Polyphonic

It is not something which I have yet heard

Nor that I am too too clear how to deliver

Though I know it to be bound with repetition

And I know it to have interacting layers

Also, for sure, it will have a musical ring

I listen to a morning chant

The word Magnalam resonates with me

Which I learn means auspicious

Also of having good fortune, from the Sanskrit

More though for me the material things

Which I see all around me

The table lamp which casts a circular glow

The wood burner which exudes warmth

The double glazed windows and French doors

Which allow me to see the dawn rising

Also the mug of warm tea from which I drink

And the headphones which deliver music

From a computer, to my ears, then on to my soul

Out of the words come other words

Out of the ramble flows joy

Heading towards fulfilment

Offered up for no reason other:

And Magnalam

Light and heat and sound

Magnalam

Mind and body and soul

Magnalam 

Here and now and eternity

Magnalam 

Sitting and hearing and sensing

Magnalam,

Peace and truth and beauty

Magnalam 

Love of love of love

Magnalam 

Your benefit your welfare

Magnalam

My benefit my welfare

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Attitude

From my own observations I can confirm

That a lot of people struggle

With that walking thing

You yourself may be one of them

Almost everyone can walk

In one form or another

And those who can’t, or don’t

We treat with compassion

Or at least I would like to think so

You may believe otherwise

Though I would hope, as one of my readers

You would have sympathy for the less well off

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Modus Operandi

It is my own body which gifts the fear

Rattled and riven with aches and pains

Too too self-absorbed to look outwards 

And then the mind, or brain

Or whatever does the reasoning

Or whatever lacks it

Also caught up in a spiders web of treacle 

Unable to comprehend, or even hear

Another’s divergent point of view

Yet with no desire to convene an argument

The first response is to clam up, to turn mute

And from that impenetrable place

How impossible is the search for a free spirit

How already defeated is the postulated idea

That one could simply wander and dream

The boots are in the trunk of the car

The desire for walking pretty half-hearted

Yet a way does need to be found

Otherwise the straight-jacket

Will not be released, the ability

To turn inwards will always dominate

So start reading the book of life again

And this time

Don’t skip the introduction

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Positioning

The arguments in my mind

Or debates if you prefer

Are brought on by my having the time

Which rising early grants to me

If only I was a little warmer

If only when the alarm went off

I wasn’t so so deeply asleep

With little desire for waking

However my meditation calls me

As does my morning pot of tea

That and the engaging prospect

Of living for a while inside my mind

The painting fell off the wall yesterday

So now I look at a blank space

Which will be filled with artefacts

Or photographs once chosen

I hear my head turn

And wonder how to say

That in that doubt filled moment

I didn’t understand much at all

And yes the train may have stopped

As it did for Anna Karenina

But was the poet on board

Or was he observing from the platform 

In any event that was yesterday

Today the story means a little less

It is on the pathway to being forgotten

Before the climb, before the fall

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Time Extended Time

An urgency to contemplate

Thoughts desperate for the words

It is as if it is still morning, as if

With the seconds dashing by

Are you misunderstood

You are misunderstood

Sometimes by others

But mostly by yourself

Yet the shadows

And the diary dates

Are the wheels

Which keep on turning

How not to be misinterpreted

On a lifetimes line of continuum

What with so many vantage points

From which to take a point of view

Necessary then the argument

Or discussion as some might name it

Yet the hurt lingers

Deeply questioning the purpose

Suffering of one’s own making

Inhibited by one’s own invitation 

Not then at any frontier

For not one can be reached

Instead the refuge

Of second-half goals

Which brought doubt then defeat

In more or less equal measure

An urgency born of anxiety

With time and space and memory

All but being turned out

In the slow scrawl of morning

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