Tuesday 15 July 2014

Satnam...Grace of God

I'll play sweet music and sing a devotion for you everyday
And I'll forgive myself, in my heart,
If ever I forget.

I'll release your lilac spirit from dark bonds that may hold it
And carry the heaviest load, walk the steepest path, clean the filth of ages,
with joy in every pore,
And I'll forgive myself from the plumb deep of my innermost heart,
should I ever forget.

I'll speak your name with reverence and recall your face with love
I'll play and jump and dance to your memory,
And, if one day, it so happens, I let you slip from mind,
I'll open the profoundest chamber of my heart's heart
and release the winged and dappled unicorn...

And I'll start again.

Tuesday 8 July 2014

5 O'Clock Shadow

I don't usually give an explanation of my poems, but this one's a bit abstract. One evening, during my last 10 day silent meditation course, looking over the mountains from my room in Worcester, Western Cape, I saw a shadow cast over the slope that brought this one to mind.


5 O'Clock Shadow

Comic hillside giraffe

Shadow dog

What can you teach me about death?

We Can Fly




I watched a pair of

White-collared crows

Bounce and swirl on the

Salty current of a sea breeze

And my heart remembered how to fly.

For brief moments, plumes of light

Burst forth through every pore

And thrilled my very being.

I spun and dived with

My winged brothers:

For the fun

For the joy

Just because I could

Monday 15 April 2013

For Dad


The wind blew a falling
leaf against my cheek.
And I called your name.
And you laughed.

Autumn at Symonds Yat:
Our final hour.

And the river wound bleaky
through the rocks you loved.
And you tried to tell me
you would leave.

Cold. 
So cold.

Yet somehow now,
my heart knows Peace.
For this year, in the sunshine,
the leaves are just as bright

Autumn Poem

October

a brown rash of toadstools                                   
moving along the autumn path,                              
slippery with decay,                                                 
that winds through woods                                     
of nettle and dock
and sparkling wet sunlight.                                                                                                                                                                                                           20 day course- Dhamma Padhana (Foremost in Dhamma)

The Swan




A poem about female facial mutilation as performed regularly on TV makeover shows such as 'The Swan', a US programme in which a group of 'contestants' are given extreme makeovers before being judged by a panel of 'experts'.





Take one over-worked, over-weight and over-wrought housewife.
Under-loved by hubbie and an average of 3 kids.
Ensure:

- low levels of self-love
- wobbly bottom confidence
- a gratitude so deep she'll agree to all your terms and conditions:
'Sign on the line and we'll take care of all your lines'
Wrinkles- filled. Check
Teeth-porcelained. Check
Lips- trout-pouted
Hair- extended
Nails faked, skin-caked.
Check, check, check
Now they're wearing masks I can see straight through-
Layer upon layer.
Keeping reality out.
Keeping reality in.
From woman to swan in 100 painful, bloody steps.

2 more poems from Auroville

I’m a wild seed again. Let the wind carry me.

I’m a wild seed again .
Let the wind carry me.

Watching life passing, changing:
There are no constants.

Waves, wavelets
Vibrations

Meeting, making, being
Watching my being

Waves, wavelets
Vibrations.



Queen of the cynics

It’s alright.

There’s a wall being built around my heart.

You’re just another brick in the wall.