Crack lip
Sinus block
Prostate creaking
Pills pop
Mirror
Misting
Sore i ache
Blood nick
Fused
Andrex to
Skin
Wrapped in
Towelling
Still I moan
Here’s to
The waist
That shoulda
Been.
Her new purple towel
Sticks fibre to skin
And wraps fat around a profile
Where my waist should have been.
These damn wars
This cancer
Oesteo-arthritis
And that political wanker
The lift that’s now broken
And fibro-myalgia
Sky box-sets half chosen
And that slump in the sofa
And another thing
That’s driving me raving
That wrong time on the cooker
Since daylight saving
And LBC phone-ins
With their adverts and trailers
And news on the TV
Strange views in the papers
And this dread filling giddiness
In my fuzzy thick head
And that there’s no-longer-two-of-us
And this cold space in bed
And the night sweating worry
For you children full grown
And clear memories of my past times
When not ill and alone.
(The first evening on a week’s visit to my mother)
Eight-thirty-two am
Orange candles and I
Wait within
My client’s absence.
Such expressed need last week
Have passed upon
More rivers of life experience
Hopefully.
I hold him, his essence
In my heart.
May he be well
May he be safe
May he be protected
May he be at peace.
Nine-oh-four am
Distant
Insistent city sirens
Crash into my absent clients time
and
The driver
The paramedic
The one in crisis
Their family and friends
Enter our session.
So many opportunities
To breathe in Amaan
To breathe out Light.
Nine-thirty am
My absent client
Parts from my heart
Payment due
My candle still burning
This city still turning
and
I sit still and wait.
Amaan: A call for refuge and peacefulness within Ultimate Love
Kindness in greeting
So thankful to gather
To find less together
Outside-ness and cold
Friendships received in
Sweet harmonisations
Raptures unwrapping
Both newness and old
Attoning for lost years
Rich music resuming
Creative attunment
In Beacons of Heart.
After years of refurbishment, yesterday saw the re-opening of The Bristol Beacon, a newly beloved centre for live music. It was such a joyful and generous gathering of people, celebrating the vibrancy of this citys creativity, music, togetherness and dance.
And to think only a few years ago those many thousands of people could not, were not, allowed to spend time together in such a way.
Over the rest of Advent, each day, I aim enter and share here a tincture of the grateful Heart.
I’m thankful for
porridge
unsweetened oat milk
windfall from neighbours
cheap honey like silk
fruit from the freezer
and the absence of bread
And peaceful, warm people
still breathing in bed.
Crotched
in yellow
small limbs
still forming
red faces
en twining
in prams
wrapped for
weather
two bundles
one yawning
engorging
the grimacing
face of
the other
as carer
gives alter
to mobile
soft bedding
new fawnings
she’s sharing
with any
around
their newness
her quietness
his tight
little frown.
city slowness 