Suffering

Suffering sits silent
in the bed of my own
making, huddled into
soiled covers, turned

in upon itself, holding
tight to the pillow of
grief, dampened with
tears of shame; so

does this withered
child of psyche, sleep
fitfully, in the midst
of life, ignoring hope.

Broken world

And in that moment
when the world broke,
splitting in unseen
ways, as if destiny

had written itself into
invisible cracks, which
eventually, would be
prised open, in silent

tearing, to ensure the
known, scattered itself
in new ways, to allow
fate to mould another

shape, create different
form, not yet imagined
or perhaps dreamed,
and yet lying always

as the seed of some
thing which demanded
to be birthed, brought
forth from the ruins.

So the world smiled
in its brokeness and
promised hope from
the dregs of being,

as golden light ran
through the wounds,
identifying, healing
and offering beauty.

Desire

Desire laughs at tawdry
years, at softened flesh
and worn skin; mocks
the wrinkled realities

which time does bring,
because it is beyond
such trivialities and
petty concerns, running

deep as it does, tapping
into the river of Soul,
drowning in the depths
of delicious, liquid love

which flows in bright
waves, beyond borders
of the merely material:
Desire cares not for

years, or age, or the
frayed and wearied
edges of life, but sees
only the source, the

depths of self, which
remain untouched by
time; eternal, singing
always its erotic poem,

in a silence which veils
it from others; open
only to the two hearts
which are listening,

holding in a blossom
of being, which does
not fade, and where
each petal is perfect.

https://dversepoets.com/2018/11/20/poetics-desire-and-sexuality-in-poetry/ 

The shower

I got you in the shower,
lathering your huddled
body, soaping, washing
your private parts, in a

hiss of steam, as if the
snake of grief raised
hooded head to strike;
and you wept, while

I washed; not knowing
what else could be
done but to clean the
physical, as the mental

grew in stinking mould,
and the heart hollowed
in your distress and fear;
so did the daughter play

attendant on this tragic
piece of theatre, of
life in all of its cruel
being- as if mere soap

and flannel, could
wash away what was;
remove the awful and
looming reality, that

you were alone, and
there was no-one else
to take his place, to
hold you up; and the

arms of a child, while
willing, would always
be too frightened frail
to soothe the pain.

So, I washed, at all that
you were and all he had
known, achieving little
but baptismal flesh.

https://dversepoets.com/2018/11/15/open-link-night-232/

Dreams

Dreams do hang in unison,
pegged to tired wires,
teased by listless breezes;
dried by life's desires.

Frayed on every corner,
tangled threads reveal,
stories are unravelling;
such is time's appeal.

Washed in silent suds,
offered to the rains,
call to be recovered;
rescued from the pain.

Birds in curious waiting,
balance on the line,
thus is doubt attending;
so are dreams denied.

https://dversepoets.com/2018/11/08/meet-the-bar-creating-metaphor/

Early

I am always early,
arriving ready,
just in case, there is
a chance of being

late.  Except for
when I was born:
three weeks over,
and yet, finally here,

and perhaps from
that day, always early,
as if to make up
for my tardiness.

https://dversepoets.com/2018/10/22/quadrille-67-early/

Middle time

This moment falls
in middle time; that
place where past
and future have no

face, and the ground
is held by present,
embracing all the
space, and smiling

in the gaze of distant
possibility, both
behind and ahead in
this path through life.

How did it come to
be, in this unexpected
way, which prior
thoughts did not hold,

which neither fears
nor hopes described?
Surprising in its
presence, such trick

of time and space,
born without thought,
simply happening,
as if it had always been.

as the years pass

It is harder to hold to
dreams as the years
pass. They slip like
gossamer in a wind,

which teases, irritable
and disconcerting, as
if it had been planned,
for just these times;

so do we enter the
days of the mundane,
the real, the practical,
without the shawl of

fantasy, to blur the
bitter edges, soften
the hard shapes -
create possibilities

for those we love,
and all of the things
we thought we might
do and be, in this

allotted time. Does
it matter? Or is this
how it was always
meant to be in a

slow process of
waking up, before
the last true moment
of awakening?

Sleep

The covers pulled,
the bed prepared,
ready to receive,
the body naked
with all removed,
no face to show
the world, just
simple flesh and
being, just self
and soul and me;
how easy is that
resting where
nothing does
deceive.

The crack

In that faint crack
on the far wall,
my eye rested, as
if too weary to

wander further, or
as if the break in
the facade, so fine
demanded to be

seen, called out
to be recognised
as a light tearing:
like my heart. 

Change

There were times when
we heard each other, and
loved each other, almost
understood each other;

but those days are gone,
it seems and only deep
misunderstanding lives
in you, and perhaps also

echoes in me, unknown.
It is as if we lost our way
and the knowledge we
once had, each of the

other, walking in the
same world, and yet not;
shape-shifting through
familiar places, but each

seeing with strange eyes
which would not let us
recognise the faint shape
of who we both were. 

Sown

Sown by the wind like
seeds, unseen, settling
on stony ground, with
just enough soil to

tether in place, offering
the gift of life, even as
it is unexpected, nearly
impossible, but still the

thrust of becoming is
too much and small
shoots can be seen,
promising so much. 

Clouds

Rolling in that undetermined
way, sliding through mind and
space, so the clouds of time and
thought do justify, seasons of

the heart and soul, surrendering
to rain and thundered torment,
as lightning shrieks horrendous-
denying reasoned thoughts. 

Gathering

 It was cold the day they buried me,

the mist shrinking back

from the hump of the hill.

The crows had arrived early.



They gathered like sleek flowers

in the branches of the undressed

oaks, strangely silent, as if waiting

to welcome the mourners, as they

walked, in sombre step, to their

expected places. That’s

 the thing about being dead …..

you get to see things as they really

were, rather than how you thought

they were. It’s not quite the same as

when you are alive but it is similar.

Death has a way of making things

very clear.  It forces you to see even

as it blinds you.  Don’t get me wrong,

 I wasn’t completely taken unawares.

After all, Death had been my companion

 for many years. We had walked together,

 through bright nights and dark days for

 longer than I cared to forget, but I had

managed, through most of that time,

not to look too closely. But there comes

 a time when it isn’t a matter of choice,

and you have no option. That’s when

 Death holds your face in her long,

burning fingers and forces you to look

deep into her eyes. You can fall into

those eyes and never find your way

back. That’s why it’s better to choose

 while you can. We can change our lives,

simply by choosing. But most of us do not

know that. The milk-haired girl taught me

that truth. Her face turned toward the wind,

poised like The Fool upon the precipice,

daring all to follow her into the unknown.

Like ancient Mania’s moon-child, she

clung to the bars that separated her

 from the churning sea,   as if at any

moment she might take flight and

soar through the brooding heavens,

 at one with the screaming gulls.

I can still see her now, even though

 it was so very long ago … the image

 engraved upon memory, finely worked

with feeling. And that’s the other thing

Death taught me; it’s not enough just to

 think about things, you have to feel them.

But I’m getting ahead of myself and stories

 are meant to have a sequence. I’m not sure

 why though, because most of the time life

doesn’t. We all like to think that it does, but

 often it doesn’t. In truth it’s only something

we tell ourselves, in order to create the illusion

of certainty. But there is no certainty, never

was and never will be.  When you look back

there’s nothing much of substance either.

It’s just a collection of moments pulled

together into something we call a story.


 The truth is that most of the time we

live in the bits of our lives, dropping

 in and out at the whim of what we

 call consciousness. It’s an erratic

process and it’s a wonder that we’re

not all crazy by the end of it. The story

 that we make out of the dregs and

dross of our lives that is the most

 important thing because that is where

 we find meaning, and meaning, I’ve

come to see, is the one quality that can

make the worst of life bearable.

Every story lives of and through itself

and it is in the telling that the threads

 are sorted and re-worked. I happen

to think that words are living, feeling

things and, like human beings,  they

 breathe most deeply in the spirit of

change. And so the pattern is the same,

and yet different; the telling is true,

and yet false, and the story is timeless

 and yet changed.  For it is in the changing

that we can find a place for ourselves

 in the story; and in the doing, re-make

 the bed in which we must lie. This story

belongs to many, but we must all find our

own place in it. For life does not have

beginnings until we look back.  There are

 those who would say it has no future either,

only the eternal now, but it is of the future

 that we dream most often, forgetting that

the past is both source and pattern of all dreams.

Only for a moment

On that long day, when life breathed
out, silently, but forcefully, she saw
again, the dusty patch where the lawn
had sucked death, and scrabbled to

survive, speaking in a visionary
language, of where her marriage had
taken her, without knowing, that was
what was happening; fretted with

the dying green of possibility, so the
days sobbed in the unforgiving dirt
and the rains never came, despite all
of the promises - such was the way of

it, in that place of so many broken
hopes and perished dreams, whose
fate had been written, long before the
stage was set, the actors cast, the lines

written in that wavering scrawl, as
children make, even while they try
to get it right, forgetting they have not
yet learned who they are or what it is

they can do. Indeed, what it is they will
be allowed to do. Perhaps we know so
little because ignorance lessens pain,
until the moment of the last breath. And,

even then, when like hieroglyphics,
the etched stories of our existence, dress
the lime walls of our tomb, if only for
a moment, brilliant in their colour. 

Making the world

Making the world in each moment,
cutting the shapes, fine-scissored,
blades sharpened on past being;
so do we make, and remake as we

go; variations on the theme of living,
and of knowing, and of dreaming,
where the equipment has been formed
on the anvil of time, and experiences

long gone, even though we believe
that what we trim neatly into form,
is something new, and unique to
what we choose to call our life. 

Change

We strive for the illusion
that nothing will true change,
and drown in our delusion
as night makes way for day.

To find ...

As we feel to find
the shape of self,
that rustling in the
dark, and fumbling

through the halls of
life, where light is
fragile, stark, so does
soul now whisper,

in heady tones of
grief, that we may
hear and recognise
who we are at least.

And in the mortal
yearning, where hope
is calling still, we
hold our arms in

act of grace, and
draw on bitter will.

Opposites

The nature of things is to be
opposite, to strive for balance,
to seek the connection, in that
which has the other electric

charge, where the combination
of the two, creates this world
and all that is in it: matter and
anti-matter; electron and anti

electron; proton and anti
proton, meeting each other
and in that deep place of
annihilation, life is created,

energy is born; in that sure
destruction comes all life,
possibility and being; and
in that death is found pure

birth and transformation, as
the perfect marriage, hieros
gamos,  from micro to macro:
and so do opposites attract.

Christ consciousness

We are made cellular,

Christ consciousness,

Apoptosis; where each is

Created to sacrifice,

Give its life, for the

Good of the whole;

Where each individual

Cell, is programmed

When healthy, to die

For the sake of the

Rest; to choose

Extinction, in order

That others may live,

On, just as Christ

Is said to have done;

Each cell a saviour

And a redeemer in

The story, the glory

The crucifixion of life,

From which comes,

Resurrection. Only

When a cell forgets

The truth of what it

Is, and why it was

Made, does it seek

To be eternal in the

Material and, in the

Doing, bring Death.

Dance of death

You were seventy,
you said, that day
at lunch, and you
would not grow old

and infirm, where
others had to care
for you, and where
you drained their

lives, and existed
in your own misery,
and so, you gave
yourself ten years,

and then, you said,
you would go to
Europe for a holiday,
somewhere lovely

like Lake Como, on
your way to someone
with a needle, who
could, in an instant,

bring it all to an end,
so no-one had to
suffer in that lingering
of life - but would you?

It is easy to talk of
what we might do in
ten, long years, as
opposed, to ten, short

minutes left of life,
and where in that
plan is trust, for the
process of this journey

we take as mortal
beings; gratitude for
the horrors and joys
of living in this

material world? But,
of course, your path
is not mine, and it
may have its own

ending, long before
you set out for Lake
Como, and the need-
ling end of existence.

The Ocean Spoke

The ocean spoke in waves of song,
turning in upon itself, caressing
all it touched, as if it sang itself
to sleep; in lullabies of semen surf,

requiring nothing of the sands which
soared and drifted in its wake, settling
into place, renewed, removed, as
something new, beyond the pure

beginnings of creation where all was
possibility; revealed now as womb
and source of all becoming, roiling
in a brew of life unknown and barely

recognised, from which would come
the bones of ancient arks of being,
and where the scud of foaming crust
would settle and lay quiet, allowing

in the silence, through aeons of
darkness and of light, the creep of
creatures, steadying salt-crusted
lips, waiting to breathe the air.

It was dark

It was dark when
I thought of you
and tried to call,
but there was no

answer, and then
it seemed even
darker than it had
been, darker than

the night could
muster, blacker
than midnight;
bereft of shades

of dawn, lost in
wondering and
fears which lurk
in the belly of

night, groaning
in the acid of
dissolution; that
refusal to digest.

That bridge

That bridge you built
with sweating hands,
across my heart’s divide,
while secretly I tunnelled,
has brought us side to
side, and in the stretch
of moment, connected
as we were, both mind
and soul directed, that
we remain entwined.

Token of self

Edges chipped and worn,
serrated by the soul,
the boundary of self
where time chews slow,

forlorn, and in the simple
doing, and being of us
all, we are remade, re-
formed, reborn, as who

we're meant to be, while
even in those moments,
we have no knowledge
sure, no sense of what's

intended, just knowing
there is more; beyond
the mere token that we
see of our material self. 

Tears

Peep through tears reclining,
in shining, shimmered fall,
can touch the tender edges
of heart, in soul's pure call.

And in the shivered droplets,
transparent and revealed,
we see the dreams of ages;
lay out the things we feel.

Reflected in those moments,
bright mirrors of old sight,
the truth of hidden stages,
is lined in staggered height. 

Light

Effervescent atoms birthed

in ways unknown, as light

they gather joyfully, present

the source bestowed.

And in the bliss of doing,

life surges forth in ways

of unimagined being;

creation full displayed.

We do not know the

answers to why this world

is so, and yet it is enough

to honour all bestowed.

In temperamental shining,

all is beckoned forth, and

light is pure made manifest;

the universe is wrought.

Years

Do years betray the moment,
sabotage the dreams, or do
the years invest our souls
with what life truly means?

Pain

Could there be ways to live

this life of mine decreed,

without the shining edge

of pain, so finely sheathed,

and then in time released,

to cut through minutes

neat, and chop the days

and sodden nights, through

realms of merciless sleep?

Or is it all so written, in

times before I breathed,

that life would be arranged

with pain, as waiting thief?

Can there be an answer

to such a question met, in

knowing there can never

be, and that the ink stays

wet, allowing all the seep

and blurring on the pages,

where suffering does dress

the naked soul she graces.

Shadows

Strip-lit shadows suckle at the sorrowed edge of light,

trace in stark relief the mark of image surely drawn,

hold to earth with visions of the darkness which will come;

so does the day dream always of the distant night.

Emptiness unfolds in shapes which sun does deeply cast,

that calling into meaning and to huddled, crisping forms,

where time dips wrinkled toes in breathing brightness lit;

and as the minutes shuffle by, what was, can never last. 

Silence

Breath held, drawn in
and down .... slow ...
becoming of deep
thought, waiting ...
to be released, upon
an unsuspecting...
world, in that silence
which holds court
for soul's full and
liquid language, as
it roils ..... in doubt
and hope, before it
can be ...revealed.
In silence all things
....are born.

https://dversepoets.com/2018/01/04/meet-the-bar-with-silence/