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Friday, 10 July 2020

Home Retreat

I have it in mind to create an online meditation retreat, but first I will carry out my own week-long retreat at home, or at any rate in our Old Stables.

Each day I will follow a structure not dissimilar to retreats which I have been on, with morning, afternoon, and evening meditations interspersed with readings, music, films, and talks by online inspirational spiritual figures.

I hope to video as much as is practicable for later use; I will write about the retreat process, I will also write poetry and do artwork and photography.

Before I begin I will lay out the room to suit my needs, I will have to hand the books and the music which I hope to use, although I do wish to have some scope for spontaneity.

I feel a mind-map coming on, to help me draw together the strands of my thoughts.

The excitement, to have found a sense of purpose is already there, and I hope it will grow, as and when the project is further developed.


Thursday, 9 July 2020

More to it than that, isn’t there always

My photographic images were taken
In the many places where I have been
Sufficiently lucky to have visited

And so when I want to choose one from 2014
To illustrate a book which I am publishing
I do have quite a dilemma

Who should be pleased
Who could be offended
Who would say that I ought to have asked first
And who might actually say
Christopher this is just not good enough
Do you not ever think to consider
The effects of your actions

But it was just a snapshot
Yes, I know that I have given it a caption
Which might suggest a psychologist in conversation
With her client, the lead character in the novel
Except that it is only a suggestion
Nothing is unequivocally confirmed
And so doubts may still linger


Wednesday, 8 July 2020

Songs in the key of life

Two more songs for the funeral
Copper Top by Bill Wells
Which tells the story of a chap
Going into the pub nearest to the crematorium
For a pint on his own while he waits for his mate
To pick him up in his car
His stories reminded me of my being measured
And fitted for my first, bespoke, tailor-made suit
By Mr. Wimpenny in the upstairs market hall

Then The King of Rome by The Unthanks
Accompanied by Brighouse and Rastrick Brass Band
Which tells the story of a chap whose pigeon
Wins the race from Rome to his west-end home
Which reminds me of Saturday afternoons
Sat out on the Tinkers pigeon loft
As Colin and Lawrence welcomed their birds back
From Paris, or maybe even further afield

These two tunes to go with those already chosen:
Flower Duet from Lakme by Delibes, Acid Rain by Paul Heaton (the full 8 minutes +), then the Flaming Lips with Do you realise. That’s not to mention Shine On You Crazy Diamond, Spiegel im Spiegel, or Bolero, which were also once on the list


Tuesday, 7 July 2020

Socialist Worker

Up at five
Breakfast before seven
My 2006 poems turn the 400 mark 
As dawn breaks
And blackbirds chirp

After lunch there is a tiredness
Thankfully, the crystal in the window
Glows red as if a burning sun
Its energy pulsates into and inside me
Telling me to write, to get writing

In that one moment
I captured that one existential breath
Where the lines of absorbent energy
Became coincidental with the lived life
As if some preordained force of nature

Just as those  Critical Theory classes at Buxton
Could so so easily have been disrupted
If the champagne socialist and artist within me
Hadn’t careered into a Labour Party card-carrying
Member and activist, also the lecturer fo the day


Monday, 6 July 2020

Figuratively Speaking

I had started there and begun to wonder
About the future of my life
Somewhere between the silence and the thunder
Could I find a guide or sign

The sound of the bell from Plum Village
Echoes through the headphones on my head
Sitting in this morning meditation
Could I find the path of peace down which I’m led

Closing in on the end of my eternity
Towards what some perceive as the final truth
I lose my desire for socialised fraternity
Rather to sit and recall my days of youth

I don’t ask the obvious questions
Seek no faith to suspend or extend my passage
I am here and I am happy
I came all this way with all that baggage

The body itself is some days tiresome
No longer a competitor in the freeform sprint
But I do remember being first through the tape
Those times when schoolgirls wore chequered pink

Yet it is more than memories which drive me
Somehow I gather the power to write
It is my favourite, fun-absorbing pastime
To gift me peace with its wayward insight