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

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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

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Beyond Reach Perhaps

Beyond the window a stillness

Beyond reach perhaps

Even if one was

To lay down naked

On the dew covered grass

Or paint

Ever so slowly

The slight wavering bush

Even to float

In an hot air balloon

Among the unanimous grey sky

Beyond the partition doors, conversation

Beyond reach perhaps

Even if one was

To proclaim

The whole of virtuous love

Or recite

Ever so slowly

The poetry of the spheres

Even to levitate

In a spiritual sort of way

Among the magnanimous prattle

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Buildings

I walk past a row of Victorian terraced houses

The iron railings have been clumsily removed

From the walls of their owners front gardens

I see a lady get off the double-decker bus

She is carrying what looks like a metal detector

I thought, but didn't say...

Were these two things in any way connected

Before I saw the lady get off the bus I was

Thinking what a small life we Englander's live

I was taken back twenty years or so, to a work

Colleague showing me his holiday home villa

Somewhere in the sunshine state of Florida

Back then it was the size and the spaciousness

That hit me, impressed me, and it hits me again

Today I lead a small life, in a small thinking country

Perhaps it is time for adventure

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Set Out, Lay Down

If it should so happen
Shouldn't I know soon enough
If I should take a stance
Wouldn't you know soon enough

Between the making it happen
And the taking a stance
Wouldn't I know that I know
Couldn't you know that I know

Between the shouldn’t I
And the wouldn’t I
And the couldn't I
I know that you know

So let's get off our high horses
Move away from the circumspect
Discard the distant therapy
Settle for what we know

Which after all is not the same
Not even for we two, who
As happenstance would have it
Could not already have been closer

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