Intermediate Destinations

You might know of this in your own life

Where one step seemingly follows another

Yet all the while your direction is being changed

As you climb the steps to the upper deck

Or stand outside in the autumn mist

Waiting for an indicator to flash or a sign to be given

But you were the one, were you not

Who flew to Helsinki, who flew to Stockholm

In your very best blue business suit

You strode through snowdrifts to eat Chernobyl reindeer

You stepped beside the marketeers from the archipelago

All the while letting the direction take you at its will

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Ruffled Feathers

Silver grey light effusing

Emitting joy from however far

Yet from where comes the interference

What causes the all disturbing buzz

Surely not from the settled sky

Or the writer’s awakening mind

There must be a cause

To cause the effect of noise

Noise with no suitable purpose

Except if it was from a primary object

And the disturbance

Is simply a secondary effect

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Development

Hesitation, afraid to say

That which you are not certain to be true

Easier to confirm all past mythology

To take a firm position among a lack of reality

Unable to develop into new situations

Without the fear that longing will return

Or maybe not ever go away

Such is the weight of history and life

All the while knowing

That sitting on the fence 

Does not nourish the mind

Or the body, or the spirit, or the sou

Better to be bright as the blue sky

Better to be warm as washing on the line

Therewith to wear the quirky smiles of a lifetime

Brought about by place, by peace, by harmony

Let the love lights then truly enter

With no more thoughts of foreboding

Be joyful for the entrance of passionate play

Fear not for the future of the longer days

Bask in the abstraction of beauty

Hold what you can in your hand and heart

Sure the pains are in no hurry to leave you

Yet they too fall to the rules of impermanence

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Perceptions

I am at the hospice listening to cricket

Where boundaries are being scored at will

The taxi driver has asked me to wait here

Just in case you thought I was seeking respite

My mind goes into a riot when I see the young man

Come out of the building to embrace his partner and child

All are smiles and hugs and laughter

What should I make of such joviality, other than admiration

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Role

In readiness for our small meditation sangha

I listen to the monks of Plum Village sing and chant

I think of the brethren who reside there

And in other such organisations around the world

I wonder that I never joined such a place

Instead I have kept myself to myself

Yes, it is true that I have visited monasteries

And taken part in silent retreats

Yet I have not gone so far as joining a community

Nor have I ever taken up with a sect of any kind

But right now, as I imagine they sit together for supper

There is a part of me which says that it is a pity, a waste even

That I have not been an integral part of such a collective

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Water Worker

Of course one does doubt the capability of one’s memory

Perhaps focussing too too sharply on the forgetfulness

Or just needing a wee bit more time to remember

Where time wasn’t ever required, not in the past

Yesterday, through half of this low-lying county

The fields were flooded

The roads had standing water

Yet who will remember how the land was reclaimed

Who, in the future, will be able to organise the drainage

And who might play a role in that useful purpose

Of course one doesn’t doubt about one’s ability to help

Nor does one wish to be sidelined, or to be kept out of the way

Even if it is for the best, the best for everyone else that is

In which case maybe it is for the best to forget about one’s past

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Stakeholder

I have not been forced to change

For the last fifteen years or so I have been indulged

First at college, then with family, also in my workplace

If there has been change, and I think there has

Then the force for change has come from within

Or from what I have extracted from my environment

Yet I don’t recall setting out to change

Rather to learn, to experience, to feel, to think

And what of all that inexplicable labour

What rewards are in my mind, my body, my spirit, my soul

Could I now write about how good it feels to write

Could I now think about how good it feels to think

Could I now say with any certainty

That this journey was the pathway to have taken

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Foolishness

So why do people sell me programs which require me to build a habit

Is it because they know that I don’t have the wherewithal to build a habit

Have they run my past life’s data through their computers, and concluded

Quite rightly, that I don’t have that what is needed to build a habit

In fact it is my opinion that not many people do have this faculty

I do further believe that my absent-minded laziness is not unusual

Indeed I would say that the ability to be distracted is rife in my community

And I think that always was the case, even as children we didn’t often listen

So why don’t the sellers change tack

And move away from an habit building business

You might well ask, just as in the past we asked about the snake oil sellers

Of course if the seller, can without doubt, blame the buyers for failure

Then has he not found the holy grail, money for old rope comes to mind

Though this time the buyer’s, himself or herself, have provided the rope

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Dingy Days

That sunrise, that sunset, those winds across the beaches

That light, that dark, those most forgetful times of mourning

The singer, the songwriter, the lyricist par-excellence 

One night and one day there were many made-up stories

One high-life, one low-life, one crowd of delinquents in between

Then, when the door was opened, when the stairs were climbed

That card, that lighthouse, that must be for Plymouth Sound

That book, that meditation, that oh so so wanting just to be

The sear, the searcher, the one reaching out for all what is

One grain of sand, one boat with paddles, one day doing escape

One ebb tide, one flo tide, one road right alongside the estuary

When the way is open, when the way is closed, still no one passes by

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A Family Affair

I drive beside the moribund silver birch

Sullied by diesel fumes and dirty weather

Yet the November light is not without light

Indeed the blue skies reflect the sparseness

There is a calm to the morning, also to my mind

Yet, by the time I reach the Inn of choice

The Christmas lunches are in full volume flow

I order a pot of tea with sticky toffee pudding

Which arrives in a large bowl swimming with sauce

Heaven knows the sugar content; which would not

Please my partner, or my daughter, or my doctor

Fortunately my son would say enjoy yourself dad

You deserve it

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In The Moving Stillness

Anyway it was a full moon the night when the police closed the M62 motorway between Milnrow in Lancashire, and Huddersfield in Yorkshire.

You know snow is really all embracing in the moonlight, especially when highlighted by the flashing blue sirens of the traffic controllers in pursuit.

The past is the past, is the past, is the past, is the past; meaning that we have a choice of what to remember, what to relive, what to let fade-away.

A new future is what we can think of to create, it is what we may imagine

our positive, compassionate thoughts can propel us towards a new life.

Living in the moment of each moment we can still have one eye on what is good for us, what nourishes our mind and body, what feeds our souls.

What better place to contemplate on such a thing than on the vast open

high-grounds, on the snow engulfed moors and mountains of middle England.

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Painters And Parties

There is a reverence to this work already

For how might one write as Cy Twombly painted

How does one communicate what was hitherto incommunicable

And where would you have me start

Do you wish to see the whole of my introspective life opened up for inspection

Or do you want that I attempt to make a selection of sorts

Perhaps imagine a port and cheese selection as we near seasons greetings

Whereas, in the past, our meetings may not have been altogether convivial

Or at least that is my first stab at any sort of recollection

With little fear of abject correction my mind goes on to detect

A Rochdale party, on a day when snow fell heavily and closed off

All of the cross Pennines roads, such that I truly did have to stay over

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Still Searching

All I know

Is that ground is ground

That travel is travel

Very occasionally

Though not so so often

In my experience

You fall upon a still space

A calm space

Where contemplation may join you

Where stillness

Peacefulness

Settles around you

It may be an open arrangement

A beach, or a sand-dune

Or a pathway to the shoreline

Or a field, maybe even a meadow

A towpath beside the canal

On the way to a mountain

It may have walls

A door, even windows

The roof is optional

We might call it a yard

Or a prayer room

Or perhaps a magnificent temple

It could be transitory

Between here and there

Or on the cusp, if you so prefer

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List Works

Where is the warmth

Where is the water

Where is the journey

Where is the destination 

Where is the shelter

Might I find warmth

In the steam room, in the sauna

Might I find water

In the pool, in the jacuzzi 

Might I drive

Along the main roads, along the back roads

Might I reach

The hotel, the health spa

Might I say a few words there

To engage my accommodation

Where is the inspiration

Where is the purpose

Where is the beauty of the discharge

Where is the joy of nature

Where is the truth of love

Might I find inspiration

In the going, in the being

Might I find purpose

In the words I am writing

Might I find the beauty by being discharged

In the past, in the present, in the future

Might I find joy

In the walking, in the seeing

Might I find the truth of love

In those arms, in those monastic quarters

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Flight Checker

The island left me

As I left the island

The island always left me

As always I left the island

The island welcomed me

As I welcomed the island

The island always welcomed me

As always I welcomed the island

Why fly so far

Why not fly more often

Why fly so far

Why not fly somewhere closer

Why not fly somewhere closer

Why not fly more often

Why fly so far

Why fly so far

That then

To be the answer

Why not fly altogether closer

Why not fly away, way more often 

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Packaged Closure

Day of departure

Already checking calendars

For the next break

Or simply to see

What the immediate future

As well as a little more distant

Holds in store

To leave this Ibiza island

To fly to island England

From warm to cool

From light to dark

From being in another’s place

To being in our own space

Back at home

All is calm

(Except for me)

All runs like clockwork

(Except for me)

All is reasoned, reasonable

(Which I go along with)

There is to be a new beginning

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