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Thursday, 1 July 2021

Journal

The Medicine Wheel precedes us
Yet also
The Medicine Wheel received us

The silent space breathes
As we, together, or apart
Breathe for each other

Shelters and baskets
Well, they began much earlier
Than our shelters or baskets

Shelter being a basic need
Although love, love runs it close
Especially in my own world wilderness

As if in Connemara
Where to go is actually no foundation
For seeing Connemara

I was in Los Angeles
A couple of years before
Then in London, but that was later

Lewes will always mean
A place for meeting
Adrift of the Siberian winds

But now I am confused
The Shadow Stuff is dated
After the gallery visitation

Fortunately, Basket for Crows
Fits our timeline, precisely
Almost calling it as a time to revisit.


Wednesday, 30 June 2021

My pasts are buried in my poems

Sometimes, as home-grown new
potatoes, in the raised beds
shallow and easy to lift

Sometimes, as in my childhood
planted deep by the farmer
for his tractor driven machine to turn over

Sometimes, as with my mother’s parents
my grandparents, set rich in the earth
looking down the valley, from their coffins

Although not all my pasts are buried, not yet

Sometimes I write about them
in a tense which may suggest
That they no longer inhabit my life

Sometimes I am more celebratory
Even wishing that they could be here
To share in with the good times

Sometimes the black dog catches up with me
Then I don’t think well of owt at all
However alluring my pasts deem themselves to be

Not all my pasts will be buried, no, not ever

Tuesday, 29 June 2021

Tough on Trust

I was asked to choose someone
Who I could trust completely
I don’t know anyone
Who I could trust totally
I don’t trust myself that far
I’m pretty sure, experientially

Who do I hurt
With my lack of trust
Other than myself
And those with doubts about my trust
Am I trustworthy
Or is that a different question

That I tell you
Of my lack of trust
Does that help you
To now trust me
That is, any more or any less
Trust is what trust is, isn’t it


Monday, 28 June 2021

Inculcate

Are you by the water
Are you settled in space
Does the world revolve around you
Have you found, might I say, your grace

I chased you for a long time
Always I enjoyed the freedom of the place
I tried to make the world all mine
Yet often, to be honest, I could not find a trace

The brothers, and the sisters too
Carry on with their learning
I pass the baton from me to you
Either way, so it seems, I am forever yearning

Longing for a communique
You know the kind of thing
A simple note, perhaps to say
Oh, am I so glad that you did ring

For it was only a thought
Albeit also somewhat pretentious
That when I made the call I ought
To have said, oh, how wonderfully sensuous


 

Sunday, 27 June 2021

Speculate

Today I leave the abbey
But first to read, and quote
A few words from Jung

… the waves from the steamer
washed up to the shore, the
sun glistened on the water, and the
sand under the water had been
curved into little ridges by the waves
… this expanse of water was
inconceivable pleasure to me,
an incomparable splendour - at
the time the idea became fixed
in my mind that I must live near
a lake; without water I thought
nobody could live at all

Jung was between seven
And nine years old
When these thoughts arose

I am almost ten times that age
And yet have not totally found
That place of water, or of meadow, or of calm

So I carry on searching
I return to our nice, spacious, comfortable house
In the heart of the picturesque Lincolnshire Wolds

Where I sit in the lounge
Listen to Max Richter music
And realise how lucky I am