Tuesday, June 08, 2004

SHELL

Like little sea creatures
In a shell we lay

pressed against
the pressured air ;

too silent to be moved,
showing ourselves

as the layered rock
shows earth's growth
from youth.

Tiny thumb prints of some desire
we wish to encapture

and keep between the flesh,

to seep from our pores
on every embrace

to smell the skin
on every kiss

like honest things.

Monday, June 07, 2004

HOW TO CAPTURE BEAUTY

‘How can I capture beauty?’
you ask me.

‘Be an open-hearted hunter’
I say

‘Who upon snaring a bird
throws it back to the sky.’

‘But why?’

‘For beauty holds dear only
to a master who can share.’

20.40
7.12.99

LOVE AGAIN

When you try to love,
Love tells you to love
And love again, you fool,

For love is an endlessly jealous beauty:

And the fools are us lovers,
Until we have loved enough
To be also the Beloved.

00.27
27.11.99

THE SPIRIT’S PLEA TO THE BODY

Why do you block the way
With your booze, you fool?

Can’t you see it’s difficult enough
To get through when you’re sober?

I need you clear, open, and receiving
If you want to hear my words at all.

It’s your choice, my friend: if you don’t
Want to play, I’m going home in silence.


3.25pm
1.1.99

Sunday, June 06, 2004

The Ways in Which We Move

The ways in which we move through
Such moments that make us, we don’t
Realise their power til we’ve moved on.

They change us: moulded by a multitude
Of passing prods, breezes, touching events.
We’re not the same as when we started.

Who could have foretold, forewarned us?
Shouldn’t there be defence against such
Intrusions? I’m not my self anymore.

Then it dawns like a splintered vase unable
To be gathered: there never was a self. It
Was my protective illusion. My gatekeeper

Against the recognition of unwanted guests.
Yet the guests come, stay awhile before moving
On. And I take the scent left by the last guest

As my next aroma. Unknowingly I smell anew.
And with such smells do I move through,
Leaving my own mark for others to absorb.

We’re all permeable you see. We’re porous,
Ever changing. This is how we learn to come
Through, ignorantly unscathed. Yet now is

To learn the secret. We’re not the person of
Our own selves: we’re a mixture, painted by
The picture-moments we travel through,

And patched by so many forgotten pinches
Of memory. We’re so wonderfully rich – to
Think we’re one is a dullness that shames us.

00.16
8.12.03

So Much Trying To Waylay

So much more difficult than first supposed
to stay with that which sustains us, keeps us good,
as if so much is trying to waylay us.

And harder still to find the innocence within
the many layers of living, as if each
membrane of skin protects us against
the other; yet so feebly. We’re so different

and yet so similarly together.

We’re old before we learn what youth held,
or could have held if we had known.
So many moments so rarely celebrated in their time.

We’re offered only little space for our performance
that most of us come wholly unprepared.


23.40
6.12.03