Ascending Or Descending

I thought

To turn to mathematics

Or at least

To the order of things

I read that hatred

Was strongest

In those who used to love the most

Or words to that effect

Then what of avoidance

What must have been the previously

High powered pushing power

To make one ignore one

Or perhaps disconnected

That is, empty words uttered

Devoid  of all or any feeling

What makes that person tick

Also, what of sarcasm

That fully illuminated put-down

There for all the world to see

Why would one do that

Or what of:

Whatever you want next goes here

What of turning back the never ending tide

Of unrequited love, or affection

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Blinded By Insight

I bring in the invisible

For the days

When you were not there

Of which there where ample

That is not to say

For the days

Before you were there

Of which there were way too many

The invisible to the indivisible

Towards the same

For the before you

For the you thereafter

Swathed in luminous light

Bathed in dilated darkness

Impervious to pleading

Reading into, all that you ever read

I push on with the invisible

For the you that was not you

That is not to say

For the I that was not I

The indivisible to the invisible

Towards the difference

For the I before the I

For the I of you thereafter

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Assemble

The meditation did not bring me here

I came of an altogether different accord

It was in a way a choice-less choice

Yet I was the one who made that choice, wilfully

With no one else in mind

Compassion then only for oneself

How else might that be

The storms are over

The days, the nights of rolling thunder have died down

The hours, the hours of sheet and fork lightning are over

There is a calmness abroad

Yes, it may well be superficial

If I should explore the surface I may well disturb it

That place, that stillness, that tranquility

Which this early morning gifts to me

Where I am able to think back

To reinvent, to recreate your kitchen table scene

Even earlier in the morning, before light breaks

Moments when I imagine you would sit

To catch your thoughts, in a letter which you send to me

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Acceptance

I know more than I know*

I have taken you within me

Within me as my contradiction

Yes I have bought into John’s words

Bought into all of the possibilities 

Which your contradictions might gift to me

It did not take a little time

It was not without pain

Or suffering; yet I was steadfast

Here my belligerence helped me

For on many occasions I could have capitulated

Yet always I hung on in there, however fragile

Now, today, I smile; a smile

From I know not where, other than

From all of those contradictions

Which you brought with you

Contradictions, which one by one you handed over

To become more secure, within my domain

* John O’Donohue: Celtic Wisdom - Inner Landscape

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Past Master

I found the book

Spine broken

Tea stained cover

Pages browned with age

Sadly it brought purpose

To an otherwise purposeless morning

In bed until eleven

Not much more to it than that

I also came across the biscuits

Chocolate digestives no less

I don’t recall that you had a favourite

You not being a sweet-tooth, unlike me

His poem, you know the teacher’s poem

There on page eighteen, his poem

Which says so much about you

Although with words which I never could have raised

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Familiarity

The poem about the son struck me

Also the one about the father

Did you not also write

Such relationship poems

Words of knowing, of not knowing

Of curious closeness, of disappointing distance

Did you write out of longing

Or longing for closure

It makes no sense, that I know

Yet the dense matter does matter

As a matter of fact, on some days

It is all that seems to matter

Words for quite unbridgeable words

Except for the clapper bridges in my mind

Words for no purpose of purpose

Except for the purpose of lifting away my working time

My now time; my dawn times, my dusk times

The lifting away is what the poet gave me

A lift in the spirits, a lift for the sensibilities

A whole layer of lifts, into your other world

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Confectionary

I would not expect you to sympathise

Because the butter won’t spread on the scone

After all they are delicious; fresh, warm scones

Almost straight out of the oven

The butter is also fresh, that is

To say it is not soft, nor curdled

It too is straight from its place of keeping

Where it clearly is kept in good shape

I would not expect you to place much store

In my story of the scone, or the butter

Neither the jam, not forgetting the filter coffee

For here they do not do Americano

Nor for you to know that I was on my way

To reflexology, for an hour of calm

As I have my feet scrubbed, massaged

Altogether pampered

I could not tell you, until now

That I would have a small fan

In the treatment room, which gave

A cool breeze, in this the heat of summer

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Spiritual Twins

I had been listening to John O’Donohue

Talking about place, about longing

He had mentioned mountains, streams

Far away horizons

I had watched Boy George on television

Trying to trace his roots in Ireland

He was taken back to the struggles

To the hanging room in Mountjoy Gaol

I slept all night in our bed

That is I did not wake

With my usual aching shoulder

Nor move to the spare room, so as not to disturb

I woke with the words already formed

All I had to do was to write them down

Having done that

I found another poem waiting for me

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Tips Off Lips

I missed you

I missed you, I missed you, I missed you

I so so missed you

I so so wanted not to

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Defining

This is the light

Which the mentor talks of

These are the stills

Where greens are green

Where reds are red

Where love is love

Where hope is never lost

Where desire shines on desire

This is the light

Which falls out of Eastern windows

That loses itself so damned quickly

In the wool pile carpet

While it lets its sky

Be framed, quartered

By the lead lights

On the double-glazed glass

This is the light

Of the all of our knowing

This is the light

Which I show to you now

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Night Class

There is a longing in me

Which resides

In the receptive clay

A clay which you moulded

Knowingly, also unknowingly

There is a longing in me

Which decides

Upon the plasticity of the clay

A clay which you passed, then pressed

One time after another

There is a longing in me

Which provides

A worktable for the clay

A clay which you turned; turned

To rediscover the inside

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Tracks

If the summer of love is with us

Why am I disappointed

Is my disappointment

That you were disappointed with the journey

Instead to reach out

To banish the miasma

If the season of vacation is with us

Why do we feed into the struggle

Is my abject poverty

That you were gifted my poverty along the way

Instead to find growth

To implore the connections

If the light of the homeland is with us

Why do we punish the pretenders

Is my black rose only flowered

That your flowers might bloom beside the path

Instead to find being

To identify the poetics of love

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Mr Palomar

He looks at the sea

He looks at the sky

He looks at me

One wonders why

Does he read his little book

To find what he’s looking for

Where he sees the stars

I see a suntanned thigh

Where he greets the arc

I walk, long-legged, by

Does he need a calmer cook

To find what he’s looking for

Nothing is uncertain

In the life he leads

I draw the curtain

After planting seeds

Does he know how long it took

To find what he’s looking to impede

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Bridge Talk

Might I find a Buddha nature

In the chaos is there calm

Might I grind a simple taster

In the noise perhaps to find a soothing balm

All the winds then to believe

Surging down through the trees

With the bending and the bowing

Is the truth of it a dangerous breed

That the bright light on the fence line

Is a totem from above

Gifted by the grey-going-to-black clouds

On what mirage is that word called love

It never went beyond the superficial

It did not cling to your deep inside

The purpose was the purpose only

To provide escape, to stage the stride

So, just as before or after midnight

With the light of half-offered hope

Step by step, both were taken

To the well, there to carefully elope

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Guided Being

Where, why

Would I look for you

Why, where might

I search you out

How

On this night of meditation

Can I seek

To find the doubt

If I look into the books

If I read between the lines

All that love for the writer

Secretly to reveal the signs

That I can hear the seagulls

That I can see the cloud swirls

In the sky, in the sky, in the sky

It is me, I am me, all is fine

What I do is to go on looking

Every day, near or far

Listening out, for the whispers

With the doors so so slight ajar

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