Sleep Is Good

I talk to my meditation teacher

About falling asleep during meditation

She gives the thumbs up

Indeed she says it is a good thing

So what do you know

If the very next morning

I don’t just go and fall asleep

And put another hour

Onto my Insight Timer record

If this is me being open

Expressing my fears, or restraints

Might I apply the technique in other areas

For instance if I write about my constipation

Might my movements

Become easier and more regular

And, if Lily Allen is to become the spokeswoman

For women’s masturbation

Might I apply for the men’s variate position

Also, now that I have come across

A rhyming dictionary, isn’t it time 

That I got off my high-horse and started using it

Of course all of this is skirting the issue

For I am damaged goods

I have been hurt, and not found recovery easy

Which is often why others wonder

What on earth I am thinking about

When clearly I am not in the present moment

Accidents Will Happen

Instead of the abbey

A man troubled by drink

And who knows what else

Crashes his motor bike

Almost in front of us

As we walk to the shops

I held back, until told

To ring for an ambulance

You, on the other hand

Rushed to the casualties aid

I failed miserably

With the 999 call

You, on the other hand

Had remained by his side

This man, out joyriding

In his dressing gown

On someone else’s bike

He turned to blasphemy

When more help arrived

Maybe he is addicted

Unable to restrain himself

Perhaps his taste

Was for Buckfast Tonic Wine

Before endangering a suburban street

  

Sketches

The many trees
The river in spate
The few trees
The almost still canal

The footpath to the abbey
Or to the cafeteria
For Americano coffee
And treacle tart with clotted cream

  

Do Does, Don’t Does Not

The dance, this year

Is not a line-dance

Nor a quick-step

And certainly not a waltz

I do not pick up the leaf

To twirl it in the sunlight

I do not read this year’s

Inspirational Book of Days

But I do

Rearrange the bookshelves

Move myself one step closer

To knowing who I am

The walks, this year

Are not meditations

Or pastoral observations

Neither do they go to my writing seat

I do not sit and gaze

Or contemplate a cigarette

As a means, if nothing less

Of beginning a conservation

But I do

Write these few lines

Hold myself together

As a signal to my true faith

 

Take Me There, In Less Time

Such sun on the trees

Such shadows on the page

That such a song lyric I heard

As the Corn Bread Crumbles

More time than ever

To clean the abbey

Less time than ever

To use the abbey for prayer

And the new organ

Not yet through its guarantee

Sounds out with resounding echoes

For all of those who are absent

Might that I remember

How happy I felt

How anxious I felt

How the two were tied together in you

More time than ever then

To play the hipness-hapless mind games

Less time than ever then

To believe that one is destined for prayer