you want to know what hurts me?
it’s those masks you wear
it is your definition of naked
it is the blinkers on your eyes
your rose-tinted glasses
it’s the number of veils you wear
and won’t let me lift
it’s the escaping out of your body
when I need you here
it’s not believing a lotus
can grow out of mud
What is my exile?
It is this!
I
do
not
know
god
why would this soul
send me out
in disguise
so that no one
can recognise me!
Beloved
I want you to decide now
before it’s too late
before a mighty sign is needed
I want you to decide
now, live or die
Be one hundred percent whatever
you choose
But you should know
if you fly from this earth
as you keep practicing each morning
I will be holding you
as your root
as your kite string in full
gale, as the yacht in full sail
I will be holding you
and I will not let you go
I will be more fierce
than the storm you summoned
to take you
I will not let you go.
he says; there is more fear in living
like one atom, one chromosome
slid away from Everything
and in this, he lost a crucial memory
and if the last breath were to resolve
as a chant resolves into nothingness
like a dying cinder of unity
and placed between his lips
and if he were told, this breath
in, or the absence of, holds the secret
of all connections, how fragile it is then
to live not knowing
how frightening to forget
he was ever connected
nor knowing if ever he will be again
in this life time
wheel turning, thoughts circling
I am the intention of this body
the definition outside the dark and vast
water, turning a continent into its own
waterfall, turning a vast eye
towards me in destiny
dissolve me, merge me
these boundaries cut into my skin
disconnection is uncomfortable
this 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
I am profoundly affected
only you don’t know
you didn’t know
something deep inside
detangles itself – collapses
because
you are toning, low earth notes
you are gifting Earth Mother’s
vibration into my heart
I feel so … Held
held in touch
held in safe surrender
to the space existing between
our bellies
and own hearts’ opening
you are toning and I am in
deep surrender, thank you
for holding the space open
only … you don’t know
nothing has sounded from
my lips, nothing is happening
in front of you, and you pull
away, feeling unmet, feeling
I am holding on or holding back
an impatient stirring pulls you
and in that movement
I am birthed and abandoned
I am shockingly naked
disorientated by aloneness
something went wrong
I am separate
I am cold and burnt
I am wombless
all agony surfaces
and I cry, loud and
belly felt
I am a sight which you hold
You circle me again
The way Earth Mother always is
and I am rebirthed
you think you forgive
you think it ten thousand times
and say it aloud, a ritual
of meaning
you think it complete and
true in your heart – I forgive
you – it’s sincere, punctured
into so many prayers. You think
you forgive.
Only, you know how every real
estrangement feels
in every second of every prayer
how a lid contains the real pain
that God is separate from me
that Love is divided from me
this is the deepest you’ve ever been
because somewhere
in one of those prayers
you find yourself
defenceless
vulnerability that needn’t
surrender because
there’s nothing left
to give or loose
you find yourself
sad and worthless
and shrivelling
in wonder at how much
you deny
God and love
and light and grace
and in that prayer
you find forgiveness is
a by-product, an accident
that happens in love
an accident destined
before you ever knew to ask
Billy painted this for a friend who wanted to commission a piece to give to the family of the woman (pictured) who died of leukemia. I found out she was recently married and when I looked at billy’s painting, I was really moved by the painting. I literally couldn’t take my eyes off it. Within moments I wrote a poem as part of the gift.
The friend loved the two pieces. Billy ending up painting the poem on to the back of the painting.
I can’t take my eyes off you
I have come to a world
where a setting sun drops
in the middle of an ocean
where stars fall like wind on sand
and like a silk dress
wrapped to my legs
I know
the outline my life will bare
I know
every cell has felt
your smile on me, I can only
show you what you already
have, my love
I can only leave
when the readiness of light
is the long sparkling night
and your shining eyes
I am made from the stars
I am a constellation you
know in the palm of your
hand, I am every heart beat in you
laugh for me (it tickles
my soul)
ah the joy is so quiet, I can rest
so still like no horizon every glimpsed
This is worth living for, Yes!
I can’t take my eyes off you
it became sticky
- none of the sadness
would leave -
no matter how old
or forgotten
as old as the womb
in that space before
before an intricate thread of life
moved into a soul
and something got lost
a pattern got formed
out of natal memories
and some before life residue
solidified like the salt of dry eyes
and an unexamined heart
an umbilical chord plugged in
a silent unhappy foetus bolted
– a change of heart -
and now, in service, offers a life healing
cutting, unplugging, dissolving
all (life)time, like I could have been
born differently. In that space
I can find this pain
and needing the brightest
light to drown in it
No soul can survive such a separation
