sorry, not sorry

i am too old to apologise
for your shortcomings
anymore
if you are wrong
not just mistaken,
or unaware,
i'll let the score
stand. you may realise
that what we are becoming
is much more
about the song
of the forsaken,
and that i care
more about the size
of your core
values than a long-
winded, unawakened
puff of air.
you are the pause before
the drop. the prize
we seek is coming
and the door
it enters by is long
awaited. its making
was the prayer
of all the poor
and lost and wronged,
who, despite your hate, will rise.

mixing metaphors

pour me another fine cup of petrol to drink
pass me the matches so i can burn,
rather than think again
of all the things that wither and sink,
or flutter away like ash in the wind,
like water swirling down a drain,
the way love leaks out of a marriage,
like air seeping from a tyre
so you have to push the old bike home
instead of gliding there,
like everything that eats your care
and leaves you empty and older,
frail and cold as frost on thin glass,
and lost in a leafless wood
where the heart must forage
like a hungry deer
on thorny winter weeds and canes...
i feel it shrink inside my chest
until it rattles there against my ribs,
like a cast-off shell,
like dice in a cup before the cast,
like seeds that wait for rain.

anahata

my heart---
keeps timeless time,
and tuneless tune,
is a belled fool
fishing in a pool
beneath the moon
as green as cheese,
is a bell, is a cup,
struck and un-struck.

my heart---
leaps like a fish,
falls like a star,
as above, so below,
a stellium
shining in a puddle,
is the echo in a shell,
a voice in a well,
a city afire,
a wilderness of briars,
a prophet, a liar,
a beggar maid.

my heart---
is a compass rose,
is brave,
is afraid,
mismanaged,
mislaid, waylaid,
forsworn, forbidden,
a map with singed edges,
a whetstone,
a treasure.

my heart---
is dim,
is bright,
walks a line of light,
straight as an arrow
targeted true,
true blue enough
as it sings and thrums,
seeks and finds.

my heart---
is smoke and mirrors,
bones in the desert,
a signpost, a monument,
a midden.
it takes no prisoners,
no heed,
and pays no mind.

my heart---
is a buried thing,
planted deep and hidden,
a seed, a pip, a kernel,
keeping time til spring,
a watch, a clock,
fragile as eggs,
rock hard, a gem,
metal and marrow and meaning,
mortal, eternal,
a red paradox.

my heart---
is haunted rooms,
a humming stone,
brimful of cinders,
and sweating gold,
alchemical furnace,
memory box,
garden and grave,
mistress and slave.

my heart---
walks on coals,
swallows swords,
is a sideshow, a freakshow,
a cooch tent, an acrobat,
a lion tamer, a muddled mystic,
a four chamber circus
daily drumming up
continued custom.

my heart---
drives an endless red river,
an ouroboros of life,
pumps twin bellows
of breath,
and daily delivers
its pythoness poems,
pity and pith
coiled about
a pentacled codling,
which i must eat,
moths and all,
for the knowing,
for the loving,
for the living.

home by the river path

knee deep in nettles

i stand

brim full

with silence and sunlight.

an ancient self awakens

beneath the unmarked sky

spacious as the blue above

untrammelled by plane trails.

an eldritch swan call

harrows my heart

with kinship,

and i am one with the swan

the nettles thickly green

the silver sliver moon

the birches whispering in wind

the otter twisting in the water

the badger sleepy in her sett.

i think---no, i know---

we were finer when fewer

closer to heaven 

when it had no names.

the only true pilgrimage

is looking for home

where we left it.

zero card

It isn't what we thought it would be,
this world we have slipped into
like a coma...

Where even the elders are not so wise
and childhood has little innocence
and animals make ghost images
where they used to be.

Open a textbook and expect
blood to seep from the pages,
a litany of the dead and dispossessed,
the underbelly of Civilisation

Open a news app and expect
not to want your breakfast next
forgotten, the tea goes cold

Your daily dose of depression
rolls across the screen
scroll down, and see...

             This is the rising tide
             that will take all ships down---

Voting feels like shouting into the wind,
a million people jamming thumbs into
the holes in Civilisation,
staring at their phones
while storms and seas rise
behind the walls

Our children have not deserved it;
less capable and less prosperous than their parents
they will inherit promissory notes
and exist in the echo of things gone by

We made great beauty, at times,
but it is sinking like Venice,
proud poster child for all our
glittering, top-heavy, rotten at the base
Civilisation

Marching toward dystopia
with a case-full of patent nostrums
and duct tape and dreams
and bright screens of things to buy...

                But still
                I have not given up---

History is a long sad song
of things that rose and fell
We may fall in a slow unspooling
or a resounding crash of what was wrong,
and rise again

Wearing a patch-pied coat perhaps,
knapsack in hand,
striking out across a greening field
whistling up a dog,
or, dare I hope---a wolf---
to wander with us
on our way to that new world.

woman’s work

she changed her child’s body for a woman’s,

changing shape, echoing the moon’s dance with her blood,

a wild and wondrous thing.

is that not magic?

she walks into a room, without a word,

and men young and old look up, 

suddenly alert as startled bucks.

is that not magic?

she grew a new life under her ribs,

out of nothing, nearly

and rich milk to feed it, and it thrives.

is that not magic?

she soothes children and animals,

banishes sorrow and fear

with a touch and a murmur.

is that not magic?

she moves among the grass and trees, 

finding food, finding medicine.

is that not magic?

she brews and bakes and churns 

one thing into another

barley into beer, wheat into bread, cream into butter.

is that not magic?

she wraps wool about a weighted stick, drops and pulls, 

making thread to weave into warmth.

is that not magic?

she hears her household in the night hours

wakeful elders, hungry babies, amorous husbands,

and leaves her sleep and dreams to be with them.

is that not magic?

she dances, shimmying her hips, 

shaking her shoulders, swinging her hair,

and all of nature awakens.

is that not magic?

she takes a handful of this, a scattering of that, 

from the not-much of her pantry, cooking a daily feast.

is that not magic?

she knows that what she knows 

is worth all the world, though the world takes no notice,

and offers it anyway.

is that not magic?

contradictions

sometimes i think that we are wisest

where we know the least

strongest when we sink in grief

or rise in joyous sparks

most able when we cease to try

and simply lie unresisting in the stream

of all that is, 

just sitting with it in the quiet dark 

where we hatch our souls.