Life hurls itself at the world and takes us with it
Momentum is our true name
Forever escaping the moment
In a relentless pursuit of Shangri-la 
Awareness gazes longingly at
All the resting places as we rush by
We splash our colours onto the canvas
With joy and with heartache both
But stripped of illusion, in essence,
Momentum is all we really are.

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I'm out of control. I didn't mean to be. 

I've spent my life cutting, pruning, weeding, mowing, planting, feeding, watering

My ideas and ambitions and sometimes

Your ideas and ambitions.

But today, I'm out of control.

I'm surrendering the hoe, the rake, the spade.

I'm sitting here noticing that life grows by itself

(it doesn't need me to confine or manicure its abundance)

R...

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She writes a poem

The gatekeeper ums and ahs 

It's not that great but

The gatekeeper is getting old

She's getting lax

She lets the poem through

It creeps onto the blog

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Be still my restless heart

You have arrived

Here in this moment

I call this belonging

You can rest at last

No more searching

No more longing

I call this home

Everything you see, hear, sense

Is known to you

Intimately and fully

I call this love

All is received

All is given

In blissful union

I call this God

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When all around me is in motion
I find stillness within.
On roads, in buildings, amidst a throng,
Feeling myself swept along,
I turn to my heart
And reassured by its steady beat
I slow and still.

When all around me is still
I notice the turmoil within.
Alone in woods or by the sea,
- so much more than just me,
I rest in the stillness
Of trees and ocean and sky,
No more questions, no...

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Wrapping Paper

When I was a child, presents often came wrapped in newspaper
Or sometimes in plain brown paper, tied with string
During my growing years things changed and
Coloured paper with patterns appeared along with
Cellotape and ribbons and gift cards
Today, the wrapping has a whole personality of its own
The delight of colours and textures and shapes
Often distracting from the gift...

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Mind Blown

All that I am is a very unique point of view in a very big picture.

In any moment I am trying to make sense of what is in front of me

From this specific point of view.

What else can I do?

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Mystery

I am a tiny speck in space and
I am an instant in eternity
I don't know how I came to be
and I don't know why
It's a mystery
But a Mystery with a capital M
I feel the Mystery all around
It is so familiar to me, and yet,
Being a mystery
It is unknowable, and yet,
I know it so well
I cannot fix it with words
I cannot fix it with images
All I can do is
Surrender to its presen...

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I'm having a problem logging in to the comments boxes, so just wanted to say thank you for all the likes and comments from the past couple of weeks. Must be my ancient device (or perhaps just my ancient brain)

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Beliefs are when
We grab a piece of reality
And hold onto it
Recognising its truth

Reality moves on
And we're left holding
An ossifying fragment
Of history

Waving it around like a flag
Making of it a rallying cry
Dumbfounded by
It's emptiness

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Someone said that happinesss comes
From things that happen
It's transient
Like the white frills that thrill
To gush and scream
On top of roller coaster waves

Someone said that joy is
A state of being
It's permanent
Like the curling coiling currents
Finger-tip searching
Every inch of the deep

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Beliefs are life's recipes
Taking the ingredients we are born into
Putting them together to make a tasty dish
Using them to nourish and to satisfy
Our hearty appetites

Beliefs are life's narratives
Taking all the 'once upon a times'
Fitting them together as best we can
Trying anything and everything to create
Our happy ever afters

Beliefs are life's currency
They're like money in th...

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I find myself sliding down the years

Slipping out of focus and into the background

To a place where I no longer have significance

Where the blue of the sky is dominant

Where the caress of the breeze touches all things

Where the waves are the only part of creation

That know where they are going

Birdsong and rustling leaves are more real

Than cars or houses or career aspirati...

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My attention is on the foreground
I'm absorbed by the play
Focused on the characters, the costumes, the action
My emotions are engaged
I'm rooting for the good guys
Believing that I know what's afoot
Devastated by twists and turns of plot
Forgetting the reality
The comfortable seat
The velvet darkness
The wonderful anonymity
Of being in the background
Of being part of an appreciative...

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Please dont give him your attention.

You know that's all he wants

He will shout, scream, threaten, coerce

He will make empty promises

He will tell you he holds all the cards

But he is nothing without an audience

So, please don't give him your attention

Don't spend another moment of your precious time

Wondering, hoping, fearing, despairing

Focus instead on your loved ones

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I have been living in this body for 38,001,600 minutes
Or maybe 38,001,601 by the time I've written this line
Most of theses minutes ended up on the slush pile
Only a few worthy of submission to the final edit
There were minutes when reality tore brutally
Through the blank verse of my days
- the split second when our eyes met
- the call from the hospice
- the sunrise over Nagarkot
- the s...

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Scratching the surface - that's business as usual
Life as a random series of etchings
Occasionally digging a little deeper
Finding love or beauty or kindness or understanding
But rich furrows become ruts - it's their nature
As joy disintegrates into weariness we climb back onto the surface
To take a breath of different air and continue our scratching

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What's new?
Same old. Same old.
Everything okay?
Mustn't grumble.
New Year. New beginnings.
Again.
Yes. Always the chance for a fresh start.
So what?
Come on. Make an effort, mate.
Why bother?
You've got to turn up in this life.
What for?
Cos we all make a difference.
Maybe.
Ah come on. Look at all the beauty.
Look at all the devastation.
Fancy a pint?
Yeah, go on then.

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There is a box on the floor

In the box there are journals spanning several decades

In the box there are notebooks filled with poems

This box is a treasure chest

But the currency is out of date - 

No longer legal tender

My treasure has become compost

Time to plant new seeds

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Engine full throttle

Let go of the steering wheel

And release the brake

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Every path I ever took

Led me in a direction

Often to a destination

(But not always)

I never found True North until

I stopped travelling

Paused

And noticed this place

Between what has gone before and

What is yet to come

This bitter sweet place of becoming

My own True North

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Work long hours
In a job
That you hate
Make a shedload
Of money
Spend it on stuff
You don’t need.
If that doesn’t 
Make you happy
Work longer hours
Make more money
Buy more stuff.
Do this until you are 
Too old to do it 
Any more.
If you’re still
Not happy
Then there must be
Something wrong
With you.
But I guess
You always knew that
Didn’t you.
(On behalf of the Economy
I t...

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We begin with a small balloon.We blow into it.

It becomes inflated 

With thoughts, opinions, judgements, beliefs.

With views, hopes, fears, worries.

With perspectives and dreams and all the ways in which we experience things

With all the obstacles we create and all the possibilities we allow.

We fill our balloon with problems and desires

With everything our imagination can enc...

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The Yellow Brick Road

Is turning to rubble now

Bright flowers push through.

I thought True North was

At the end of the rainbow

A warm hearth waiting.

But I find it here

In this trickling drop of rain

In this dragon fly.

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Dissolved in water

Sugar cube transcends its form

Sweetness is released

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I'm floating in this little boat I call my body

Anchored by these years I call my life

Reaching for a star I call my heart-home

Supported by a churning sea that is my world

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Yes, of course I could hang on to who I was yesterday

But why bother, when

Each new day

Begs me to

Begin

Again

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During the storm, before the calm,
I heard their feet, stamping over the hills
Arriving in droves. The rebel army.
Here to overthrow a lifetime of enslavement
To buying insurance and mowing the lawn
To smiling through failure and
Changing my underwear daily.
A lifetime of good behaviour and
Doing what’s best (for whom?)
But here they come. The forgotten dreams.
The squashed and crumpled ...

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Hi, this is an old image poem of mine (the first thing I wrote when I got into writing poetry a few years ago) that came back to me as I woke this morning in the form of a perfect Haiku.

What is a poem?

A murmuration of words

Landing precisely

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Damascus moment

Here on the snooker table

I'm a ping pong ball

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Where does it come from this surge of delight?

As I watch the blue, grey, white, light and shade of clouds

And feel their gentle invitation.

"Come" they say "Or stay. We're with you either way."

They welcome me, and all of me.

The sneak, the cheat, the liar, the bully, the thief.

The lost, the blundering, the ignorant, the bored one.

The million hopeful answers and the hidden ...

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I know only this breeze on my cheek

I know nothing of the countless other faces you have caressed and bitten

I know nothing of the houses you have assaulted and battered

Or the seas you have stirred into tumult and storm

I don't know where you end or where you begin

I know you were blowing both treble and bass through bamboo pipes

Long before I came here

And you will be rustli...

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In the blink of an eye, the humans had blown across the planet,

Like the North Wind, in a gale of crazy-making,

Leaving chaotic striations of human mischief in their wake.

Then they were gone. 

Reparation began.

The trees reclaimed the earth.

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The one hiding in the dark, on the edges - the self who has been denied, made wrong, shamed.

The one bathing in the light, in the centre - the self who has been selected, groomed, made acceptable.

The one turning to stone in the dark cave - who doesn't fit with the story I'm telling myself.

The one I leave standing or turn away or ignore when she arrives at my door.

The one I'm always ...

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Lying face down

Black loamy soil in her eyes, nostrils, mouth

Rain slashing and puddle pooling 

Her body a pelt

Alone

Winds howling their rage against distancing rules

Push against her

Push into her

Pummel her with gusts like fists

Hold her and throw her

Away

All that she has been

All that she has done

Ground into the earth

Lost in the great soak-away

T...

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We poison the well and wonder why

There is no drinking water in the tap.

We kill the bees and wonder why

There is no food on supermarket shelves.

We ravage the earth and wonder why

The floods and fires come.

We prise open the box and wonder why

Pandora's pandemics pour forth.

We close our eyes

And wonder who to blame.

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Written in a moment when I'd just had enough of man's cruelty, ignorance, arrogance, carelessness and wanted to hide myself away- but realised the opposite was what was required in these times.

The Darkness

The Darkness wakes us from the slumber of complacency.

Only from sitting alone in darkness do we discover our heart-wrenching longing for light.

Only by facing the horrors, feeling ...

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I can't breathe

Said the man full of colour

To the man

Whose colour had drained away

Along with his humanity.

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I was reluctant to go out

It would be cold, damp and boring

Just like yesterday and the days before.

I walked along the sea front,

Stopped for a mug of tea at Eddie's.

Then I turned back to the car .....

The sky had been obliterated

By lowering charcoal clouds

Beneath which, a ribbon of burning copper

Flamed along the horizon above

Multiple metallics of glittering sea...

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To sit amidst trees

And watch a spider, silent,

Spin her silken web.

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Rain at my window

Pattering strong poetry

An age old saga

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A weed, unaware

Of its lowly status, smiles,

Continues to grow

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Logs are flaming in the fire pit.

Late evening sky turns dark and fills with stars.

A glass of red to disinhibit

And my heart fills with gladness

And bursts with gratitude.

What are these inhibitions anyway?

Just societal chains thrown my  way

Posing as lifelines,

But in reality, tethers,

Binding me to a truth

No longer of any value in my world.

Fire, darkness, shi...

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I bathe in your unconditional love

The YES you offer me

A haze, a fog, a ghostly offering

Of complete acceptance.

Then through the mists,

A granite block

A NO.

A hidden place of defining lines,

Sharp edges,

Cold shoulders

Shaped by ancestors

Your personal geology.

Diving deep

I explore the coral

Of my own reef

And find it jagged, dangerous.

I have sh...

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Life is  a fabrication of palatable lies.

Swimming through consciousness,

Shoaling like fish, open mouthed,

We take in all that we can swallow.

Hallucinating a fragile reality

Clinging to shreds

Pulling at threads

Holding our heads

We long for dignity.

Pulled to the earth

From a home in the sky

Spinning between birth and death

Eyes tightly closed

We swallow l...

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I am a snake charmer

My father was a snake charmer

And his father and all the fathers

Who came before.

I have inherited the gift

Of charming snakes.

I tame them. I make them dance.

People say that I hypnotise them

But they would be wrong. 

I play my pungi 

I breathe in and out

Slowly.

I sway from side to side 

I fix them with my gaze 

But, if truth be told...

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I am a snake charmer

My father was a snake charmer

And his father and all the fathers

Who came before.

I have inherited the gift

Of charming snakes.

I tame them. I make them dance.

People say that I hypnotise them

But they would be wrong. 

I play my pungi 

I breathe in and out

Slowly.

I sway from side to side 

I fix them with my gaze 

But, if truth be told...

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There are two yous.

The reality of who you are and

The you that I project

The you that I want you to be

The you that I fear you are

The you that I have created from

Little glimpses of the real you and

From a deep well of guesswork that

Some might call intuition.

*  *  *  *  *

There are two mes.

The reality of who I am and

The image that I project.

The me that...

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She was standing alone on the shingle

Unmoving.

Gazing across the

Silver ripple green gray water

To a horizon lost in mist.

She was tall

But not tall enough.

Wearing his too long baggy jeans

His old maroon cardigan

His worn and worn and worn again flat cap.

Tears coursed, unchecked, down her cheeks.

I tried to witness the fathoms of her grief.

She glanced over h...

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