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.

 

 

Long After You Left

Long after you left…

 

Your pointed words stayed with me

Often acting as effective antidotes

To the excesses of my own mind

 

All of my wild leaps of imagination

Swiftly cut down to size

By your pre-emptive acts of concern

 

Had it not been for you

I may’ve been lying fallen somewhere

Ditched by default of my own design

 

Yes, the credit for my salvation

Must be rightly accorded to you

And to the corrective power of sarcasm

 

For what could’ve otherwise been brutal

And left me hurt and wounded

Is now only a persistent dull ache…

 

I continue to exist- corrected, but wronged

Alive, but dead; breathing in a coffin

Shrouded in a symbolic spotless white.

Two Sides

He speaks with conviction

In words certain

With belief, meaning and purpose

While she dwells in doubt

Her words sitting on the fence

Of belief, meaning and purpose

 

He knows what he sees

And sees what he knows

She overlooks what she sees

And oversees what she knows

 

He travels to distant lands

In search of industry, wealth and love

Carrying with him

Proof of accomplishment

Proof of wealth and

Proof of love

 

He’s driven by desire

To own and possess

She knows that to own

Is to be possessed

 

While he speaks of his dreams

Of bringing her all of heaven and earth

She wonders why he won’t see

That all of heaven

Is right here, right now

In her hearth

 

He works odd hours

He says it brings the bread home

She cooks for two

But dines alone.

 

He says he’s free like the wind

And will not be tied down

And yet like a gentle night breeze

That’s destined to fill in a calm

He fills into her arms

His defenses down.

Lost and Found

We are all in a sense blind

Without insight.

Understanding doesn’t follow the rhythm

Of day and night

And its own dawn comes after

Many troubled nights.

I walk on the earth

A soul tormented

By thoughts that are the machinations

Of an untruthful mind.

I know that I need saving

But don’t know who else can save me

But me…

This is the first time

I stand face to no-face

Challenging myself

To speak my truth

Or remain forever silent.

This is the first time

I wish to see myself defeated

By a higher truth.

For in that I know

Lies my return to a place that

I’m trying to create for myself

In an imaginary world.

My hands join in prayer

And a tear rolls down my cheek

Today I pray for silence

So that I may rest

And so that no thought

Can come in between me and myself.

Unpacking

It’s not about you

There is no ‘you’

There are only circumstances

So that desires may act

And through action

Be liberated from binding thought

 

But who do these desires belong to?

…They belong to me

‘Me’ is only a thought

A rather persistent one

It’s actually a misnomer…

There is no ‘me;’ but there is ‘am-ness.’

 

Sound, space and light

In their tireless play create

A world of forms, words and meanings

And become the experiences

That ‘am-ness’

Describes as ‘mine’

 

In repeatedly describing experiences as ‘mine’

It condenses into an identity

A limited being

Perpetually longing

For an abundance

That pretentious language has hidden away.

 

You and I

Can trace our ancestry to thought

The remnants of an inaccurate language

That didn’t have the words

To describe

The indescribable.