Sat, in Highgate Cemetery
By the imposing headstone of Karl Marx
A raindrop falls on my forehead
Here, in the ultimate place of shelter
There will be sleet falling
By the time we reach the East Gate
It is April, these are April showers
This shelter, it seems is a pilgrimage for many
But first to tell you of the shelter
Which brought me here
Chris Drury’s small exhibition
In the Avivson Gallery
Across the road
From the shop selling artisan bread
Where I had a scone
With blueberry preserves
Today the proprietor Janus tells me
A little of his story
Also he listens attentively
To a little of mine
He says that the large
Well framed signed print
Of a Chris Drury Echogram
Has sold for £15,000
A not dissimilar image catches my eye
It is entitled Everything / Nothing III
Though to my mind it could easily be named
Everywhere Nowhere / Another Shelter
Saturday, 1 February 2020
Friday, 31 January 2020
I find a sheltered place
I find a sheltered place
Here among the sand dunes
Behind me, the muted roar of the waves
In front of me, directly, remnants of hawthorn
Turned, black, and grey, and spiky
By the days of midday sun
Today my lunch is, a mindfully eaten
Prawn and mayonnaise sandwich
On wholemeal bread
Rather less mindfully
I guzzle the zero sugar Sprite
A sort of poor man’s lemonade
That I write this is exactly
As how I thought a shelter ought to be
Exactly how I imagined
That a writer might find his place
For the words not to be worried
But thoughtful, at one with the world
If it was ten degrees warmer
If the sea could be clear and blue
If the creepy crawlies
Did not creep all over my page
If all of that were true my friend
This would not still be such a quiet place
Of course I do not
Have to take an aeroplane
Or climb aboard
A luxurious small yacht
Which would take me
Down the Adriatic coast
From Split to Dubrovnik
All the while with eighteen other couples
Whom I may or may not care for
Although, in any event, I am quite sure
A very different sort of shelter
Would be formed
Here among the sand dunes
Behind me, the muted roar of the waves
In front of me, directly, remnants of hawthorn
Turned, black, and grey, and spiky
By the days of midday sun
Today my lunch is, a mindfully eaten
Prawn and mayonnaise sandwich
On wholemeal bread
Rather less mindfully
I guzzle the zero sugar Sprite
A sort of poor man’s lemonade
That I write this is exactly
As how I thought a shelter ought to be
Exactly how I imagined
That a writer might find his place
For the words not to be worried
But thoughtful, at one with the world
If it was ten degrees warmer
If the sea could be clear and blue
If the creepy crawlies
Did not creep all over my page
If all of that were true my friend
This would not still be such a quiet place
Of course I do not
Have to take an aeroplane
Or climb aboard
A luxurious small yacht
Which would take me
Down the Adriatic coast
From Split to Dubrovnik
All the while with eighteen other couples
Whom I may or may not care for
Although, in any event, I am quite sure
A very different sort of shelter
Would be formed
Thursday, 30 January 2020
In today’s meditation
In today’s meditation
I ended up back in the Bow room
It was not as intended
I meant to go somewhere altogether different
That a previous incarnation of meditation
Was stronger
Than the recently viewed images
May say something about my mind
About the flexibility, or the lack of
For the fixations previously fixated
Or perhaps of being nearer to a truth
Than the truth I choose not to let go of
Yet, as Maslow says
I can be both engineer and poet
Which in this instance I take to mean
I can be both meditator and voyeur
That I choose to light up my life
Or I could say, that I choose to take shelter
In that which can no longer be reached
Also may say something about my mind
About its complications or its simplicity
About its divergence or its convergence
About its old habits or its new explorations
About its lack of, or its depth of memory
Back then to the Bow room
The feeling of welcome, of security
A still place, yet with huge windows
To watch the world pass by
As those womenfolk did
With their wheelbarrows
Transporting hardcore
With occasional breaks for a cigarette
As they construct
The pathway
To the old church or
The new contemplation shelter
I ended up back in the Bow room
It was not as intended
I meant to go somewhere altogether different
That a previous incarnation of meditation
Was stronger
Than the recently viewed images
May say something about my mind
About the flexibility, or the lack of
For the fixations previously fixated
Or perhaps of being nearer to a truth
Than the truth I choose not to let go of
Yet, as Maslow says
I can be both engineer and poet
Which in this instance I take to mean
I can be both meditator and voyeur
That I choose to light up my life
Or I could say, that I choose to take shelter
In that which can no longer be reached
Also may say something about my mind
About its complications or its simplicity
About its divergence or its convergence
About its old habits or its new explorations
About its lack of, or its depth of memory
Back then to the Bow room
The feeling of welcome, of security
A still place, yet with huge windows
To watch the world pass by
As those womenfolk did
With their wheelbarrows
Transporting hardcore
With occasional breaks for a cigarette
As they construct
The pathway
To the old church or
The new contemplation shelter
Wednesday, 29 January 2020
I may not be here always
I may not be here always
But I am here right now
I don’t step on diamond causeways
But do feel near myself somehow
It is true I was once in Vienna
For a little while
Soon I will go to Sienna
To savour the Italian style
Railway carriages will be my shelter
For mile on Tuscany mile we ride
A smile for this springtime delta
With the mother of the bride
Not that I could help her
For the daughter is in charge
And in that heat we may swelter
While the vino is served so so large
These are different days
Than what they might have been
Yes, these are convoluted ways
The like so so seldom seen
The path could have gone elsewhere
The shelter not so secure or calm
A passion still to find there
To walk out arm in arm
But with neither land nor money
The prospects were not so bright
Far from the milk and honey
It became hard to see the light
I may not have been here always
Though I am here right now
I didn’t see the diamond causeways
But did find myself somehow
But I am here right now
I don’t step on diamond causeways
But do feel near myself somehow
It is true I was once in Vienna
For a little while
Soon I will go to Sienna
To savour the Italian style
Railway carriages will be my shelter
For mile on Tuscany mile we ride
A smile for this springtime delta
With the mother of the bride
Not that I could help her
For the daughter is in charge
And in that heat we may swelter
While the vino is served so so large
These are different days
Than what they might have been
Yes, these are convoluted ways
The like so so seldom seen
The path could have gone elsewhere
The shelter not so secure or calm
A passion still to find there
To walk out arm in arm
But with neither land nor money
The prospects were not so bright
Far from the milk and honey
It became hard to see the light
I may not have been here always
Though I am here right now
I didn’t see the diamond causeways
But did find myself somehow
Tuesday, 28 January 2020
I write this
I write this
While just sitting, just listening
To Adyashanti’s discourse
On just sitting
He asks
What does it mean
To do nothing at all; of course
I don’t do nothing, I write
And what do I write of
What do I question for myself
It is: can I find shelter in nothing at all
Can the nothing at all embrace me
I had felt, or rather I had seen
That almost nothing, that almost nowhere
I was driving on recovered land
I was on marshes and fens
It was a quiet time
Nothing was being asked of me
Shelter was my pencil and paper
My shelter was what I might think of
It was a gentle, generous place
Though my mind took me off elsewhere
I would, through time, use my memory
To distil what might or might not be
I cast myself into the openness
Into Adyashanti’s waking-dream
Where no outside activity
Would care to, or try to interfere
I was being, the rain was pouring
I was taken by the ease
Of which it was suggested
That I make a telephone call to the old shelter
While just sitting, just listening
To Adyashanti’s discourse
On just sitting
He asks
What does it mean
To do nothing at all; of course
I don’t do nothing, I write
And what do I write of
What do I question for myself
It is: can I find shelter in nothing at all
Can the nothing at all embrace me
I had felt, or rather I had seen
That almost nothing, that almost nowhere
I was driving on recovered land
I was on marshes and fens
It was a quiet time
Nothing was being asked of me
Shelter was my pencil and paper
My shelter was what I might think of
It was a gentle, generous place
Though my mind took me off elsewhere
I would, through time, use my memory
To distil what might or might not be
I cast myself into the openness
Into Adyashanti’s waking-dream
Where no outside activity
Would care to, or try to interfere
I was being, the rain was pouring
I was taken by the ease
Of which it was suggested
That I make a telephone call to the old shelter
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