The still, silent point
within the shifting tectonic plates of our lives

A river bank
beside the stream of becoming

A parachute
The pole star
A creased bed sheet pulled smooth

An unhooking
A non-arising

Aware of joy and sorrow, but not joy and sorrow;
aware of samskaras, but not samskaras

The witness
a window onto a window
the prior condition

That which opens, rather than contracts;
that which relates, rather than polarizes

A key in the lock of conditionality

A decentring, not a centring

A hug from Green Tara
full of compassion
a healing nectar

Embodied depths
dropping into a flow of energy
surfing the wave
taste of freedom

Grace, not gravity
angels of our better nature

Narcissus, not Goldmund

Neither a transcendental self
nor a realist world
but a co-arising of self and world

A single unfolding
of nature and mind

Endlessly creative
refracting the daimon

Gelassenheit
a penetration into Being

Signlessness
the unborn
void

Basic sanity

From the river to the sea
Israel can and cannot be

A great sadness grips us
in the distance, a monster
ogre, giant, balrog, Grendel

We travel in scars
we travel in scars
walk of Elysium, but not yet for this wound

Israel, the colonizers, their victory more important than life
Palestinians, we won’t forget you

We are walking through knives

From the river to the sea
Palestine can and cannot be

Us Britons, writing poems in perfect safety, aren’t we clever
get back out on the streets, your highness?

Princess and the pea
may Israel never stop noticing the pea

Tired eyes, we think on appetite
and evil winches up a flag
shields and spears of justifications

Eye for an eye
and now the whole world is blind
we see through cataracts
and sightless we make our simple fuss

Is resolution possible
when justice means taking a side?
Defending a view?

No sitting on the sidelines
letting the river of Israeli aggression pour forth
erect a dam against the torrent

Coaxed by our shame
we take to the streets
force the politicians to take note
with feet and song we make our vote

Palestinians swim
from the river to the sea
let their heads stay above water
from the river to the sea

A city of two Gods
a tale of two cities
around and around
blood by blight
sink or swim
decades of vendettas

Cain kills Abel in an olive grove
the olive grove where Jesus walked
Two men looked out through prison bars
one saw mud, the other stars

Trident submarine
cranking in the murk
like an underwater AI

A strange fish
glass mechanical eyeballs

Lights snorkel in the abyss
Is it a whale or a UFO?

Conjured from reason
Oppenheimer’s delight

In the dark, the nuclear reactor

Here we are
in the depths
of everything we refuse to know

Truth so close we don’t see it

Beeps of the radar

The first to detect war
and the last to engage with it

Dark crucible
angry creativity
huding from Russians

The final shrieks of the bomb-taut fellows
fatherless depths
“ma mere! ma mere!”

An imposter
full fathom five

In Aqueous caverns
of formless silence

A new life form on Earth
alien, undetectable

Bi-directional dynamics
with the sea

Uncanny dialogue

In the beginning was the word
and the word was Godot

In the beginning was the grid
and the grid was nihilism

And Godot smiled upon the earth

Godot found himself drawing grids
to escape domestic oblivion

Godot believes in sound art and lemon cake

Godot dismisses all creeds
including light and divinity

He decides not to wear grey as it is a cliche
instead he wears off-yellow

He likes wall climbing in his spare time

Godot loves the word ‘melancholy’
it reminds him of his hero Heathcliff

He is definitely not sympathetic
except with slugs
who sometimes make him cry

He is often found
washed up on the beach
with an empty milk carton

He is slightly puzzled that he doesn’t exist

Seedlings in promise
angels trying to go north

Diamonds in rubble

I tried through concrete
to respect the damage done

A single bullet tube train

Thousands of experiences
unfolding around me

A single techno beat
pulsating towards the dopamine hit

Hungry ghosts
grasping after “me” and “mine”

Practicing indigeneity

I’m indigenous to this green meadow

Within the urban sprawl

ADHD, scattered, shakey

At the garden in Hackney
I’m welcomed by a blaze
of sunflowers and nasturtiums

Presence and wonder
In an urban flow of information

Time slows down
Chronos becomes Kairos

Runner beans hang from
A sparkling greenhouse

Rows of lettuces
spread their leaves:
a slow explosion
of sunlight and rain and green

A biophilic thrill

Beetroot blushes its purple haze
White broccoli flowers

Wet earth
Artichoke heart muzzled by choke

Dirt in nails

Open into flesh and bones
A wide angled lens
Entangled, embodied
Participating with all beings
In life’s web

A shoal of fish
arches in a figure of eight

Bend like bamboo
Yoga rolls me into a pretzel

A heaviness upon my shoulders right now

There is a heaviness in the world right now

Glue by Bicep plays in my headphones

The bittersweet synth chord progression

The exhoes of a wailing harmonica echo into the void

A woman’s haunting voice sings sing with a yearning

Sad ones get me

van gogh’s final words were “the sadness will last forever”

Sound sinks into time

Time sinks into sound

Shambhala festival had the right philosophy all along

The force of liberation will blow the fuse if you don’t exert control

By the beach edge,
tide laps in, tide laps out
Sun sets, moon rises

Trees and marram grass sway,
smooth like liquid
The night breeze caresses them,
opening dimensions between senses
Shimmer-hum of the sea-wind

Haunted trees, frightened leaves
Moonlight filters through branches,
a strobe lighting
dancing in our retinas
Friend or foe?

A tension between us

Background becomes foreground,
eerily swinging into focus

Our minds are fragile webs
in open space
We have been caught in push/pull,
imagining ourselves to be separate, solid beings,
cages without birds

On a porch by an abandoned beach house
we sit in a swinging chair,
its creak loud to sensitive ears

Mrs Ramsay prepares dinner inside
while Mr Ramsay strides before us with furrowed brow
Lily Briscoe paints the scene

I thought I was Mr Ramsay
and Rose was Mrs Ramsay
but maybe I’m Lily

A lighthouse glows on the horizon

Echinacea and chamomile
in the crumbling back garden
are effulgent with fragrance,
even as stony walls decay

I turn to Rose
“Thank you for everything
immersed in abundance,
I only noticed scarcity”

Distant clouds crack open
luminescent lightning
ecstatic electricity

Rose runs off across the pebbles
in terror and delight,
laughing like Milarepa,
at one with the elements

The beach turns into a hieroglyph;
her figure is a question mark

Thoughts dissolve in reverberations of thunder

A crow soars through the air,
in the air channel between life and death
it looks down with indifference

We are two nodes in Indra’s net,
two non-local particles a quantum leap apart

Further down the beach
a Yoruba tribe dances around a fire
multi-coloured tunics —
beating of drums —
fireflies flutter —

Jeep carries us along Indian roads,
out of mental constrictions,
into rays of the crisp sun

Meandering road keeps senses alert
eyes emerge into sight

Jungle’s spongy rich greenness
is a buffer for jangled nerves

Mystical sun not like that of the West

Decisions turn on a dime

Bodies in the streets;
let my body move in and out of them

There is too much flux in me

I need materiality
the earth
grounding

Sari; buffalo; holi powder
the white and gold
of Boudhanath Stupa
textures of Nepal, tastes of India

Out of the ditch of London
its mad dash, its strained faces

Aslan stripped of vitality,
lashed by the white witch

The way out is in
the way out is through

A mandala, without centre or edge,
roots starry visions
in fertile soil

Athos has been with me for days:
his intensity breaks parochial boundaries,
breaks the sludge of constriction and doubt

Is England too small for us?
he is water, fire, romance, awareness

I too am learning the double movement
of vedana and sraddha

Mind the gap

Monasteries on the cliffside
smiling monks
in love with the world

Wildness revivifies
colour has depth

Depth has freedom –
the unconditioned

I am tired of learning from grief
today I am a student of the sun

Choir is breathwork

Sing with saranghi players
sing the mantras

Sing the joy
sing the pain

Grapes burst in the mouth
pleasure heals trauma

Through the portal
a clear horizon

In a graveyard I mourn my friend
I kneel by her headstone in the green grass

The headstone is constructed;
grass grows of itself

A robin chirps nearby,
a song without words,
in the unconscious, sentient forest

Humans build monuments to their dead
(animals mourn too)
What is it in me that remembers?
What was it in Frances that could remember?

Here in my knowing of her
I sense her knowing of me,
and the field of consciousness rises all around,
in the meadow of animated grass
and the unconscious, sentient forest

The pattern of actions in her life continues yet
she existed; she mattered

Her mattering is of a different mattering
to the surrounding trees,
sandy earth
and green grass

But I am glad of their vital presences 
and our mutualistic, symbiotic unknowing 

I do not know where the physical ends
and the mental begins
I do not know when unconscious 
becomes conscious

I do know that
memories of Frances
generate a buoyant sadness
in my heart

And I know that the knowing
sits apart from the feeling,
though they are wrapped up in each other

In Plato’s cave
I jump for answers too quickly,
forgetting the terrain,
hypnotized by the horizon

I wield Padmasambhava’s vajra too freely,
neglecting the nourishment
of his bowl of herbs

Let go of the vajra
let faith and body guide me
across rugged ground

Drop into experience;
relish the shadow performance
reflecting the ecstatic light;
dancing thespians,
sensuous play

Swamps and bogs are to be toiled through,
foothills navigated,
before the arduous climb begins

And gradually, at last, the mountain top!
an illumination!
the Idea!
a unity of feeling and thought,
sun parting the clouds,
seeing with being,
a crystal ship in the night sky

During the descent,
all ends are tied up
and knowledge is logged
in the nervous system

The cave darkens once more;
new questions emerge

Purple rhododendrons
and juniper trees
line the lower slopes
during the early stages.
Dilating, bursting with colour,
they release the air my lungs need.
Life breathes below the tree line.

Squelch of mud –
dappled forest shade –
crooked white tree trunks
are the bones of my body.
Smell of incense in the air.

Instead of pushing outwards,
I open inwards.
As the trees breathe,
I breathe.
Tits and rosefinches warble
their flirtatious, unfiltered song.
Grasshoppers buzz.
The warm vitality of lower slopes
is a foundation
from which to turn my gaze upwards
to distant peaks.

Air thins with the ascent.
River rushes past.
My thoughts are malleable,
flowing with the water,
steadied by dilating trees.

From new heights I look back
at the lower slopes.
A reflexive gap has opened up.
Birdsong is replaced by silence.

We pass a graveyard
of climbers who took too many risks,
like Icarus
who flew too close to the sun

At Dingboche, a fellow hiker
becomes delirious,
confused rhizomatic apparitions
blurring his mental map.

But I have taken Diamox
and acclimatized along the way.

Lobuche East imposes itself
on my attention.

Patterns at these heights
are subtler, fainter, more delicate.
Clouds whisper

Chomolungma soars in the distance
like a dolphin diving above waves.
The Khumbu ice field spreads out before it.
The fabulous light;
transparent glaciers
The lake of ice shivers and reflects.
In the stillness I see
a clear reflection,
a clear perception.