ask me what’s here
and I will tell you
how naked life is
Tag Archives: consciousness
these sounds give space away (Oct 2010)
18 NovA man is shouting outside
down the hill from me
it is an autistic sound
like an argument with the wind
the voice is strong
and tunneled
A soft sheeng of a bell
peels the distraction away
I close my eyes
and lean back into my spine
My mind
holds space together
dependent on my ears –
constructing what is still
or moving or hard or distant
These sounds give space away
The fireplace tinkles shiny metal
within a room.
The carpet sounds old, little filaments
stuck to attention. Rubbing.
A bird reaches a tree – wood and song – soft
like a diminished presence. Closed windows.
The man is shouting, heavier –
climbing stairs – words becoming clear:
if you are going on a journey
…
I am sitting on a cushion, eyes closed
and I know there’s no one with him –
this man is shouting at the air, which does not contract
like a disagreement
there is no rebound
there is momentum
there’s inspiration, singularity
forceful conviction
a cat pouncing
a shag diving
a man running
a red light
if you are going on a journey
you must look at the signs
My meditation teacher giggles.
be kind (30 Aug 2010)
8 Sepamazing how righteous indignation
or anger or sulking
or brooding
can play host to such
permanence
he, you, they, them, all of the
thems so persistently
consistently
convincingly
proving my mind right | proving my mind right
like I can wear a badge
saying see! I told you
so, I harden the evidence
overwhelming
in support of me
and so, if I want to see the
impermanence, of my moods
of theirs, in relation to that,
I actually need to ask
for an entirely new scene
where boxes and paths and
well trodden tracks
don’t yet exist
to illustrate
that the kindest thing
is nothing fixed
to an idea or mountain
or moll hill or even
to thinking I know him
or them or anyone
because that’s real
intimacy
it is the real dirty knowing
the unassumed recognition
an open bandwidth to be
free
and profoundly kind to my self
as a service to them
to be kind to them
as a service to me.
shame (30 Aug 2010)
8 Sepdust kicked up
is that where you look?
or do you see, despite the grit
in your eyes, the amorphous
being that makes you cry
you know a glimpse
is all that’s needed of shame
it’s a drowning character
of led weights
if you’re willing
to name it and let it claw
at you for the second
it takes to find its name
and let too your ego scream
seriously let it wail
(just don’t defend)
then, and only then
the quality of shame dissolves
because it can only exist
without a name
or any other close inspection
it just can not hold itself
without your consent
(which is always coveted
and assumed)
so feel it pull away and
let it pull away
(for a moment you will feel
powerlessness)
damn yourself with tears
in the process and
burst through like you are
following that concocted story
to its own end. Shame is a peculiar
death, because it never in fact
lived.
dancing air (3 Aug 2010)
27 Augsoften your gaze
let it blur and hover
in its own shadows
let the light behind
leap forward
let movement wash away
into a glisten
a sequinned dress
hanging on the line
allow your iris
pins and needles on your mind
rest your heels on the floor
stop stretching so far
gaze at the whole thing
at once
think how happy you are
and then see the air dance
like a spider web
lost to the wind
magnificence (1 Aug 2010)
27 Augalter me
show my original face
where I suddenly find myself
awestruck
prompt me
dare me to break free
this cautious mind wants freedom
and awe
deliver me
intimate with the mundane
and into the deepness of life
and reverence
break me
wide open
for subtlety and magnificence
yes, this is for magnificence
the billows of the mind (1 Aug 2010)
27 Augthe billows of the mind
and there are many
are a subtle refinement
of all muscles
poised and holding
speech, memory, anticipation
and the visualisation
of this
the billowing of the organ notes
flutter out in subtle ease
a terrace of trees
caught in a breeze
Mediterranean washing hanging
in the courtyard window
a bee coming to check out the pollen
of a tiny bud, of a tiny bud
dissolving into the eyelids
far gazing horizons
spaciousness held
by a wafting tone.
And when has that muscle
the organ mind and all its notes
relaxed, ever, dropped wind from sail
dropped cargo of letters and
leftover love, risen skyward
for the free fall tumble
everything. When has it stopped, if only
to allow the backstage pass
on the inner most subtle workings
to view, heels relaxing to the floor
(finding support there)
and the best view in town
not in the clock tower, not the cataloguers
tower, nor the ivory tower
it is immediately in front of
closed eyelids
the warm air at your nostrils
Like this:
only as a contour (22 June 2010)
10 Julits shape occurs as contours
that doesn’t necessitate boundaries
it could be no sea or sky
ever parted
and a mountain was never inclined
because if you think about it
one foot lifting heavily
and falling heavily
and our lungs pushing something
towards or away from gravity
(so I’m a bit spatially impaired)
there is, in that thinking, only space
for an appearance
and isn’t it funny how we never reach
the horizon; the shape of which occurs
only as a contour
speaking truth (31 Dec 2007)
28 Febthis pain is the pain of Separation
the question that expands all
that asks us to enquire
who is watching you
feel all this
so quickly empties my mind
my mind does not ask
I put it to my heart
and it reaches out
and finds nothing
it returns home from
an empty land
and finds no peace
as I speak it, I feel only
agitation at how much
is untouched by words
nothing I say comes close
to Truth
My Poetry Book
