Th Golden Screen and the Great Mirror

To Reach an Understanding

The Great Mirror

You can see yourself in everyone else
In the Great Mirror
You can see yourself in everything else
In the Great Mirror

But if you stare too long
You start to lose yourself
In the Great Mirror

You can see everyone in everyone else
In the Great Mirror
You can see everything in everything else
In the Great Mirror

If you do this adventure
It is wise to bring yourself
Back to your centre

The Golden Screen

The Golden Screen
Is so peacefully serene
Makes everything look perfect and clean

The Golden Screen
Protects in completeness
Relief in divine niceness

The Golden Screen
Shields my eyes
Appears like paradise

The Golden Screen
Perfectly alluding
To completely concluding
It must be an enchanted thing.
The Golden Screen

19/03/10

Grandma Pisces

In Africa there were animal skins
On her wooden floors, a sausage dog,
And descendants everywhere
Her parents were Quakers
She went to reform school
Which she ran from often
She abhorred birds in cages
Grandpa would feed wild ones
Every day at dawn
She taught me the stories
Behind nursery rhymes
Which applied to both of us
As we both got into scrapes
We would read books in bed
As soon as I woke her
She was a teacher in her time
With a genius IQ of 150
They called her "Fiercy Piercy"
When we emigrated
We lost touch, for a while
When she came, it wasn't the same
A great chasm of communication
Gaped in the gaze, a generation gap
Another time, a different place
Change of culture, changing face
She grumbled and complained
Disapproved oppressively
Because she wasn't what
She seemed to have become
Her real nature was a different sort
Her youthful extremes
Had aged her extremely
She inadvertently taught me
More in death than life
Like a bird flight, and the bird's love
Guided her, between Earth and above
I observed her journey, like a borrowed eye
I have a reference book of memory
Where I learn, from the past, what works
And what doesn't: prices payed, lessons learnt
Skills acquired; And I wonder at her
Hidden life, a wild child of passing ships
Must have wandered into Mysteries
Dark, and light, grounded, and flight
She rang me somehow, blind,
Ending high on a tuneless whistle
She passed like a dreamer's memory
Like an ancient battle of a dying age
It was the turning of a new page
Cruelly leaving orphans
Lost and grieving
The bird is young and free
Once more, I am sure.

Margaret Pierce RIP, 2005?

1.11.2009

Magnum Our Hero

Magnum was an old man
A wise and gentle Grandpa
From a half forgotten lifetime.
A homemade raggedy Andy
With wears and patches
Like a familiar slipper.
He had the lion heart
Of a thousand kindly patriarchs
And would pat down your hair
While his own was as tufty and unkempt
As an Arctic teddy bear.
He'd scold with steady stares
And turned backs and sulks
Because he was soft, and cared.
He would give cuddles
As warm as a summer holiday.
Bitten and wounded by hounds
We found him, even in such a state
He prevented a violent outbreak
Like a injured Greek God
Humble with understanding
He healed because he was harmed
(Loki would never have such, or any friend).
We took you in, but it was us that were lost
And orphaned, it was you who
Nursed us back to love and health.
When the injury returned
Like a watered down time warp of fear,
A single bite, infected and effective,
You pragmatically tied up a goodbye
And took your leave
Like you were visiting an old friend
For a forgettable while.

Magnum, RIP Oct 2009.


Oct 31, 2009

Honesty is a Policy

Honesty is a policy
We all unerringly
And inevitably
Comply to.

It's the best policy
If one is honest
With one's self.

03.03.01

The Phoenix and the Firefly

When the fog is down
And the night is dark
I haven't got a clue
Where I'm going
But when the sun is high
In a bright blue sky
A warm breath of wind
Makes me raise my wings
Isn't it the same for you?
Or do your eyes shine brighter
When the moon is high
Does the icy breeze
Make you fly?
Either way, I don't mind
If you're a newborn Phoenix
Or a Firefly.

1991

Saturday's Love Child

As you open your eyes
You realise you can stay in bed
You rest your head Then rise
The sun is high in the sky
And you have Time to watch it fly
Such a gentle start
So very easy on the heart
The afternoon spreads before you
Seems every door is open to you
You are Saturday's Love Child
So mildly ramble wild
Thinking towards Evening
And the Sun's serene leaving
In due time you will prepare
For all the moonlit fanfare!

02.02.01

Breathlike and Deathlike

The freedom that enfolds me
Holds breathless but deathless
Disbelief guides me home to it
The dark memories
Tattle stories so childish
In their adaptability
Forebode tales so mortal
With an eye for an agreeable ear
The unknown crushes
Burnt black upon my back
The nape of my neck
Is frozen alive
The fear that undoes you
Releases you breathlike and deathlike
Suddenly it's gone, the then and when
There is only now
You swing a step out
The moment is born again.

04.03.01

Teach Me How To Learn To Fly

Gently let go of my hand
Show me how to understand
Give me room to learn to fly
Underneath your watchful eye
See me fly, limp, run and crawl
Let me scale forbidden wall
Do not scowl and do not curse
Unreasoned rules, there's nothing worse
Let me leap and let me fall
Let me hear quiet wisdom call
Words clear and thoughtful, never terse
Only craved advice disperse
Show me blue, then teach me sky
Help me think, and wonder why
Take me past the common grounds
Show me there are no bounds
Keep me seeking with your questions
Feed my mind in it's digestions
Strengthen me with it's fire
Rarely let my wings retire
Show me how to reach my goal
Teach me how to lift my soul
Let me choose my desire
Let my mind learn not to tire
Teach me want to search high
Show me want to learn to fly.

Early 90's

So you flew

So you flew
More then soared
Poured like liquid gold
From the fingers of God
Rose like mists of Heaven
From the mouth of Hell
Now you must plunge
Higher, pushing further
Crushing into the freedom
Of space, a new space
So you can shape change
A world only your Divinity
Could create
Over which you will soar
Like an atmosphere
Through which you are saturated.

late '90s

Meeting of Meaningless

I got up this morning
And went to the office
To do what I had to do
There they sat me down
And I suddenly found
My morning was munched
By the Meeting of Meaningless

At lunch time I sat
On the park bench I favour
And as I flavoured the savour
I turned to ask you for time
You lowered your paper
Completed the caper as we chattered
Of conventional things
It was a Meeting of Meaningless

That night I got a fright
My mouth cried, eyes wide, I died
I was swallowed dove, heaven's above
In the lolling lull and lilt of all that was lit
In the light of the longed for land
The great Chairperson's voice could be heard
Like a dream, Reiterating and Reconstituting
The Regulations and Rules on the Right and the Wrong
It was another Meeting of Meaningless.

1996

The Eagleman

The Eagleman said
I could too
So I took the plunge
Into the icy void
The freezing silence
Of falling
To the jagged rocks below
Snapped
As I was lifted
By the mighty pull
Of the wind-blown wings
On my back
The Eagleman said
I could too
And laughed a little
At my pale face
As we flew on in time
It really hurt
Hair and feathers
Ruffled and tangled
Skin a slow scream of ice
Hot blood pumps
Through my joints
Through my head
Sweat singes my eyes
Trickling, tickling
Down my spine
Like my mind's eye
Is crying
And when I thought
"I can't take it anymore"
We reached our destination
Perched on the cliff
Sharing the meat
The Eagleman and I
Laughed into the Moon.

1987

Dedicated to Tjaarke Maas
Rest in Peace 1974 - 2005
You showed my the eagles, to see that freedom is real beauty, and so much more.

Olde Mother's Home

It's in the rich sleep
Of an ocean's carefully crafted cave
It's soaking in deep darkness
As solid as crystal
As soft as mud
It's pulsing with primal dreams
It's a tunnel of clay
As slow as forever
Damp with the coming age
It's pushed and pulled
With the pains and pleasures
Of Possibilities
It's a volt of piercing light
Rent into ancient banks
Surging in songs of the sea
It's the shock of a fresh sun
And the slapping new air
Let's Life truly Begin.

30.08.09

Dedicated the Xavier Lloyd
Born 31.08.09
Welcome in, make yourself comfortable, you'll be here quite a long time!

Sheer Bliss

Sheer bliss
The slow motion face
On television
A dream
Hardly hoped for
Achieved; Bringing
Heaven from
The hell
The cyclist wins
Their race
The terrified people
Nearly disbelieving
Finally at peace
The parents
Throwing their arms
Around the child
They thought they
Might never
See again
Sheer bliss

Early 90's

The Woven Weaver

Shadows and dreams
Weave wonder
In the untrod Path
Before me
I feel Light
Frightfully fickle
As I rush
Into the Dance
Like a giggle
In a trance
I am the woven
And the weaver
I am the spinner
And the spun
The winner
And the won!

16.02.01

The Final Gamble

In the first you showed me Signs
Following me
Into the belly of madness
A dogged helper
A breath of young air
A good soul
A teenage champion
I showed you how to play poker
While we whiled away the time
Drinking too much coffee
Sharing inspirations,
Fears and comfort
Out at night
In the wild weekends of youth
Boyish mirth would, in passing, grin
We picnicked like a holiday
Your sandy hair
Shining like a beach
Flirting lightly
With passing beach belles
We went Nightswimming
The stars reflected
In the tiny, glowing
Creatures of the sea
Taken aback
At the strange
Natural phenomena
I proudly watched
As you swam far
Into the deep anyway
You would come
On dawdling afternoons
Telling of your troubles,
Doubts and joys
With God, university, women,
And life choices
Tentatively playing at adulthood
Like a young wild cub
Seeking jaded advice
From a world wounded soul
With a friendly jibe
Time and again
You pulled me out
Of my self imposed prison
Into the youthful sunlight
Of the Just Begun
So much Living to be done
We gambolled along the hillside
Among the summer crowd
And watched the fireworks
Blue and red and yellow
Exploded across the sky
Frightening demons
Reminding one to Live
I hear your heart was heavy
When you took
The Final Gamble
I was out of town
Too far to hear your trouble
You were out of town
I doubt any saw it coming
You were strong,
Young and hopeful
Always careful to avoid
Dark and ugly spaces
You were going places
When the heartless Machine
Grinded you to a halt
The grief being not your fault
A friend of Innocence
Now I pray the Angels
That touched our Living world
To carry you back Home
For you will always Be
Forever in the summer sun.

For Justin Rest in Peace July 2009
The poem doesn't do you justice.
Its just not right that you are gone.

The Agony of the Ordinary

The effort of the ordinary
Agony
Crawling over the rubble
You don't understand
It's like your'e blind
Crimson soaked
Or darkness devoured
It's the same silence
The same stillness
Of the broken and destroyed
The simple ending of the ordinary
Inevitable
No less the agony

1990's

Otter Dance

I have tested the shallows
Swam easily, ottery
Lazed on the sand
Soaking with sunshine
Or sliding through moon flecks
In the dark arms of trees
Bathing in black-silver sheen
Smelling of spring pools
But now rough bark
Grasps my feet
Breeze crackles through
The tree cave around me
My strong, chip nailed hands
Grip and ungrip the course rope
They have entwined with
All reflected this,
In the eye of the moon
At this point especially
When finally I swing out
Rushing, hushing the wind
I dive for the moon
And into the depths.

1990s

Boredom Sets

Boredom sets
Like concrete
Down round my feet
Drowning me, sinner
In Imagined emotions
Boredom sets
Dusk going through
The motions
And restless Eve
Wanders into the Zenith
Witchlike, into the twilight
Then, over a lifetime
Settles, like boredom
And dust.

approx. 1998

Birds Sing

Birds sing
Cats kill birds
My cat's lungs
Are lined with a thousand
Stolen tongues.

late 1980's

Pools of Time

This green world
Is infinitely smothered
In time streams
So let's find
A pool we made
And go
Diving like stars
Into silent sublime
Rising like suns
From submarine dream
Breathing the breeze
Sunlit with belief
Cool, cool relief
In the slow pools of time

1996