Unlocking, seeking, push my fingers through the gap,
searching for a surface on the space that is emerging,
listening for a rhythm that the life beyond is turning,
Morning
Mourning
Passing in the crack that now chases round the birthing,
Straining to a place where the edges fight the blurring,
To prey
To pray
Holding to the difference of a heart beginning beating,
Rushing to embrace what may be only fleeting,
A piece
A peace
The sound of rain falling in the deep night is a reminder that every now and then the world needs washing. The dirty streets littered with our selfish striving and strewn with the harshest words, dropped casually during the day, need to be cleaned. Hopes forcibly squeezed out and dreams stolen wait to be washed into drains, longing to be recycled and fed back in sleep’s stories. Prayers of the ones no longer here descend to rattle against our walls and fences, some seep through gaps and splits to water shoots of memory. Fall night rain fall.
We are only people,
We tie our hands to straining beasts,
That promise only stretching goals,
Elastic expectations, Self imposed.
We cannot reach, We are no good.
We fail at what we set ourselves,
We cannot measure up.
So stop and sit and be.
And hear the voice inside release.
Let go the ropes that pull,
The one tied to what was,
The one tied to what won’t,
The one tied to the other you,
That whips the fear within.
Sit and share the tears and tears.
Stop and sit and be.
We are only people.
Ripping and shredding,
Torn from the top,
Wilfully separated,
On the altar of “Us”.
Sinfully split.
Painfully parted.
Barriers bolted and raised to the roof,
Lines strongly marked in the dust of the floor,
Cemented, constructed,
dividing, defined.
We built the walls,
we tore the flesh.
We pushed them over and slammed shut the gate!
We raised the flags.
We sang the songs.
We became us,
So they became them.
And now as we wane and struggle for breath,
We open the gates and we wave,
And we “save”.
We sure up our towers,
We repaint our walls,
We gild bright our faces,
And say, “look what we’ve got!”
I dream of contrition,
Of bloody, bent knee.
Of humble demolition,
Fading power released.
Father forgive us,
We know not what we’ve done!
Look deep, my friend, look deep,
When you don’t know who it is you look for.
When the questions of the night survive the darks slow end,
And patience speeds away in breathing change.
Look deep,
for now might be the time it can be found,
Deep amongst the childhood tales,
Woven in the half sung songs of youth,
Pushing to be heard in loss and gift,
Seeking and reaching,
Hiding well,
In the remembered gaze of the loved.
In pictures painted with couldn’t care less strokes,
That had no fear of crossing lines,
And bleeding out.
Listen deep to what once whispered happy ever after now,
And span and ran against imagined skies.
Look deep, my friend, look deep.
For She may still sing.
When I see you,
I see the things that are me,
and I see things that aren’t.
We share so much and yet,
It is the things we don’t,
that give charge to the spark.
I often wonder why and how,
What scribed the roads you’ve walked?
What days have dawned and passed and set?
What fights you’ve left unfought?
And in the dark what spins your mind,
and weaves into your dreams?
If I could see your first light thought,
Would it reflect my own?
So when you look at me,
what image do you see?
Sometimes I almost wish I knew,
and then maybe I don’t.
If I was all of you, and you of me.
What would there be to wonder?
What would there be to seek?
How could we leap into the new,
and touch the sharp unknown?
If you and I were of one mind,
that edge would never hone.
Life would leak and seep and drain,
And fade in knowings dawn.
When she looked she saw the same old view,
Different faces, even different places,
But still the same.
Still the same.
The breath inside her drove up and out in a sad exhalation,
Unplanned, unconscious, unthinking,
disappointingly irresistible.
Again they told her things have changed,
Its a brand new world, glitter strewn and crisp.
Whatabout, they said, remember when.
But she saw nothing fresh,
she looked hard, so hard,
there it was, not what she wanted to see, but there.
But we dreamed, she cried, we hoped,
You claimed to be on our side, we stood together.
Be patient, you said, the time will come.
But when?
But when?
Finding is only the end,
It’s the aching arrival,
The ceasing exhale,
The stretching of never.
Feeling the blood pool,
The earth creep up tired limb,
Sit they say, sit.
But there is peace in the in-between,
In the swing between planting,
Foot after foot.
Peace in the movement,
Peace in the progress,
Peace in the stretch.
There is peace in not knowing what comes next,
Only that next is inevitable,
Next is coming.
Next is yours.
Peace is in the search not only the finding.
Sometimes I feel so insignificant,
When I look out across great horizons,
See how simple water shapes monumental lands,
A breath of air cuts rocks to ribbons,
A few degrees smashes our hardest endeavours.
Sometimes I wonder whether we are just hitchhikers,
Parasites crawling through the coat of this planet,
Irritants yes, but specks of sand easily blown.
Insects with exoskeletons grown from misplaced pride,
We make this world twitch and writhe but for how long?
We dig deep though, rooting our egos in the earth.
Sucking nourishment from its core,
Hammering piles into its substructure,
Fighting to control its rhythms, regulate its pulse,
Make it beat to our time signature.
If we cannot make it dance our dance,
We will not be insignificant,
We will blame it when it fights back,
We will name its ways horrors,
We will drink it dry and sup it bare,
We will not be insignificant,
We cannot stand it.
We will kill it for our convenience and say it doesn’t matter!
We will look out across the great horizons,
And say the sun will rise, the sun will set,
What are we but creatures, tiny creatures,
What are we but passengers on this mighty beast.
I wish that we were insignificant.
Stand in the gap,
When they want to force you to take up an extreme, refuse.
When they want to you to be polarised, refuse.
When they want you to ignore the complexities and conundrums of life, refuse.
Instead stand in the gap where the real people stand.
Where the people who do not want to be pushed or defined by others insecurities and obsessions stand.
Stand where the subtle colours shift and shine, where the deep and generous patterns flow.
Stand with the thinkers and dreamers, the survivors and strugglers, the lovers and yearners, the busy and distracted, the confused and the searching, the poets and the prophets.
Plant your feet in the shifting sand and stand with the ordinary and extraordinary.
Stand while the edges shout their insults and slogans, their extremism and their intransigence.
Stand whilst they shout themselves to a deafened standstill in their fear and their anger.
Stand in the place of humility and love,
Stand in the place of unknown adventure,
Stand in the place of wonder and expectation,
Stand in the place of the God of desert and river, of exile and pilgrimage, of birth and rebirth, of love and sacrifice.
Stand as an invitation to others to stand there too.
PICTURA POESIS 