From time to time a poem

Learn from your experiences throughout your past.
Look at your reflection in the looking glass.
Be the one to look for when life is bleak.
The bold, the true, the peaceful, for others to seek.
In service you grow, from works you know, which path, from here, to go.
Focus, knowledge and wisdom show, which path, from here, to go.

There once was a Great Jedi named Alex,
Who would emphasise text with italics,
With a drowsy head,
He went off to bed,
And led to his subconscious dream palace.

Please Hear What I'm Not Saying


Don't be fooled by me.
Don't be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I'm afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.

Pretending is an art that's second nature with me,
but don't be fooled,
for God's sake don't be fooled.
I give you the impression that I'm secure,
that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without,
that confidence is my name and coolness my game,
that the water's calm and I'm in command
and that I need no one,
but don't believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask,
ever-varying and ever-concealing.
Beneath lies no complacence.
Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness.
But I hide this. I don't want anybody to know it.
I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed.
That's why I frantically create a mask to hide behind,
a nonchalant sophisticated facade,
to help me pretend,
to shield me from the glance that knows.

But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope,
and I know it.
That is, if it's followed by acceptance,
if it's followed by love.
It's the only thing that can liberate me from myself,
from my own self-built prison walls,
from the barriers I so painstakingly erect.
It's the only thing that will assure me
of what I can't assure myself,
that I'm really worth something.
But I don't tell you this. I don't dare to, I'm afraid to.
I'm afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance,
will not be followed by love.
I'm afraid you'll think less of me,
that you'll laugh, and your laugh would kill me.
I'm afraid that deep-down I'm nothing
and that you will see this and reject me.

So I play my game, my desperate pretending game,
with a facade of assurance without
and a trembling child within.
So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks,
and my life becomes a front.
I idly chatter to you in the suave tones of surface talk.
I tell you everything that's really nothing,
and nothing of what's everything,
of what's crying within me.
So when I'm going through my routine
do not be fooled by what I'm saying.
Please listen carefully and try to hear what I'm not saying,
what I'd like to be able to say,
what for survival I need to say,
but what I can't say.

I don't like hiding.
I don't like playing superficial phony games.
I want to stop playing them.
I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me
but you've got to help me.
You've got to hold out your hand
even when that's the last thing I seem to want.
Only you can wipe away from my eyes
the blank stare of the breathing dead.
Only you can call me into aliveness.
Each time you're kind, and gentle, and encouraging,
each time you try to understand because you really care,
my heart begins to grow wings--
very small wings,
very feeble wings,
but wings!

With your power to touch me into feeling
you can breathe life into me.
I want you to know that.
I want you to know how important you are to me,
how you can be a creator--an honest-to-God creator--
of the person that is me
if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble,
you alone can remove my mask,
you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic,
from my lonely prison,
if you choose to.
Please choose to.

Do not pass me by.
It will not be easy for you.
A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls.
The nearer you approach to me the blinder I may strike back.
It's irrational, but despite what the books say about man
often I am irrational.
I fight against the very thing I cry out for.
But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls
and in this lies my hope.
Please try to beat down those walls
with firm hands but with gentle hands
for a child is very sensitive.

Who am I, you may wonder?
I am someone you know very well.
For I am every man you meet
and I am every woman you meet.

Charles C. Finn
September 1966

The Pinhole and the Shutter

The pinhole and the shutter
Press her into stills and frames
She tarried here a while,
Now another wears her name

Two lovers in the graveyard
As the cherries end their bloom
Each promise kept, ungiven
Due reward, the prize, consumed

Those dayless memories fail us
Dogeared by each passing hand
Fingers smudging out the faces
Of a woman, of a man

The spidery script disguises
All the webs it could not weave
She is going now; she whispers
"My condolences", and leaves.

As always, not poetry.. but here it is..

I did not know this place was here, the cavern under the cathedral.. I stand at the edge, toes almost at the drop, and stare down into the blackness, the light from the oil lamps reflecting only on the marble at the edge, but nothing deeper.

Breath held, I listen… silence, but the small flickering flames… nothing below stirs, or moves, or breathes.

He makes his presence known, not seen but felt, the quiet inner strength that grows curiosity and wings with which to fly.

I heard it then, a whisper, barely audible, perhaps heard within rather than with my ears, but it was there.. it said my hidden name.

Decision! I had made it, his presence had been growing but greatest now, inflating my soul and spreading my wings wide.

At the edge of the cavern I bowed to the light and bade it farewell, diving into the deep pool of darkness.
As I went deeper and deeper it felt like I was ascending up into another plane, another place and I realised it was the absence of fear. Here in the darkness was freedom and trust and strength, and it was all mine.

And what was at the bottom of the cavern? I cannot possibly say!

Not poetry... but nowhere else that fits...

The safety of the sanctum… the warmth of the darkness envelopes…

I call his name and sense the presence once more… instinctively I turn around and he is there.. blonde hair, dark eyes and a knowing smile.

He greets me, and takes seat on a bench… but I cannot sit.. out into the room I walk, turn around, then return.. pacing…

“What’s wrong” he asks…

“I don’t know what I am”.. I stop.. hoping for the answer…

He smiles, “your focus is wrong.”

“Why?”

“Look at this room… it exists but it doesn’t… it has limits and yet, it is limitless… but you are not concerned over what ‘it’ is.. it simply is and you accept it for all that it is.”

I sit on the marble floor, bringing my legs up to my chest as I take in his words… I am aware suddenly of both the enormity and the apparent smallness of the room… He says nothing, looking around absent mindedly while I think, playing with the button on his sleeve, the rings on his fingers.

“I am simply me… no other definition required” I say finally.. the words sounding oddly loud for once against the silence.

He smiles, standing… and walks away, back into the darkness.

Visions

Grace of silence from a special place
Distant lands hold her smiling face
Knightly armor on a heart so true
Cuts the skin ‘till it’s black and blue

Eyes of magic casting for a look
Sacred thoughts of her open book
Voice of wonder as it hits my ear
Sings a song of a truth so dear

Soul of a blackbird's feathered wings
Takes its flight with the song it sings
Winds of change flowing down the trail
Blows her leaves with their open sail

Watch with faith of a timeless sight
Stars of the belt guiding through the night
Dreams of a love mirrored in the source
Steer it steady as to stay on course

- G. E. Marrs (2016)

More writing... still not poetry.... perhaps I should find somewhere else to put this... we'll see...

The sun sits high in the sky, no clouds and no shadow. I walk towards the pyramid, the hot sand overflowing my sandals at each step. Stopping, I stand in remembrance… I was here before, long ago… I remember the presences, but my guide from the cathedral is not here, not in this place, this is not his kingdom.

The ruins of the temple remain, the low walls marking its outline but the alters and statues gone except fragments long buried. It is not the temple that calls me, it is the pyramid… its sides long lost their golden shell but its impressiveness not diminished… still marking the landscape as a place of direction to the gods.

I walk the steps to the opening, it is dark in the passage, and narrow… no fear however, and I sense someone, though there is only silence within.
I cannot see but still I know the way, feeling my hands along the stone as the path is illuminated in my memory… deeper down I go until I am beneath the structure itself. Careful, each step careful.

Then light, flickering, a rushlight no doubt.. I head towards it to the chamber. In the time before the chamber was filled with adherents all on their knees, bowing to his divinity. Their voices had recited prayers I had not understood, but still I had knelt and joined them then, though another voice had told me to go. I would not leave this time I knew, Ptah had been my teacher but he had gone from the temple outside, no more lessons to be had in the burning sun.

Through the doorway I went into the chamber… the smell, dry but sweet, brought a rush of emotion and memory causing me to pause a moment. On the far wall his grand throne still stood but it was empty and I wondered for a second whether I had misunderstood, perhaps I had misheard the call? Slowly I approached and I had a sudden urge to sit on it, reaching out to the arm and feeling the surprisingly cold stone under my fingers. I leant forward slightly only to hear a low laugh behind me. I turned to face the other doorway to my right, opposite which the throne sat. In the time before a man had guarded this doorway, a tall staff in his right hand, the keeper of the inner sanctum… but he was gone also, and in his place stood Set

He had asked to me leave the last time I had been here, telling me I was not ready… I wondered where the others had gone, had they been ready or merely his worshippers? He smiled as he heard my thoughts… “All things in their time.”

Moving before him I realised that he was not as imposing as I had remembered; I could sense the power emanating from him, not of strength (though it was clear he was strong) but of will… “It too is yours to possess…”

Kneeling before him had felt right before, but now it felt as though it may be odd… I did not feel to be the adherent now, the worshipper, but the student, and even perhaps, closer to his equal. That thought felt blasphemous, but he only smiled.

He stood aside, opening the corridor to me that I had been denied before and pointed into it. “Where does it go?” I asked, peering down and seeing only more darkness beyond the faint glow of the rushlights.

“The same place all paths lead.”

The End of Days

The cycle of pain has now ended
It is what was intended
No more pain
No more stealing of energy
To gain
Forgiveness only
No more assault
No more left to be
Lonely
Exalt
Only
A peaceful plane of existence left
It was always there
Underneath
Peace, love, harmony
Connection to God
We constantly
Seek
If pain resurfaces
Breathe IN
Breathe OUT
Release
Shout now
Only For joy
Feel only peace
Become free
Filled only with love
Co-operation
A Sense of Rejuvenation
Freedom to be the true you
Freedom To ultimately
Be Me
Free
At last
Now letting go
Of the past
Moving into the now
This is the moment that counts
The present moment
Of existence
Filled with assistance
From on high
Lessons relearned now
Stop
Look
Listen
Be still
Connect
Empty
Then Fill
With light
Create now with all your conscious might
No more fights
Lesson remembered now
Teach
Only do what's right
Share
Strip the negativity bare
Naked
Cover now
Only with light
Divine being
Express
Delight!
_{© Gabrielle Bowen}

BUDDHA AT KAMAKURA

"And there is a Japanese idol at Kamakura"

Oh ye who tread the Narrow Way
By Tophet-flare to Judgment Day,
Be gentle when the "heathen" pray
To Buddha at Kamakura!


To him the Way, the Law, Apart,
Whom Maya held beneath her heart,
Ananda's Lord the Bodhisat,
The Buddha of Kamakura.


For though he neither burns nor sees,
Nor hears ye thank your Deities,
Ye have not sinned with such as these,
His children at Kamakura;


Yet spare us still the Western joke
When joss-sticks turn to scented smoke
The little sins of little folk
That worship at Kamakura—


The grey-robed, gay-sashed butterflies
That flit beneath the Master's eyes—
He is beyond the Mysteries
But loves them at Kamakura.


And whoso will, from Pride released,
Contemning neither creed nor priest,
May feel the soul of all the East
About him at Kamakura.


Yea, every tale Ananda heard,
Of birth as fish or beast or bird,
While yet in lives the Master stirred,
The warm wind brings Kamakura.


Till drowsy eyelids seem to see
A-flower 'neath her golden htee
The Shwe-Dagon flare easterly
From Burmah to Kamakura;


And down the loaded air there comes
The thunder of Thibetan drums,
And droned—"Om mane padme oms"—
A world's width from Kamakura.


Yet Brahmans rule Benares still,
Buddh-Gaya's ruins pit the hill,
And beef-fed zealots threaten ill
To Buddha and Kamakura.


A tourist-show, a legend told,
A rusting bulk of bronze and gold,
So much, and scarce so much, ye hold
The meaning of Kamakura?


But when the morning prayer is prayed,
Think, ere ye pass to strife and trade,
Is God in human image made
No nearer than Kamakura?

Rudyard Kipling