Poetry

Red hot razor blades
tenderly trace lines across my soul.
Ley lines,
fault lines,
lines to cross.
They slip,
burning sweetly,
trailing bloody kisses through my thoughts,
tattooing memories
in psychedelic pain.
They bite deep,
blazing words to my brain
that bubble,
sanguine to the surface,
and turning to black,
they rest.

Indulgence

Here I sit,
wrapped in words
that wriggle with pleasure,
satisfied,
around my mind.
Doted on and applauded
like a baby's first steps,
they wreathe and writhe
until my brain is
honeycomb-rich.
And here I sit.

Esther Grace

My baby spoke to me today.
Her “Mama” wreathed in smiles
Played glissandi on my heart strings,
Mellifluous as cherry blossom
tumbling across a clear blue sky.

Seeing

Sometimes I open my eyes
and realise only then
that they were shut before.
Sometimes I see things
that were always there
and find
I never knew them
as they really are.
Sometimes my world
takes me by surprise
and though I would rather
not be blind at all,
I am thrilled
when sight surprises me
again.

Everything is Connected

As notes hang,
knitting music
in tentative legatos,
so do we,
paper chain people,
hand in hand,
stand.
Strung between history
and eternity,
we are dew drops,
beading the web of life.


(With thanks to Daniel Barenboim for helping to clarify this thought!)

Blackbird (3)

A blackbird sings pearls
over diamond frost.
The world is transformed
to a treasure chest
and everything sparkles
ice-cold in the night-light dark.
Eye lashes, decked with dew,
halo my sight with veins of gold
as the blackbird sings pearls
over diamond frost.

Paradise

Perfect love
with nothing to fear.
The joys of searching
and no clouds of doubt.
Cities like jewels,
crystal clear,
trees brilliant with birdsong,
spread to shade
conversations lifetimes long,
and no misunderstandings.
Meditations long and deep
and no spiral to despair.
This is where
Divinity dwells
and we see
not darkly
through muddled minds
or tears
or fears
but everything
is absolutely,
perfectly
clear.

The stars are coming out

The stars are coming out.
I feel them piercing the empty space
of my mind.
I cannot lift my head,
not yet,
from the sand,
but on the smooth surface of the sea,
I see
reflected diamonds.
Hush – the waves are whispering their secrets now
and I
can lie,
my ear to their shore
and whisper mine to them.
In my midnight blue,
the stars are coming out.
I feel them piercing the empty space
of my mind.

Dreams.

A prayer.

In the Temple of my mind,
Dreams rise like incense
to a leering divinity
who squats, uninvited,
comfortable.
Songs,
harsh and sleep-cracked,
mock their own becoming,
turn the grinning god
in writhing delight
and cover me in shame.
Let my songs run pure
like clear springs,
wash my nightmares
clean
to dream of truth and beauty.
Sanctify the Temple of my mind.

Winter Moon

Full moon hangs in translucent sky
over frosted cars and cold-petrified trees.
Fat and blooming,
smiles at new, night-wrapped morning,
tugs at the tides of sleeping minds.
Silvering frost-feathers,
lacing the cold with diamonds,
insinuates lungs on fogged breath,
sowing friendly chill and reaping shivers.
She is queen of the solstice,
wrapping the world in a luminous embrace.

Night Fighting

This is the night,
shoving my body aside,
mainlining my brain
with thoughts and fears
best left til morning.
This is the night,
denying soft, swaddling clothes,
pummelling me with dark fists
that offer no return,
and nothing to wrestle but my self.
This is the night ,
the clarity of not yet morning
when fog is lifted from my dream-logged mind
and I am startled to wakeful watching
by scuttling scenes of what might be,
what could have been.
This is the night
turned hard.
No black-bandaged softness,
no nestling in snuggeries here.
This is the night
and me,
the two of us
tug-o-warring sleep.

(With thanks again to Dylan Thomas!)

Time and Tide

My body is running away from my mind.
The realisation is very unkind.
There's no way to catch it; it's far out of reach
and free-falling headlong into the breach.

Somewhere in childhood, or not far beyond,
my brain is awakening, looking around,
Absorbing the wonders that hold out their hands,
longing to travel their soul-stirring lands.

But just as my brain is beginning to wake,
my body is out of control with no brake;
tumbling quickly, quite out of control,
to where it will finally split from my soul.

And somehow, my brain is left far behind,
beseeching my body to wait for my mind -
There's so much I still want to do and to say,
I want to be useful, to travel, to play,

I want to learn languages, study and sing,
So many books, so many things,
But somehow my body, though adequate now,
Wants to stop sliding, and doesn't know how.

So it keeps running away from my mind.
It's all very normal, but oh, so unkind.
There's no way to catch it; it's far out of reach
and free-falling headlong into the breach.

Listen, Time Passes.

It is not too late,
not yet,
to see beauty
and transform the rest
to peace.
It is not too late to lie
soft and gentle
in a warm embrace
and feel it to be true and good.
It is not too late to recognise
what future good can come from present pain,
to arrest the bitterness
and live again.
Yet Time is marching on
and will not wait
for promises nor passion,
love nor hate.

(With thanks to Dylan Thomas for the title.)

Logos

What is this life?
Mists swirl hypnotic
in the desert.
A mirage beckons,
shimmers and dies as I must.
In the internal winter
I feel the heat of exposure
to its glacial heart
and then the mists return and so do I.
In the labyrinthine caverns
I see the light of
death’s quick blade.
In the primal moon
of my inner eye
I see your light reflected.
Turning the chaotic seasons of my sphere to order,
you rise to bring meaning into life.

Blackbird

Dedicated to Seraphim Jane Mcleod, born yesterday 19th January 2010.

Blackbird

A blackbird is singing.
Alone in the clear, cold dark
of this January before-dawn morning,
at the top of the tree
at the bottom of the garden.
Its song is clear as ice cold mountain streams,
tumbling through the air
to where my sleepy brain soaks it up.
It is a pure, uncomplicated start to my day,
Gold above the grey.

Blackbird (2)

A blackbird is singing.
Alone in the clear, cold dark
of this January not-quite-morning,
it anticipates the new day
with its pre-dawn recitative.
A tiny Angel singing Glory to God
for the birth of a Seraph.

Philosophies

My brain is fizzing.
Not unpleasant.
A far from comfortable effervescence.
A sizzling, fizzing, combustible,
bubbling brain.
It fires thoughts across my night sky
like UFOs.
From the unknown to more of the same,
they sparkle confusion
from neuron to neuron
and continue to far away.
I am an atom in the void,
percolating tiny philosophies.

Last Stand

It is grey outside.
Cloud close enough to
water-log my brain.
I am through with grey.
I will do all I can to keep it at bay,
hold it limp,
at arm's length.
From now til Spring
I will rainbow things.
Hair dyed bright above
stripy scarf and
coat of many colours.
I will Joseph my way through the
winter wilderness,
dreaming dreams
of glorious futures
where suns bow down to no-one
and grey
knows its place
and slinks away.

Bubbles

These are the spheres that rise
multi-coloured
from my mind,
effervescence bubbling
from ocean depths.
Laughter and tears,
profundity
and sudden clarity,
fizz to the surface,
burst all over my brain.
I reach out to hold them
but they are gone,
bubbles on the breeze.

Creativity

I want to spin words like tops,
colours blurring together
into a frenzy of beautiful expression,
juggle syllables
and twist sounds
into kaleidoscope patterns.
I want to spark
the fuse of fireworks,
paint wonder across the sky,
wave my pen like a wand,
and weave magic into every line.
but every time I try,
the fireworks fall away
and leave my brain
a blank, empty sky.

Waking

Dark thoughts fly outwards,
tattered edges of nightmares,
as day’s cold light dawns.
Dreams that fluttered like burnt moths
at the flame of my slumbering mind,
disturbing my sleep
and waking me,
uneasy in the small hours,
slip towards morning
and disappear.
I am left with a sense of something uncertain
as the day breaks.

The Bullies

Sometimes the bullies come back.
Their snide remarks
that wormed into my perceptions,
or slid like wire through cheese,
smoothly brutal,
stab uncalled for –
like the first time –
into my thoughts.
They niggle and gnaw until I’d rather just stay
another day
hidden out of sight,
than face the bullies that still lurk
in every looking glass.

Eden

The thing that made it perfect
was its lack of walls,
ceilings,
halls,
railings
or any other keeping-it-in-or-out
device.

It had trees to sit in,
silent, thinking,
grass to walk on,
(without sharp things in it,
so bare feet were with it.)
No signs on doors denying access -
there were no doors,
no gates,
no inside places to be shut out of.

And God walked in the garden.
No churches, temples,
walls of any kind.
No ceilings for prayers to bounce off,
mocking their own echoes.
Just a talk with God,
a friend to friend chat.
How perfect was that?

Snow

There was a time,
around childhood, and even more
recently, I’m sure,
when snow transformed winter gloom
to white-wrapped wonderland.
Somehow,
between then and now,
something stole the status-quo
and so, the snow
is turned to grey
by the winter world
on which it falls.

Alchemy

Walking down the River Lea
and the canal
parallel,
barges nesting neatly on the banks,
swans, (miraculously white,)
gliding like Tchaikovsky through
rainbow slick oil and
alien green soap suds,
I must say,
what strikes me
most clearly,
is so much grey.
Colour is there
everywhere,
but the dust jacket stops it
getting out.
I am cynical as doubting Thomas
about the transformation potential.
Then the sun comes bounding from some hidden grey of its own,
turning dross
to pure, surprising gold.

Near Death Experience

Pulsing through veins,
steady throb of heart to brain, fingers, toes
and every far flung part of me,
blood red life ebbs
and flows.
Awake, asleep, joyful, sad,
head-over-heels mad,
One by one or all together,
into myself and out again.
Tumbling and climbing, roller coaster flying,
birth to death riding high and low.
The veil gossamer, silk, barely there,
Every breath
near death.


In his book "Bacon Sandwiches and Salvation", Adrian Plass defines "Near Death Experience" as "Life". The idea that all of life is a 'near death experience' is somehow liberating, I think. Anyone else?

Solstice

The Almanac’s annual end returns
to start its circling seasons
once again
and in the whirlpool’s spirals
casts its soul.
As circle’s life completion
lies in its conception,
time, ironic, takes its Spring
from Winter’s frosted grave.
So here is read,
in winter’s whitest depths
the annual end
where life is newly made.

Year Warming

The Weather was out in force
for New Year's Day,
sentimental in the spirit of the season.
Snow at midnight,
full moon hanging heavy,
pearlescent before dawn
and sunshine bright all day.

Clear, blue skies,
ice-laced trees,
frosted fingers of frozen sunlight,
wrapped the day
in chilly warmth.

And friends
and soup
and fresh-baked bread
made this new year
warm and homely
from the start.