Over the next few months I’ll be recording all/most of the stuff on this blog and placing them on my new YouTube channel called ‘Slow in the City.’
(https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCL_0DMMCP4XtdFJj-gzr_Mg)
Starting a You-tube channel
Hello
I have just started a You-Tube channel called ‘Slow in the City’, which is me reciting some of these blog entries.
If you are interested here’s my first offering:
Lace windows
Lace latticing windows
mist drifting rain
gust buffeting park-homes
encircled again
coastline veiled seagulls
specs flex and scream
as cliff-edge drench meadows
shock saffron and green.
Intuit Moon
Intuit Moon
illume
carbon dark night
swathe silvering kisses
with Transcendent light
deep hush Your reflections
of cloud free Sunshine
replacing repentance
with diamonds Divine.
Intuit Moon, our compassionate sister
implant in us soon the deep ways of your Teacher
let husks turn resplendent and purity grow
while dusk forms new mornings as you soothe our soul.
Oh,
inchoate grasping
distress held less tight
unfurl like raw seedlings
in dappled moon Light
may bathing in Beauty
soften our clay
so tendril gyrations
spring forth Your new day.
Beneath this dry crust
Beneath this dry crust
grit, dust and pain
soft whispering tears
gently refresh Your name
to re-soothe this fright
caress stress and this strife
impress hands side by side so
to fill within Light.
chorus
cheek by cheek, may we discover
Jugular breathing of Lover to lover
Beloved release us, incense us with sweetness
immerse us in perfumes of True Love’s completeness.
Light pouring out
Illuming this living
Re-shining doubt
so to see without seeing
exposing confusion
we free flow these Oceans
to joyfully drown within
earthly illusions.
Poetry for wellness
During lock down I have been offering
an eight week ‘Poetry for wellness’ experience via Zoom. Me and two friends have been communing around some poems and themes offered by Lisa DeVuono (and others) in their wonderful new ‘Peer Facilitators Manual’. At the end of each week we have written spontaneously for 15 minutes and then shared snippets with each other (to further feed our ensuing weeks).
As I come to write up and share the final email with my two compatriots I have re-met these offerings. For a record of my journey over the eight weeks I have curated glimpses of my spontaneity within those 15 minutes of free flow writing below. What a privilege and what beauty my two friends offered, it is a shame I cant post all of their offerings, but during the first week we offered lines of our writing to each other which formed a group poem:
Initial group poem
Simple things in life, melt in.
Is this my child speaking and waiting?
I plant seeds for salad to eat soon and
I plant a tree that will bear fruit next year.
The harvest of an endless crop
The translucent sunbeam through the trees
Teasing new shoots to grow.
This life is an invitation to melt in.
Week three: On self-compassion
Unforgiving
drunkenness
crawls within me.
Week four: Making it real
Shutting out the world
is really
not an option
it has never been
it comes in glorious floods
sensations, opportunities and creations beyond
my wildest imagination.
Maybe I can be gentle enough
Featherlike enough to, let this newness
fall
and rest in my hands.
Week five: Overcoming obstacles
If
I embrace
this
Unknowing
maybe I
can ease
into my growing
and while
facing
the Sunshine
maybe
I will
emerge
more
clearly.
Week six: Creating Hope
Together
we are
melting fatigue
by
swaying on the branches of impulse
launching songs
entraining sirens of newness
we are
Together.
Week seven: Being in gratitude
To become released, to become more open, flowing even.
To hide and be happy.
To appear and be happy.
To be resourced and tearful and gratefully imprinted like Gibran, with his
‘Tear and a Smile.’
To allow the tears and be gentle.
To find the light, like my old friend Shuntaro Tanikawa.
The light in the darkness and darkness in the light.
To celebrate re-finding old friends, who I have neglected for so long.
Shuntaro, you have taken second,
third and fourth fiddle to Rumi and Hazarat, Gibran and Neruda
but now your ’62 Sonnets’ press in on my pen.
With silence my companion,
Floating the river of Melancholy,
Coca-cola Lessons,
The Traveller, The Naif, Watashi. All yours, signed sealed
and delivered to my bookshelf.
And ah, At Midnight In The Kitchen I Just Want To Talk To You.
Yes, tomorrow my friend, If I should be so lucky, we too shall talk again.
Week eight: Self care and endings
I am wondering where to go now
where to go now,
how to grow
How to move freely
Breathe more deeply
Love with an openness that
is all mine, an otherness that
is all yours, a togetherness
combining to stop time.
