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?

REFLECTION

Isn’t it about time

After a lifetime of paddling,

I went to the river?

Sit by the untroubled water

And just be?

See who’s written there

Upon the clear surface?

Do nothing but look?

Meet me there?

ZEN TODAY

No me
No mine
No problem.

WHAT THE KINGFISHER DOES FOR CHRISTMAS

Nobody knows

What the kingfisher does for Christmas

Whether, perhaps, holed up in Klosters

With champagne and smoked salmon

Or if, unknown to the tax man,

He has a hideaway in Mustique.

Hibernation seems unlikely.

The bulldog, on the other hand

Ought to be predictable:

A pie and a pint in the local,

The Queen on the telly,

Turkey. Sprouts. Gravy.

But, no.

He’s skiing in Val d’Isere.

Which makes you wonder

If the kingfisher

Is in Barnsley, or Basingstoke.