Gill Sans

The body of a woman

Full on in her beauty

Given to us

Entirely unobscured

By a font maker

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Observation Duty

He waves his arms

Steps about

Turns in circles

Points, with a vengeance

His attire

Grey slacks, brown coat

Gives no suggestion

To his energetic gesticulations

Although the red shoulder bag

Seems a tad out of place

Perhaps he is the drop

Awaiting his instructions

I look up

At first think him gone, then 

I notice that he is on the move

Unfolding a paper notelet

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

09:42

In the squeeze of suburbia

One might struggle to find beauty

Yet just catch the warm smiles

Of children, parents & grandparents

Oblivious to the ugly overhung buildings

Shored up beside the rail-track

Instead they laugh

As the tunnel’s darkness falls

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Scape

One would be

Thankful

In the good light

Pensive

In the half mist

Calm

Under still clouds

In love

With the essence

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Short On Interconnection

In this darkness we rattle

All are separate, divided

I do not know

The man beside me

He does not know

How in this darkness I see

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Ends Begin

The confusion grows apace

Warm blood flows more freely

As fast as the old fires are doused

New flames flicker and grow

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Owned Voice

The energy for words

Superficial I says no

Inner I says rejoice

Some place between

A party & a wake

Places to settle

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Room 29

His text message wakes me
Unusual for him to be unsure
Yet I do know that attribute
To be deeply embedded
In the family genes

Unusual too that he should ask me
To meet his friend, to go for lunch

Where does the guy who waits tables live
In this upbeat town of mobile high achievers
Where too the Pacamac clad cheerful youth
Who talks to himself as he gathers the litter

In the picture there is not one physical soul
The yellow orange sky cast shadows on peaks
The sea is more energetic than at peace
Its soul being some place deep embedded

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Quaffing Times

Pizza with spring duck topping

Finest draught Peroni

The music is a bit ropey

But there is football on TV

& I am reminded

Of the seaside bar in St Ives

With Kate

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Crossword

Close fitted, bespoke

A good cloth

Stretched across

A sound back

But what of his mind

Head bowed as it is

Silver grey hair

Weight of wisdom

Yesterday, in his Bermuda shorts

With the blonde haired girl from Virginia

They climbed the steps to the Buddhist temple

But today it is his, yours, and my, Monday

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Ancient Night

To say, with a slant how easily the ink flows
In time with Bodhrán, in tune with trembled lute

To kick step
Back on to the straight and varied
No room here for lust or love
No courtship of free-flowing
Nor frozen memories

At that the song ends
Its partner takes to the dance floor
Slow steps
Lithesome glides
Sunlight of shadow

Her voice enters; how not to give
Having, as you have, given all before

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

I Or Almost Or I

I make this mark as a way to begin

A doorway through which to enter

The music is vaguely religious

With deep, folk-root, overtones

The heavy curtains are drawn

Spotlights cast long shadows

I have read from Edgelands; learnt of an artist by the name Chell of who might well have captured the verges that I hoped to draw, or write of

I have read from Falling Upward of the two halves of life; reflected on my strong similarities to the failings of others on the road to maturity

Before the fever takes hold

As I fear the fever no doubt will

I stretch full to say ‘then take me’

To write as would a man possessed

I make this mark as a way to end

A doorway through which to depart

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Eyelid Designs

Squares morph into triangles

They change at various rates

All their lines

Dotted & bedazzled

Close your eyes 

Take a breath

Music you hear

Ambient Electronica

Close your eyes

Let the shapes

Become visual

Rails morph into circles

Their ends join as same

Both their tines

Rotten & bedraggled

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Shore Walk

Pier & swim & splash

From crash of wave

To sunlit line of horizon

On & on & on at one

Butterfly catches the rye

As the baby’s cries echo

Fresh throws of summer

Beneath the spray

Days thoughts gone, astray

Stripes & stripes & stripes 

& stripes take sides to bathe

Twixt mother and child

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Seasonal

The mornings autumn colours
The mornings autumn mist
I am lifted, the drift
If that is what it is, continues

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Furrowed

Silvery white, easier to say grey, sky

At the gate, good and early, with thoughts

Of loved ones; scattered about, yet

Pulled together by a few words

Among the ploughed fields

Visible as the mist rises

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Displacement

By natures light
The one moon
On meadow grass

Then
As
Now

Lone squeal
Twixt wood & window
A death of sorts

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Pinpoint

Home
In a state of flux
By
Dark night sea, moonlit

Fifteen minutes, no more
Thousands of hours ago

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Home Service

Ever so
My mother
With her love of letters

Contentment
That creeps
As lead on typeface setters

All those footsteps
In pleasant vales
Ragged trousers, wind in sail

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

You’ll Need A Coat

Sat in the rain
It is plain, I could go to London
You are always the same
Thoughtful and considerate

Yet here I am, on the train
A soft refrain, on my way to London
The doubt almost became
Lacking in thought, how inconsiderate

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

A New Expanse

To be in love
To have been in love
Six coins in the fountain

The sea of love
The three of love
Warm hearts
On snow capped mountains

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Birdcage Of The Soul

At the very least it ought to be a reflective letter
A piece to look back a good distance, looking back
From the safe vantage point of lost communication

I have been taken by the vistas
On several occasions the multifarious hillocks
Would catch the evidently varying light

The machair, for that is these Islanders name
For the strip of land between dune and farm
Or between dune and croft

The machair would be lit as a line
To underline the horizon
That separates sea from sky

I expected to feel more touched
By the expanse of solitude
It has not been so

Not that one could say
That the Islanders revel
In parties or conversation

Perhaps they need a long breath of finer weather
& clearer skies, but they have not yet borne
Their dark weight upon me

I have this desire, an urge to open out my life
To take full advantage of all the beauty
You included, that has so far befallen me

This journey
Into and through my subconscious
To be chartered by my superficial soul

The writer, the voice
Though no singer, I do aim to carry songs
As would the reader, to and fro

From the birdcage of my soul
To steal the words
Of one song from everybody’s past

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Delayed

Darkness calls around
Slight chill of autumn
Light whistle of wind
Up the fireless chimney

All the sounds of intern
On the backlit keyboard
A thankfulness blows
As if love called my name

I shape up to see the trees
Silhouettes in feint relief
The thief of another summer
My timeless breath fades

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Tongue & Groove

Sunlit Doors

Hasps, rasps, nobbles

Key locked & slide bolted

I sit on the step, half in shadow, half in light

The doors not insignificant security

Leaves me fairly well protected

It is a barrier from the onrush of parishioners

Those spirited attendees of a service

That would be difficult for me to attend

As I enter the chapel later all is quiet

It is clear of worshipers and tourists alike

I stand ever so still, to feel the magnificent privilege

Swim with venom into my veins

Run rampant throughout my hopeful mind

Give my soul these free words to rampage with

I am heavy in admiration of mortice and tenon

The carpenters surely fashioned this boldness

Making a statement, as carpenters sons are known to

AVAILABLE FROM KINDLE

Before We Go To Emptiness

This morning I am extremely sensually aroused
In a sexually aroused kind of way
I did have an erotically charged dream
Yet some three hours later
The passions are still climbing
The sap is still rising

Is this a reaction
To the nuns and the monks
Who we met at the weekend
Have I a mind
To counterbalance their abstinence

Or is this a stiff test
A delusion or a distraction
(A pretty strong one, I'll give you that)
A means to prevent my meditation
One more hurdle for me to sidle over
On the road to peace

AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

Procedures and Artefacts

I came into town to collect my prescription from the chemists. Kate said to ask if they do home deliveries, so I did ask; and the lady said yes we do, but only for the housebound. She did not say, but I think that clearly she thought, I did not meet that criteria.

I brought my old black leather shoes with me, to take them to the cobbler for new soles and heels (steel tipped). I find out that he does not open Monday's and Thursday's, today is Monday. I need then not have worried, as I did all the way, as to whether or not he takes cash or card for payment.

I was rather taken by the glass fronted sideboard at Madhyamaka. I fancied having a reflection in our old stables so that meditators could look back, through the new window behind them into the garden, much as I had done to watch the gulls soaring. The antiques centre had no such thing, and they didn't appear to know if they were going to be expecting one.

AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

Giants

I remember, what I heard, or read; about our thoughts and our dreams not being reality

Then I watched a poetry video Ultimo Fragmento (English subtitles)

A poem by Raymond Carver, he of What we talk about when we talk about love

I remember, what I read or heard, about his addictions and his delusions

Now I am told that what he wanted was "To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on earth"

My own obsessions, and their distance from reality brought me to the place where I first found him, and to where I find him once again

AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

Darkness Before Light

I said that I had heard the shrill sound of the roosting birds at dusk; the young monk told me that I would also be woken by their impressive dawn chorus

This evening, after a day of mindfulness and meditation I will listen more closely to the roost, I may even move myself to be closer to the action

Yet for now my mind is engaged in thoughts of how we seek out conversation; as though the interior being cannot trust itself to survive alone, or even be alone

My own defence from this fear of solitude is reading and writing, eating and drinking, bathing, and then preparing for the day that lies ahead

I have called it solitude yet already I have a certainty that the name is mistaken, or that the word is unduly heavy with too negative a connotation

What I wished to express, for myself, was the silent joy that exists within; a joy of silence that cries out for extending the times of pure peace

I am mindful that the path of my own words is often distracted by the delusory emotions of the moment; yet they are such a wonderful pleasure that I seek them out o so often

AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

Plans And Inactivity

During the meditation I was thinking about where to sit for my meditation at Avista

I also contemplated how to lay out the meditation chairs in the Old Stables

I even began to think about building a few shelves, on the back wall; centrally placed

And then, just for the shortest of moments, I was outside the Catholic Church in St Aubins

I do not believe that I ever entered through the doors of that building

I came back to the meditation using my skills of alertness and mindfulness

Skills that have waned, but which one day hopefully I may fully and resolutely recover

AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

Breakout

Up the stairs, with the aroma known previously

At Salts Gallery; I look out of the window

On the crest of the hill stands a copse of trees

As imagined from Hockney's Yorkshire works

I recognise the painting on the wall

I wonder if it is an original, or a copy

I take a photograph, for reference

It is a detail of a blossom tree

The young man from Czechoslovakia

Who studied Philosophy and Buddhism

From twenty-one through to thirty, is busy plastering

He told me that he built a house, with his friend

We have (Kate and I that is) laid out plans

For our stables renovation project

Kate is not keen on IKEA furniture

Or glass-topped tables

I may have a small desk

Placed under the window

To the side of the wood-burner

Kate is ok with that

I didn't mention the hi-fi

But Kate wants to dance

So we will have a practical need

For the amplification of music

AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

Nearness; Also Further Away

I had the unsettling feeling
Of a female body sat beside me
An opportunity for desirous attachment
Perhaps a dance maybe, or instead
To carry her off across the flowered lawn

Of course
All that was really on my mind
Were the freesias in the Italian garden
The wisteria overhanging the walls
And the path to the rocks by the sea

A place to take off ones shoes and socks
Bathe ones toes in the clear water
Whilst looking out
Out there, over to Genoa
And the blue mountains beyond

Such as it is
That I tie three lives into one life
That I meditate and daydream
At one and the same time, as the moon
Appears, in the mind, like blue sky

AVAILABLE ON KINDLE

Take What You Can

In the meditation room

A glass display cabinet

With likenesses of Buddha

In front of this substantial

Piece of furniture sits our

Practice leader

He wears the robes

Of his ordination

Crimson & gold

In the glass

I see a reflection

Of gulls

Slowly and gracefully

Landing in the fields

Through the window

Behind me

Caught between

These three images

Each with their

Own sense of beauty

I still my mind

That is I still my

Visual mind, and listen

To the instilling words

AVAILABLE ON KINDLE