All Dressed Up With Nowhere To Go

Peace be with you
As you receive
Peace be with you
As you taste, as you play

Eight monks
Five in white
One of which, the elder
Has tangerine trimmings

Ten in the congregation
Only I did not go forwards
For the sacrament
Peace be with you as you play

A piece of theatre, stage direction
By the guy who did say:
Same as it’s ever been
But each year one less monk

This time the absent one
Was the big, miserable looking chap
Who went out into the dry night
With an umbrella

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Room

Happy times
Yes happy times I’ve spent here
Yet also a few sad times
A place for passing through
Has become
A place for retreat
With a bedroom
A desk, a lamp, a shower
A sitting chair, a wardrobe

Also a spider
And yesterday, on arrival
A floor, covered
In dead flies

Maybe the cleaners
Were Buddhists
Who could not face vacuuming
Once living insects

I had no such doubts
Always keen
To sweep up the dust
Whoever’s doors, it happened
To have accumulated behind
As you may well recall

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Passing

Lace scarf, black
Lace trim to the skirt
Is she in mourning

She casts off
Her Barbour raincoat

I am who I am
Who else am I to be
Do not submit to the yoke of slavery

Let us love
In order that we can
Face up to our difficulties

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Clothe The Cloth

As you undress
I undress slowly
As you stand still
I stand also
In the silence
With only breath
For words

Is it truthful
To talk at this time
Of being faithful
Or being
Forever unfaithful

Did we not give ourselves
To each other
Did we not for those moments
Find joy, find love

As you undress, slowly
I undress beside you
As you also stand, still
I stand to be there, to be there with you

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Amen

Four in the congregation
Am I really one of them
Eight monks
One creaking seat (mine)
World without end
Amen

Song of Songs
For love man will give up
All that he has in this world
And not worry for his loss
World without end
Amen

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