In His Cups

IN HIS CUPS

A sip of wine
A hint of melody …
Hallowed foundations
Shift ungoverned

Melt into lavaflows
Unleash unadmitted yearnings
Challenge this paltry masquerade
Yelled from minaret or pulpit

Hounded by fatwa and heresy
Across the centuries, this dented I
Which has, for all of that brouhaha
Such shallow roots

Must be why they ban
These dangerous demons
Intoxication, music,
Dancing, sex

While we for our part
Fight tooth and nail
To retain or else regain
These royal roads

Home

Wednesday (A Quick Know)

WEDNESDAY (A QUICK KNOW)
……………………………………………………………….For Jenny
The bell of the alarm clock
Says, “Here it is.”
The birds beyond the window
Say, “Know.”

But what can I do?
I don’t know what to do.
Here is all nobility;
Here is all shame.

The tears that fall
Say, “Here it is.”
The tears in between
Say, “Know.”

For Music

FOR MUSIC

My portion to walk
These barren, wasted hills
Knuckled and gaunt
And stiff with old loam

Flow down through the world’s ebb
All among dark strangers
Whose hourglass
Runs thick with dream

Bent upon the strait path
I have no whim
To tell each fashioned note
As truly as some well tuned liar

But choose instead
To take the same old number
Rip from its womb untimely something new
And make it count

For music

……………….For music

Has unmanned me, aye
And stole my reason
To make cause with those
Who are not privy to this openness

Who have ears and do not

Weather Or Know

WEATHER OR KNOW

Hard rains sweep by
Rinse soiled streets clean
Brief respite though
Hark, the next deluge
Of turbid effluence
Generously gifted
By the thoughtless

Slumbering in simplicity
No fearful encounters
In radiant solitude
Wherein to acknowledge
Realisation’s spiky burdens
And consoling gifts
Onward, onward, comrades

To oblivion
And no beyond
Hooves strike faster now
Valley of death looms
Engorging black hole
Rolling thunder clap
Hard rains sweep by

No encore

In The Beginning

IN THE BEGINNING

In the beginning
Was the Was
And the Was was
And the Was was with Was
And the Was was Was
And without the Was was not what was
And the Was Was Was Was Was

Sage And Union

SAGE AND UNION

One moment it’s spirituality
Next moment sex
How self-indulgent
Can one person be
For Heaven’s sake?
You have to wonder
What on Earth’s going on?

As If (A post for April Fool’s Day)

AS IF

As if it mattered

How the name was spelt
Or misspelt
Whether there were vowels
Or none at all
Or was avoided completely
To avoid guiltlessness

And is it sacrilegious
To omit the capital
Speaking or writing
Of the Reality that stands behind
The ancient glyphs?
Is this truly the gate to the pit?

As if it mattered

That some grouping or other
Has its sacred viewpoint
One that it is quite ready
To defend to the death
Or impose on others
On pain of a painful death

As if it had a gender
Or skin of whatever colour
(Preferably white thank you)
With or without a flowing beard
Spoke Latin or a cultured English
Or – God forbid – Arabic

As if it mattered

Whether there was one (One?) alone
A trio of some kind (quite popular)
Or a squabbling familiar handful
Or too many to keep track of
Whether it was worried what you ate
And had a fondness for some particular day of the week

As if …

The Present

I OPENED THE PRESENT AND FOUND …

All this …
And the future still to come!

Ad Infinitum

AD INFINITUM

’twas I
was’t not?
set I

set sun
set seed
set growth

set bud
set flower
set eye

alert
set beauty
and
set heart
a-flutter

set a-wooing
set seed
set son

set growth
set scene
set seen …

…’twas I
was’t not?
set I …

(ad infinitum)
——————————————————————

This poem was inspired by Jackie Blair McSween’s painting “Solar Blossom”

http://pointsthruprose.com/2012/01/21/solar-blossom/

… And Know That I Am God

… AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD (Psalms 46:10)

I wept for that seeker,
for the grubby pathos of her searching.

I ached a while with her loneliness,
that she might feel it
and be still,

and in this stillness
find the strength and solace
to continue.

I laughed at that seeker,
at the foolish, blind obstinacy that passed for courage;

that strove, and battled, and conquered despair,
and still continued
to be everything but still.