DOGS

I watched you whistle and call the conversation into shape,

A player, skilled in this art,

Yet the dog went its own way

No matter how frantic your silent calls, gestures -

The real reasons for divorce,

That unsightly spell of penury,

The short stretch, long atoned

The daughter caught with white powder,

The over violent son,

Granddad’s Alzheimers

Your own struggle with depression,

Self harm, anorexia,

All the stinking places you thought you’d fenced off.

But the dog still goes there

Rolling in the mess.

Good to see your abiding faith in dog training.

Good to see we’re all still dogs.

MACKEREL

It’s a wise man who knows what is enough.

As when, with mackerel skies

We shortened sail

And, in the lee of the point,

Put over lines of feathers,

As silvery, wispy as the high mares’ tails

And, drifting on the turning tide,

Hit it lucky,

Pulling mackerel out by the dozen,

Murdering them, gutting some,

Cooking fewer,

Eating fewer still,

Giving the rest away on the dock

With a guilty look in our eyes,

And so, remembering another sail,

Another tidal place,

And a prison on that island,

In which hung a sign,

“Take all you want. Eat all you take,”

I institute this as a boat rule

And quietly,

Without hanging a sign,

As a rule for living.

ZEN TODAY

Two words which in close proximity point to enlightenment?

Fuck

and

It.

ZEN TODAY

Help?

Speak

Wait

Speak

Wait

ZEN TODAY

I  release you from all your obligations

HENS

Coming round the double bend

From Holme

Just where the odd pissed driver came off the road

And where sad flowers mark a young man’s end,

Too keen on the throttle,

There is a gaggle of high heeled girls,

One in a veil

And the others in matching tee shirts,

Made up to the nines

Waiting there for transport,

With hopes of love myths coming true,

Running maybe too fast for life’s corners,

And cows looking at them over a hedge
Through a tangle of wild flowers.

CAN'T PAY WON'T PAY

ME:  I've been referred to you about our unpaid invoice for cancellation charges.

PROCUREMENT MANAGER: Yes. It's outrageous.

ME: It isn't outrageous at all. I've had seven consultants all on standby to deliver your event and you've cancelled it within the period for which there are cancellation charges. Our proposal is quite clear on this.

PROCUREMENT MANAGER: It's an outrageous amount of money and we are getting no value from it.

ME: We stand ready to deliver the event.

PROCUREMENT MANAGER: That's irrelevant. We won't be doing the event and we won't be paying this invoice either.

ME: It's unfortunate then that I shall have to brief our lawyers.

PROCUREMENT MANAGER: ....................................................

ME: Before we end this call, can I ask you something?

PROCUREMENT MANAGER: What?

ME: Do you have a family?

PROCUREMENT MANAGER: A wife and two daughters, though I fail to see the relevance to our discussion.

ME: Here's the relevance. When you go home to your wife and two daughters this evening, I wonder if you will feel proud of this discussion?

PROCUREMENT MANAGER: No comment.

ME: Then I think you know what to do. (PUTS PHONE DOWN).

Denoument - a few days later, a cheque arrives.

ZEN TODAY

Deceit and fear
Or truth and freedom?

SWIM

If you feel your soul is drowning
Swim on
To the imagined shore
And the tide will carry,
As it takes all things truly desired,
Purely desired.

And it cannot be turned.

But if you will not dream
Of the paradisaical haven,
Bring it to mind now,
Dream it now,
Live it now,
Then you cannot be saved,
Though you swim on for ever
Against the soul's own tide.

ZEN TODAY

Tantrums

Or tantra?

ZEN TODAY

Are there many measures of success?

Or only happiness?

DOLPHINS

Let dolphins be happiness.

They’ll do.

We think they’re smiling

But are they

Ecstasy,

Come upon by chance,

Fuelled by curiosity,

Briefly seen by humans,

Beyond conscious summons?

The same fixed grins

Are gone again

In a moment.

 

 

KEEP TURNING LEFT

WREN

Is it possible to love a wren?

Must love own its object?
Or seek to own it?
For the wren takes
‘What is hidden is more alluring’
To the n-th degree.
Glimpse here,
Blur there.
Then gone, but not forgotten.
Is it enough
For love to love her wild flight,
Wishing nothing but good
To one going, going, gone,
Asking not even acknowledgment
Of the looks of love
She is receiving?

SPARROW

Coming from the dead wood

Where snowdrops issue white
Invitations to a new season
I see the red kite,
Huge and magnificent –
A celebrity, launching.

 

 Later, at home,

A sparrow calls
Beyond the kitchen window.
So what? No one sees you sparrows;
No fans, no twitchers come.
However you aspired,
You’ve grown up one of millions.

 

 I boil a kettle, look again,

And note you’re not half bad.
Surviving, eh?
Well, aren’t we all?
You may be going cheap,
But you wear brown
Beautifully.

ZEN TODAY

No more queues?

ZEN TODAY

What can be stolen
From he who has nothing?

SWAN

When will the tension between

The status, grace and wisdom
Above the surface
Become resolved
With the paddling beneath?

 

Will there be a time,
Will there ever be a time,
When the glide really does come easy,
When the surface, still as mirror,
Reflects the whole soul,

 

Seen and greeted as for the first time,
Acknowledged in raw beauty, whole, anew?
Will there come a time when 
Efforts cease
And consciousness flows as water

 

Going the easiest route,
Pooling resources,
Oozing through life’s meadows,
Relaxing in ripples
Of self- acceptance?

 

 

GULLS

 

 Gulls are tearing at the newspaper

Scrapping to get a morsel

Even if there isn’t  one.

A wild, competitive confusion.

I don’t know the collective noun.

A flap perhaps?

Those gulls -

Those desperate, hungry gulls.

On trains, in rooms, in meetings.

ZEN TODAY

Help?