DIARY 153 - Padmaloka Poems

Have just got back from Padmaloka Retreat Centre in Surlingham, Norfolk. Two Order retreats back to back. One more meditative on Sadana, the second a study retreat on the Bodhicitta. Both were intense in differing ways, and both stimulated me to write. The following poems may give a flavour of what was going through my mind consciously and unconsciously. None of them have been polished, they're much as they came out. Whether I'll do any more work on them, is to be seen. I've got a lot to plan and do over the next couple of months, before Jnanasalin and I have our civil partnership.

30th June 2012

The absent presence

like a ruler, omnipotent

leans over and whispers 

something indistinguishable 

from static

in my left ear

then always gone

gone beyond tangible form.

The absent presence

can make you feel

like you're sitting in his spare seat

a usurper, a pretender, a very minor regent

but if he wont just be there

or be gone for good

what are you to do?

stand up all the time!

mishear things

and come to mistaken conclusions

1st July 2012

As the birds coo what is there

but sadness in the echoes?

a trill of melancholy

whips passed me, urgent

as a swallow

there it goes

off to the heights of Abraham

a traffic jam of crows blare their horns

just to let me know

they are there too, they are with you

they can see what's up ahead

and its baaad, baaad, baaad.

2nd July 2012

Whilst there is a willing bird

cupped in my hands

an upward gesture of encouragement

to take off

makes its talons grip my fingers

all the harder

flying cannot be coerced.

3rd July 2012

Where

in the bee sucking

is there something

as sweet as honey

not collected cordially, but made

from effort and industry

what is sweet

is always born from sweat.

4th July 2012

We are

like a dewdrop

gently resting on a open leaf

small refracting gems

semi-spherical worlds

sufficient unto ourselves

that either drizzle, dribble or drop to earth

or evaporate

into timid humidity

as the day goes by.

5th July 2012

On the matter of the origins

and state of wind

I must remain silent

tight lipped in secrecy

maintain the deliberate mysteriously

inscrutable view

for where the wind comes from

and where it goes, I know nothing

I only see what it actually does

the wind is a creature of circumstance

opportunistic and mercenary, it thieves air

steals the character of the moment

that it cuckolds, like the oceans waves

assaults cloud formations

plays aerobics with the branches of trees

and whispers through the smallest of cracks

a mournful whistle for a weary while

to a prisoner of caves

whip-poor-willed 

now breezy and gentle, now gusty and bracing

now storm und drang

origins becomes ones state

and ones state becomes ones origin and source

for all that, is transitory

wind becomes wind becomes wind again

a stream of feathers

sketching forms in the air.

7th July 2012

With love

there is a chance or two

that some might place a bet on

or wager their fortunes to obtain a handful of 

it is unfortunate

it doesn't arrive in a motorcade

or sell itself cheaply on the streets

but enters by the back gate

like a tradesman

come only to fix your plumbing

to drink your tea

and eat your suggestive digestives.

10th July 2012

There is no Lord to lord it over us

but a time of prescience does

weigh down like an angry ghost

squeezing the last air from your chest with a tea tray

you too will die young man, now older

preferring age to stay relative and abstracted

when even joints are seizing

and the heart's palpitations now indicate

not excitement, but dread

a blind man starring into the bottomless abyss

remarking, not on the imminent danger

to life and limb

but of the fresh invigoration

of the updraft.

11th Julty 2012

Disputation angers the anvil

forging a form

with deep impacted body blows

metal pressed upon metal

hammering home

with heat and steam

cold to the touch

and hardened to the heart

is whatever is made

then thrown into the river

to appease the gods.

12th July 2012

I don't understand what happens sometimes

I don't understand what happens ever.

I don't understand what happens to life
when the carriage of death arrives.

13th July 2012

The drilling of water

in bed and before breakfast

rivals the birds

throwing gravel stones at window panes

and skylights, to waken the lover's sleep

'get up, get up, I have songs for you'

listen to the given voice

expressed as radio-static

hitting high hats

in an orchestrated arrhythm

lacking syncopation

like a freely improvised 

cacophony of praise to itself

the confidence of rain is hollow

its strength borrowed, 

its influence fleeting and Pyrrhic 

draining away like the memories of Caesars past

or of peasant lives among the pigs

wag tails and clods of sodden earth.