An Opportunity

The everyday as I  see it

Is a mask, a disguise

A mock constitution

Of half-truths and lies

 

You think you stand with a crowd

But you’re actually alone

The voices you hear around you

Are really your own.

 

Then why do I experience

The same world and the same you?

Why do I bring old eyes

To see the new?

 

We are in a sense blind

Till we begin to see

We’re born enslaved

And we must set ourselves free

 

How will such a freedom

Come to be mine?

Through the thick walls of my being

How will light come to shine?

 

Why does my heart, I wonder

Never utter a word?

Why does it suffer in silence

Never to be heard?

 

The mind is a vacuum

I’ve mistaken for a missing part

It sucks in fear and hate

That silences the heart

 

The heart will speak

When one is all of you

And not till you stand fractured

Dismembered into two

 

How do I join together

Parts of my being?

How do I accept your half-truths

As flaws in my seeing?

 

Where do I begin

Where do I make a start?

How do I silence my mind

And listen to my heart?

 

The heart I understand

Is the mind of a higher face

Its power of feeling

Removes all distance and space

 

Let me not just hear your bitter words

But of them also make sense

To the kaleidoscope of the everyday

Let me bring a whole new lens

 

The everyday is not

A displaced fragment of eternity

It’s what you are and

What you have the opportunity to be.

Shopping

I pushed away

One dress after another…

None of them was ‘The One’

…I was looking for me.

 

If a dress were me

How would it look?

What threads would tell my story?

What moments would weave together as warp and weft?

 

And what colours and textures

Would reflect the age of my mind?

Which anecdotes would be printed?

How would it embrace my body?

 

I don’t like tight hugs any more.

I don’t want my breasts cupped

Or my buttocks grabbed

Or my form sculpted.

 

I no longer desire to be desired

I wish for silence and an ease of being

A place by your side

Loved, adored, admired, trusted.

 

I now like to maintain

A respectful distance

My relationships must stand the test of time

The truly beautiful is never a trend.

 

I find nothing up for grabs

Calibrated and cut

To the dimensions of my being

Except for this beautiful silk stole…

 

It’s light as air

I wrap it around me

And it engulfs me like an aura

I smile…

 

In and through it

I catch a glimpse of my Self

How deep is my need

To be visible, to be freed, to be true.

The Real Need

I realize

That for some

I may be of questionable caliber

 

They want to assess my sophistication

When all I wish for

Is for somebody to simply listen.

 

Why- in a strange travesty of intention

-Is my expression more valuable to you

than my overwhelming need to express?

 

How in heaven’s name

Are you going to draw value from my expressions

When you can feel nothing for my compulsions?

 

Time

A second is but

A rhythmic chime

Reminding us of

The flow of time

 

A journey from

Then to now to then

An answer to every

Question of when

 

Time is the power

That allows us to see

Who we were

And what we’ve come to be

 

On its path

We inevitably come to find

All that we must

Eventually leave behind

 

And how is it

That we must meet our time?

Is this moment new

Or a continuing rhyme?

 

Must I be faithful to memory

Or have faith in the unknown?

Must I invest my time

Or borrow it like a loan?

 

Is a stack of moments

The sum of my life?

Or is life an expanse

Which is in moments, rife?

 

Must I use its power

To meet my destiny?

Must I move from

Smallness to immensity?

 

Such are the questions

This morning to me has brought

The currents of time

Draw a line with a dot

 

It’s this artistry, this design

That is so fascinating

The observance of time

Is the art of man-making.

The Inward Journey

It takes many lifetimes

To see the true

And to make distinct the false.

The journey is brutal

But cloaked in an embrace of kindness.

I have been tricked

And deceived by my own mind

That didn’t know any better

I have encountered almost everything

That I feared or dreaded

Only to find that they were imposters

It was my courage that was true.

I’ve sought refuge and direction

In books written by the wise

But have come to see

That in times of need

It was my naïveté that saved me.

I have pursued riches in words and wealth

And realised that true power

Lies in silence and emptiness.

I have sought to fulfil myself through desires

And understood that true fulfilment

Cannot be contained in a begging bowl.

Dignity is not a sophisticated dress you wear

It’s an air you breathe…

One that is not polluted

By the garbage in your mind.

An air that isn’t confined to an edifice.

But moves about freely in an unfettered space…

 

It takes many lifetimes to see

That Truth never leaves your side

And that the False can never stay.

 

That night…

Away from the jarring sounds

Of a party in full swing

 

You and I stood side by side

Exchanging little notes from our little lives

And although we’d known each other

As friends of friends…

We found ourselves discovering

Another basis for our shared existence….

 

So, as your friends and my friends

Danced the night away

We sensed ourselves slipping into the oblivion

Of a slow, but familiar waltz…

Dancing to sounds from distant memories

Buried under our long silences…

 

In that moment (plucked out of time)

Little was spoken, but much was said

Where the gentle breeze had already known

Of those impulses that seemed new to us…

This moment which seemed long overdue

Had naturally and eventually fulfilled itself.

 

That night…

Away from the jarring sounds

Of a party in full swing

While your life and my life

Danced the night away

You and I kept forgotten promises…

An unsaved last dance. An unfinished romance.

Why are you keeping it a secret?

From whom should my secret be a secret

When all is me…?

(In that I have faith

But knowledge is still to dawn).

My breath enlivens my whole body

But my appreciation of this fact is partial.

How do I feel it in every muscle, every nerve, every cell?

How do I see its immanence?

I attempt to watch the essence

And grapple with my darkness

And in that I hear a  voice speak:

“I know you’re secretly looking for me

But why are you keeping it a secret?”

 

It’s In My Nature

It’s in my nature

to want to know

to choose to ignore

to unconditionally accept and love.

 

It’s  in my nature

to consolidate patterns into identities

frame experiences with knowledge

and compare the meaningful with the meaningless.

 

It’s in my nature

to write time as a document

of my ideas and my memories

…of the quality of my presence.

 

 

Knowledge is Faith

The only thing I know for certain

Is that I’m a partial being.

 

I fly with one wing

And yet a higher knowledge

Tells me that

Such a thing is impossible…

 

Then why can’t I see or feel

My other wing?

 

What else

Does this higher knowledge know?

How do I come to know

What it knows?

 

Why am I numb

To its existence?

 

I contemplate this Higher Knowledge

And I come to see Silence…

Words lose their voice

Their sounds dim into the distance.

 

I stand detached, dismembered

From the thoughts that were my breath

 

I now understand

That it’s their charm

I must reject

And their stories I must exit

 

I must do this knowingly

In the faith that I have another wing…

 

I will continue to fly.

Heartbeats

To see that separateness is an illusion

And that we are the heartbeats of a single heart

See first

The joys and sorrows of others

What does their joy look like?

What is the face their sorrow wears?

You’ll see that their joys and sorrows

Are not different from your own…

And when there, please wonder

About our kinship and when it got lost…

I stopped sharing with you my feelings

And you stopped telling me yours

We speak through media and professional actors

Our own voices silenced in favour of

Sophisticated soliloquies.

The everyday has become a spectacle in the theatre

Which we have begun to dress up for

(so that we may look like we deserve the expensive seats)

In a simulated space, we cry simulated tears and

Smile simulated smiles…

We pretend that what entertains us

Also connects us

After all,

We live in a pseudo world

Where we are ‘informed’ that we are connected

But our frozen expressions

And gagged voices

Need the warmth of a listening heart

Before they can melt in human tears

I know for sure

That your tears and my tears

Have the same salty taste.