch in the detritus of life and love
with the drained gaze of entertainers
looking into the maw of the same old encore.
They say a tidy home is a tidy mind
so I rise from torpor to reclaim floorboards
from the marshland of papers.
As I re-home each wayward book, CD and blue ray
it's like sliding bullets into the chamber.
Bracing to pull the trigger on the next adventure.
Monday, 15 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 14: Last doubts on the path to transformation
Nearly caught up with myself, this was written on the train back to Sheffield yesterday but I didn't have the opportunity to type it up. It looks like I am writing about a caterpillar but is it an allegory or vice versa?
Last doubts on the path to transformation
Some voice, unbidden, tells me
to build a shelter for my self.
Relinquish temperance of sun and moon.
Forge means to go beyond these tracks.
To break from my chrysalis
and stand a brilliant individual
before the many eyes.
What if I don't recognise what I become?
I've learned my limits, safe places,
where to graze on what I desire,
which hearts beat to the same rhythm.
Where is the promise they won't be lost?
What if wings aren't true freedom?
And if they are,
will the responsibility be too great?
I sew these thoughts into my skin.
The last I shall cast off on this path.
Last doubts on the path to transformation
Some voice, unbidden, tells me
to build a shelter for my self.
Relinquish temperance of sun and moon.
Forge means to go beyond these tracks.
To break from my chrysalis
and stand a brilliant individual
before the many eyes.
What if I don't recognise what I become?
I've learned my limits, safe places,
where to graze on what I desire,
which hearts beat to the same rhythm.
Where is the promise they won't be lost?
What if wings aren't true freedom?
And if they are,
will the responsibility be too great?
I sew these thoughts into my skin.
The last I shall cast off on this path.
NaPoWriMo Day 12: Question
The last of the late arrival poems - I'm perhaps being a bit harsh here.
Question
As we finished our second pints
one of us posed the question:
"If anti-depressants are so popular,
why haven't they invented depressants yet?
I bet you'd make a shed load!"
He rose with smug satisfaction
and escorted his intelligence
to the bar and the next round.
I wonder how many of my questions
have answers so obvious they blind.
Question
As we finished our second pints
one of us posed the question:
"If anti-depressants are so popular,
why haven't they invented depressants yet?
I bet you'd make a shed load!"
He rose with smug satisfaction
and escorted his intelligence
to the bar and the next round.
I wonder how many of my questions
have answers so obvious they blind.
NaPoWriMo Day 11: Surviors
Days 6 through 12 were all written where I had no access to the internet so please find them here retrospectively.
Another set of bones I found in the notebook which I have made more concrete. People really appreciated the original form in a writing workshop I did but I just don't see it myself.
Survivors
The boat trudged with a weariness of oars
as we broke the charted boundaries;
this was no place for nationality.
Each man knew the horror of the word alone.
That we could all be lost
and the roots would hide our bones.
So we replaced bandages and tightened splints.
Squinted at maps for a legend called home.
Another set of bones I found in the notebook which I have made more concrete. People really appreciated the original form in a writing workshop I did but I just don't see it myself.
Survivors
The boat trudged with a weariness of oars
as we broke the charted boundaries;
this was no place for nationality.
Each man knew the horror of the word alone.
That we could all be lost
and the roots would hide our bones.
So we replaced bandages and tightened splints.
Squinted at maps for a legend called home.
NaPoWriMo Day 10: Insight Meditation
Days 6 through 12 were all written where I had no access to the internet so please find them here retrospectively.
Was reading the work of Shantideva at the time so had an attempt in a similar vein about the retreat.
Insight meditation
Thus have I learned; the body is a vessel
and within it is the mind.
Arrogantly assuming dominance,
it is eager, inquisitive and shameless.
Labeling life with the passion of an autopsy.
Bragging to be architect of every action,
it closes the door to all opportunities.
Allowing only the track which it lays.
Do not let the mind take ownership!
Listen to the volition in each muscle
and the empathic interplay of organs,
as the evening breeze cools the skin.
Though it bears witness
the mind did not sculpt this.
When emotion would twist sense topography
explore the cause and consequence
or else be marched like mind's marionette
Grant delusion and fantasy no trespass.
Raise up the blind called self.
Was reading the work of Shantideva at the time so had an attempt in a similar vein about the retreat.
Insight meditation
Thus have I learned; the body is a vessel
and within it is the mind.
Arrogantly assuming dominance,
it is eager, inquisitive and shameless.
Labeling life with the passion of an autopsy.
Bragging to be architect of every action,
it closes the door to all opportunities.
Allowing only the track which it lays.
Do not let the mind take ownership!
Listen to the volition in each muscle
and the empathic interplay of organs,
as the evening breeze cools the skin.
Though it bears witness
the mind did not sculpt this.
When emotion would twist sense topography
explore the cause and consequence
or else be marched like mind's marionette
Grant delusion and fantasy no trespass.
Raise up the blind called self.
NaPoWriMo Day 9: Willow
Days 6 through 12 were all written where I had no access to the internet so please find them here retrospectively.
I was looking at the weeping willow trees in the retreat centre's garden and mourning the fact I wouldn't get to see them covered in leaves. The resulting idea felt amazing in my head but I just haven't got it to feel right 'on paper'.
Willow
A cold spring delayed the stitch of leaves
so branches hang like the frame of a ball gown.
It can feel wrong to wait for the weeping.
The same vein of discomfort as for Ophelia,
knowing she can only pluck the heart string
when the play permits her to drown.
Until the fetters of shame and guilt are released,
theirs is a beauty that cannot be embraced.
I was looking at the weeping willow trees in the retreat centre's garden and mourning the fact I wouldn't get to see them covered in leaves. The resulting idea felt amazing in my head but I just haven't got it to feel right 'on paper'.
Willow
A cold spring delayed the stitch of leaves
so branches hang like the frame of a ball gown.
It can feel wrong to wait for the weeping.
The same vein of discomfort as for Ophelia,
knowing she can only pluck the heart string
when the play permits her to drown.
Until the fetters of shame and guilt are released,
theirs is a beauty that cannot be embraced.
NaPoWriMo Day 8: To A Soldier
Days 6 through 12 were all written where I had no access to the internet so please find them here retrospectively.
This poem was started some time ago from when I was reading Japanese poetry and after finding it in my notebook decided to complete it.
To A Soldier
Like the Sakura
you bloomed for eight days in port,
then left my limbs bare.
Now my belly has grown fat
and kicks like a lobster trap.
This poem was started some time ago from when I was reading Japanese poetry and after finding it in my notebook decided to complete it.
To A Soldier
Like the Sakura
you bloomed for eight days in port,
then left my limbs bare.
Now my belly has grown fat
and kicks like a lobster trap.
NaPoWriMo Day 7: Sogyanandi realising that the assembley was filled with pride
Days 6 through 12 were all written where I had no access to the internet so please find them here retrospectively.
This was inspired by reading the zen text, Denkoroku.
Sogyanandi realising that the assembly was filled with pride
You hurry down the path
seeking to wrench your lotus
from the mire of the defilements.
Do you not see the shrine you build
to a delusive self of spiritual prowess,
with candle, flower and incense?
When you revere your teacher
remember to see the WE
and know that I is not this WE.
Realise the arahant can be scholar or serf
and that attainment too is emptiness.
This was inspired by reading the zen text, Denkoroku.
Sogyanandi realising that the assembly was filled with pride
You hurry down the path
seeking to wrench your lotus
from the mire of the defilements.
Do you not see the shrine you build
to a delusive self of spiritual prowess,
with candle, flower and incense?
When you revere your teacher
remember to see the WE
and know that I is not this WE.
Realise the arahant can be scholar or serf
and that attainment too is emptiness.
NaPoWriMo Day 6: Making the Job Offer
Days 6 through 12 were all written where I had no access to the internet so please find them here retrospectively.
Making the job offer
can be joyous.
Presenting a gift of
security and development.
Praising their biography.
You haven't heard gratitude until,
you've offered a job to a cleaner.
It can be tedious.
Weekends suspended by time,
time to think about it.
Negotiating start dates
terms and conditions, salaries
managers always quibble salaries.
Sometimes you don't want to call.
You've sold a dream that's not there
and though you drop hints of reality
down the well of the receiver
the reverberations of elation still return,
gritting your smile into a grimace.
Making the job offer
can be joyous.
Presenting a gift of
security and development.
Praising their biography.
You haven't heard gratitude until,
you've offered a job to a cleaner.
It can be tedious.
Weekends suspended by time,
time to think about it.
Negotiating start dates
terms and conditions, salaries
managers always quibble salaries.
Sometimes you don't want to call.
You've sold a dream that's not there
and though you drop hints of reality
down the well of the receiver
the reverberations of elation still return,
gritting your smile into a grimace.
Saturday, 13 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 13: Liminal
Disclaimer: I haven't had the chance to type up all the days inbetween while I have been on retreat, so to make sure I don't loose the rhythm, please find todays poem and I will post the others when I am able.
I have been reading Sangharakshita's history of his going for refuge and he talks about how his poetry took on an autobiographical form in that they spoke about how he was feeling or his throughts in a way he could only express in a poem. This following emerged during a walking meditation after a mindfulness of breathing sit this morning.
Liminal
When belief in control is let go
consciousness drifts down the spine.
A swirling nebula of sense and stimuli.
Skin tingles with cosmic possibility,
the thinnest guaze, inviting nourishing light
while barely stopping playful cells
from exploding into the surroundings.
All it takes is a voice from another room
or the needle point of spider legs on flesh.
This heady scent of longing and aversion
for me to bind this body again to my will.
I fuse muscle to form armour against other.
I use these hands as tools, skeletal guantlets,
for cleaving the world with my craving.
I know one of these states is unreal,
I just can't tell which yet...
I have been reading Sangharakshita's history of his going for refuge and he talks about how his poetry took on an autobiographical form in that they spoke about how he was feeling or his throughts in a way he could only express in a poem. This following emerged during a walking meditation after a mindfulness of breathing sit this morning.
Liminal
When belief in control is let go
consciousness drifts down the spine.
A swirling nebula of sense and stimuli.
Skin tingles with cosmic possibility,
the thinnest guaze, inviting nourishing light
while barely stopping playful cells
from exploding into the surroundings.
All it takes is a voice from another room
or the needle point of spider legs on flesh.
This heady scent of longing and aversion
for me to bind this body again to my will.
I fuse muscle to form armour against other.
I use these hands as tools, skeletal guantlets,
for cleaving the world with my craving.
I know one of these states is unreal,
I just can't tell which yet...
Friday, 5 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 5: Sheffield to St Pancras
On my way to a retreat centre so this is clumsily typed into my phone and the last published day until I return!
Sheffield to St Pancras
When it's a fiver more on the train,
always upgrade to first class.
It's worth it for the WiFi.
But I can only wonder
who I share the carriage with.
Are we all bargain hunters here,
smug with superior thrift?
Yet when the fare website
gleefully shouted I'd saved
one hundred pounds eighty pence,
there must be someone
who picked up that price.
Untaxed people steeped in plenty.
Barely noticing the 'hosts',
as if tea serves its self.
Surrounded by tablets, e-readers,
moving and spending sums
more than my net value,
with stamps of their disinterested digits.
To cast so much with disregard
while others are herded
by advances and railcards,
such comfort in the face of struggling,
it isn't right.
Thursday, 4 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 4: Lost
Well this devolved from a misheard Seth Lakeman lyric from the song The Bold Knight. Can't really say how it got here and really not sure if the last line needs to be there.
Lost
Mused by beer
we sings of the arms and of the men
bought by the king's coin.
We've always an audience
'cause it's easier to laugh
than admit that ice of terror.
We lurch again by noon blaze
but carrion won't dare circle us.
Our hangovers are miasma,
sweat the screams of fallen women,
movements fraught with a violence
our muscles barely chain.
As we enter the next town you'd swear
that mortar could tense, could whisper,
'These are no caballeros
of the rueful countenance.
Just horrors
with no Dulcinea to guide them.'
We settle to drink once more,
failing again to gorge on oblivion
and I pray to the knights above.
By the vicious silence of first light,
let me know a true enemy.
One that isn't in the mirror.
Lost
Mused by beer
we sings of the arms and of the men
bought by the king's coin.
We've always an audience
'cause it's easier to laugh
than admit that ice of terror.
We lurch again by noon blaze
but carrion won't dare circle us.
Our hangovers are miasma,
sweat the screams of fallen women,
movements fraught with a violence
our muscles barely chain.
As we enter the next town you'd swear
that mortar could tense, could whisper,
'These are no caballeros
of the rueful countenance.
Just horrors
with no Dulcinea to guide them.'
We settle to drink once more,
failing again to gorge on oblivion
and I pray to the knights above.
By the vicious silence of first light,
let me know a true enemy.
One that isn't in the mirror.
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 3: The rain still falls
So today the NaPoWriMo page suggested taking a prompt from this website
http://nateseubert.com/paint/pix_la/index.html
and number 1 spoke this to me.
The rain still falls
His thoughts are a cumulus
of things he could have been.
Scenes too beautiful for reality,
like the vanilla skies of childhood.
But rain drops turn his gaze
like the hands of dead men
forcing him to attest
his own underworld.
Raised on raped resources
with organs cast in concrete
that crumbles like ethics.
Rusted spine, ill fit for action.
Dear dupe of delusion
either look up once more,
and hide from those depths.
Daydream until the downpour.
Or part those talons
and act on your insight,
strive through suffering
to a structure that grounds you.
http://nateseubert.com/paint/pix_la/index.html
and number 1 spoke this to me.
The rain still falls
His thoughts are a cumulus
of things he could have been.
Scenes too beautiful for reality,
like the vanilla skies of childhood.
But rain drops turn his gaze
like the hands of dead men
forcing him to attest
his own underworld.
Raised on raped resources
with organs cast in concrete
that crumbles like ethics.
Rusted spine, ill fit for action.
Dear dupe of delusion
either look up once more,
and hide from those depths.
Daydream until the downpour.
Or part those talons
and act on your insight,
strive through suffering
to a structure that grounds you.
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 2: Illume
Once again we find ourselves with a flurry of last minute writing - day 2 is go!
Illume
I write a love letter in foot steps
that echo throughout the ages.
Following the earth's rotation,
obedience is my kiss.
In dreams she chides me
to leave this moon lapse vigil
but I am stayed by reverence;
to trace her path is bliss.
Illume
I write a love letter in foot steps
that echo throughout the ages.
Following the earth's rotation,
obedience is my kiss.
In dreams she chides me
to leave this moon lapse vigil
but I am stayed by reverence;
to trace her path is bliss.
Monday, 1 April 2013
NaPoWriMo Day 1: Words
So welcome to Day 1 of NaPoWriMo were poets across the globe are attempting to write a poem a day for the month of April.
It was looking a bit bleak when I hadn't actually spent any time writing during the day but after a particularly good puja at the Buddhist Centre led by Padmavajra this started coalescing in my head, which was cue to dash out the building - inspiration is happening!
Words
Some words reach out to me
like a potter's fingers.
Parting the soft clay of my ribs
so they might shape my heart.
massage aorta
dwell in vena cava
dance between atriums
unfurl
to the quickening pulse
dispelling that tightness
of fear and frustration
so that burdened muscle
can finally relax
my chest opening its tissue
to the beauty that ensues
The same constellation of characters
will not move me twice
but they've marked my rhythm,
the way a ripple never truly leaves a pool.
It was looking a bit bleak when I hadn't actually spent any time writing during the day but after a particularly good puja at the Buddhist Centre led by Padmavajra this started coalescing in my head, which was cue to dash out the building - inspiration is happening!
Words
Some words reach out to me
like a potter's fingers.
Parting the soft clay of my ribs
so they might shape my heart.
massage aorta
dwell in vena cava
dance between atriums
unfurl
to the quickening pulse
dispelling that tightness
of fear and frustration
so that burdened muscle
can finally relax
my chest opening its tissue
to the beauty that ensues
The same constellation of characters
will not move me twice
but they've marked my rhythm,
the way a ripple never truly leaves a pool.
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