I spent the best part
of a lifetime looking
for You - it's the only
thing I've ever done.
Now you're here - your
scent is everywhere -
and it's as plain as day
that I will never find You.
Natural Rabbi
Something to aspire to. It’s good to have role model.
The lizard can be grasped in the hand, yet it is found in kings’ palaces.
Proverbs 30:28
As True As
This cold-pressed sorrow
is the fullness of life
that You promised me.
I’m rich.
It’s as true as a cow.
I can’t explain how.
My frayed, empty pockets
are stuffed with the ringing
echoes of Your laughter.
I’m poor.
It’s as true as a tree.
Far truer than me.
The Many Deaths of God
Just last night it was early summer
as I stood, at home and deeply rooted,
in a warm wheat field, net in hand.
I was waiting for and eating words as
they danced and whispered by on a
dripping, pollen-loaded, musky breeze.
I saw them coming from a distance in
hoards - stormy, echo-leaved colonies -
they were riding the silver crests of dusk.
They only ever blew my way, onto my lips,
when another one of God's infinite faces died
somewhere - they are made of endless deaths.
Here they are shuffled - sifted, stacked and
sorted - then they are tailored and en-vased.
They never last much longer than cut flowers.
Rest
For the longest time, I wanted to be something I could finally believe in. I sketched and carved, and tried on and abandoned, so many different faces. What lunacy persuaded me to cling to that which always comes and goes and never is? What a relief to fall, laughing, into Holy Saturday's sweet abyss, where I am not, and not my own.
Rest was published in Ancient Paths Literary Magazine on 31/03/2018
On Genuflection
My dogs bow their heads when they approach me. I can’t resist that humility, their eyes down, waiting. They want my touch. They always get it. I’ll remember that when next I genuflect.
This Icon (after Matthew 3:9)
There's nowhere else to go
but here and here's a door.
This whole damn thing
is nothing less than You.
You're every stone in every
wall I care to walk through.
They have, at last, become the
children raised for Abraham.
The Eternal Sabbath
There is no becoming here.
In this eternal sabbath, where
all is betrayed, begiven and begotten.
No skipping from empty siren-ship
to ship, no promising noise, no begging.
The fore-runner footprints are washed
away where nothing is borrowed or lent.
They will not help you here, the priest
and prophet are vowed to silence and bereft.
Nothing is stolen, bought or taught,
nothing mine, except Another’s naked face.
There is no becoming here.
In this eternal sabbath, where
all is betrayed, begiven and begotten.
Slipping
I find that I can't read much anymore. I see the spaces and the page too much. I'm far too tired to chase the end of me in tales. I'm pretty sure my eyes are planning on leaving me behind. They're always looking for the gaps; those places where the curtain's torn. They see that effortless, endless white. That silent ground for which they long is leaking through and misting everything with joy.
Here
This vast, great emptiness
is warm, sun-drenched, soil
coursing through my cold veins.
I can’t,
for the life of me,
find Me here.
Everything is almond cake.
This heavy-scented silence
is days of quiet, running-rain
oil-soaking this dry, old skin.
I can’t,
for the life of me,
find You here.
Nothing wears its own face.
In this sweet, bewildered state
You drip your best wine, deep
into my hungry, milk-weaned heart.
I can’t,
for the life of me,
find Us here.
There's no more Me and You.
How is it, then,
that You seem to
hold me so fast?
Something I wrote a few years back. It was published in the Sumer 2018 edition of the Sufi Journal magazine. This version is slightly different.