Some short early pieces - all from 1992-95

A STRANGER WITHIN


A man who lives on the outside of his skin
forever
is he who dies being a stranger within.




WITHIN THE HEART


The truly man of calm is he
who has a silent turmoil within
his heart.



INSIDE THE HEAD


Place not one vision between the eyes
but the whole vision inside the head.



RULER


Many wish to be an earthly Ruler, yet
such Rulers rule with a sadness in heart.





BLOODHOUND


I see your face in Everyone.
I see you in All.

I haven't found your body yet.
I'm following the Call.

MAN OF BEING

I'm looking
for someone

to shred away
the skin

as if it were flaky
porcelain,

to pull out the tender
flesh below,

the rarest of reddened
sinews,

and bring the neglected insides
to the top

like a man wearing his
tissues

tendons and bones as
his mask.

A glorious man of being.


An early poem from around 1992

Moon in Arcos

I left the moon in Arcos behind
as I flew above the skyline
of a reddened-yellow field of light;

this was a flight from one shifted moment
to the next like a transition that calls
us forth upon another journey.

We shall be known by our actions
in all times

and thus must mark our own passing
in appropriate ways.


15.34
16.8.05

We struggle

So much for the answers, so much for the quest;

did I say I hear voices in my chest?

We have our blueprint, our very own design:

we sigh, longing to hear amongst the grind

of our daily binds, screechings of white noise.



00.11
30.7.05

Losing time

Here I am;
drinking music, playing wine,
losing time.

I didn’t come here for the fish bowl,
or the food plate, or the sofa.

Comfort and pleasure can be had
yet I have no wish to engrain them.

I did not come here for this.
I did not come here for this.


00.03
30.7.05

Let it come down

An early dawn rises after a dark night,

just as our own personal djinns are purged

through effort into a new cleansed state.

So too will the world soul be plunged into its

own infernal chaos before light is drawn from

its well of deep reserves and a new epoch

is created from the ashes of a long history of

struggle and strife. Everything will know itself

in order to pass beyond its own weakness.

In the end it is a great plan, a great love.

A wonderful human, divine purpose.

Let it come down.

21.26

10.7.05

Everybody’s place

As Icarus flies overhead, as wax melts and sunbeams burn,

so too do the brutal acts burn our own flesh and kin:

is this the world we, as single soul, must live within?

If even an individual limb becomes torn from our great body,

so too does each single limb on our own frame ache, as if each

sinew and tendon trembles from the wound of a global gash.

As above, so below. And as over there, so here too.

There is nothing separate, nothing new.

That which affects each other affects us all.

The way forward, to transcend, is a global call.

Each thought, step, sacrifice, gets counted: each atrocity

creates a scar upon our species face. This is not the place

nor time for such ancient, archaic understandings.

Life is in transition – our fate is now in position

for a most memorable move. It is everybody’s place.

15.58

7.7.05

The day London was blasted

Singers of song

I am the dreamer I have known all along:

I created the song.

I am the wanderer I have met all along:

I wrote the script.

We know what we have always known, yet

left unkindled as a smouldering night-fire –

we are the writers of our own destiny.

We are the singers of our own tune.

Sing out, sing loud, sing on: don’t cower

from fear of misplacing the words.

Life snaps into play like a metronome,

each beat a burst into being, each tick, tock,

a heartbeat of our own begging clock,

desiring to be known, to be known.

Sing out, sing loud, sing strong.

22.34

5.7.05

Too easy

Sometimes it’s hard to be good.

But what choice do we have? The alternative

Is not something I wish to consider.

I make such dilemmas here very simple: my own

Kind of black and white. But what choice do I have?

It makes sense that having no choice is often the

greatest freedom of all. Yet this path is too simple

to be easy.

01.47

20.5.05

Cosmic Law

‘I shall always be with you inside the eternal present’

is a truth I wish I understood:

to grace a trace upon the people we mingle with,

perhaps love, then remember them in their moments

as our tapestry of continuous living.

Such beauty that no earth bound philosophy can capture.

Our forever contact, eternal exposure, is a cosmic law

so sublime it goes beyond what I can manage in my

everyday personal touches, in soft embraces.

23.39

23.4.05

When you’re there, you’ll know exactly

All I know is that you know the truth, whether or not

You know it now: it is in you, as the cells compose your body.

When you realise you will laugh.

Everything in this life has been played as a recognition.

Talismans to remind us; to jolt; to wake us.

Truth is like a Priest’s hole in one on a Sunday: who can you tell who wasn’t there?

When you’re there, you’ll know exactly. Because you’ve always been there.

It’s returning to a place that is so familiar; you’ll recognise the voices.

The trick is whether we’ll wake.

01.22

20.5.05

The distances between us

Nothing dies, as the chimes tell
us it’s another year; a new notch
to mark upon what was done, will
be done. Hope resides in all encounters:

even when heart is heavy, when transformation
seems rare; or a gift unforgiving.

It will come. Yet only when the world is ready
for what you have to share.

We bring to the world the tangled desires and dreams
of our inner spheres; to which we view the world without.

No-one is a victim: experiences raise us on a rising tide,
or drop us to some depths from which we drink.

The world is to taste. Stopping too long to put the distances
between us only makes the taste more bitter.

Let us carry on, as foot soldiers to a greater purpose.
Maybe another year has gone, yet time is a taste on
the tongue that we must learn to like, or swallow hard.
Hope lasts for as long as the heart does hunger.

The biggest secret

It’s the world’s biggest secret
and they’re not telling you:
how sweet it is, and so strong

it’ll blow you away. It will detonate
you like an alchemical nuclear fusion.
You see, it’s not what you think it is,

and you’ll never guess it. Not in a lifetime.
I’d like to tell you, to pass it on. But it took
me so long to get here I’m keeping it for myself.

You see: the secret protects itself, and you’d do
the same if you were in my shoes. So what will you
do to get into my shoes: are you after the world’s biggest secret too?

All together now…

Out of the mangled mesh our psyche weaves
we have this: our terrain, tract of land, sphere,
that extends from our bodies to reach far,
effusing into all crevices, holes and crannies.

What we think becomes forever known; stored
in halls, records, in other member’s minds as
mimetic lovebugs, or parasites, that pass on
in murmurs, praises, deeds, and stone –

nothing is left out, untouched, or forgotten.
All comes back into our global blood, our
woven air, our hybrid rituals. We feed upon
the crumbs of existed moments, yet pushing

to collate, include, that history which serves
us best, serves us worst. So all together now,
we share the paranoia of our times, infesting
us unruly. When will the Gods come to flush

us out of our trench, like a chariot of Goddesses?

In flux cognito

I cannot clear my head
around the complexities of a life
still to come.

As does nature’s children welcome each renewal,
I search within endless flux for a way through:

unstable knowing,
broken pieces,
love connections,
embraces within virtual spaces,
war within psychological places,

I seek a way through this web of endless embrace.

We are all here for some end purpose:
to have within some gain to fill us as we watch
a flame that dims at the end of the days,
that does not drag us into emptiness
but fills, cries out loud our living.

In instability do we yearn so deeply
for our claim, our meaning.

The nameless

Consider this:


Each day a thousand ways to make
our heart feel lighter.

Each life of boundless ways to make
our meaning deeper.

Each moment an endless space to make
our selves closer.

Each thought a given chance to make
our living brighter.


Consider that there is no end.

We live for something
much greater than we are:

in a pool full of swimmers with a longing.

Come – find me. I am dying for your touch.


13.34
6.11.04

From standing still

If you ask which road I’m travelling -

I don’t know, for there are few signs for me;
there are no skills that will serve me best
when all can serve me well:

perhaps I’m looking for the skill that nobody has?
What will be needed when the time has arrived
will only be known from the ways I have travelled.

Maybe the skill that nobody has is the skill that
always has been, yet needs the road ahead
to make it known: whatever, nothing

was ever gained from standing still.


17.28
23.10.04

There’s a dream

There’s a dream that flashes in us when it gets watered:

then like a sown seed it seeks to sprout it’s shrubbery hands,
reaching for the sunlight, reaching for the starlight,

shrouded by the soil as an oyster shell.
Yet it lies deep, and forever yearning for green hands
to hear its tender shrill and nourish its calling.

Such a seed is in us all when we wake from slumber womb.
Drowsed by our waking world, with white noise like water rapids,
we hear not the plea to further wake, to further explore.
Such is our world of unkempt seedlings, spoilt and dour,

waiting for the dream to flash, for water to pour.

Rare

In those tender moments of remembrance
when you felt human in the touch of everything
and all senses seemed to be united:

in those tender moments we feel a thing rare.


23.42
3.9.04

The Promises

So easy to forget all the promises
we made to ourselves in secret rooms,
in silent places: I’m sorry I pushed
you to remember, to recollect a failure,
as if you hadn’t succeeded or fulfilled
a goal you always said you would.

Your face showed a painful memory:
a moment I caught you bringing-up again,
a childlike image of heroism or idolatry
you haven’t yet accomplished, nor perhaps will.

The child in us lives longer than our dreams.


23.47
3.9.04