Ode to being alive no.19 titled: ‘Embedded Mind’

I had to listen –

To know.

I had to need- to not- possess-

To exist.

I had to be raw, and honest-

To evolve.

 

In a world with so many clashes,

I have had to become admirable of the strength of the other,

to go against.

 

No longer desiring attainment.

No longer just one-sided view.

 

May I now set- aside- difference-

and be of use.

 

To unfold this world and its oppression.

And walk in strides,

through trials and tribulations we endured.

 

To walk- a- way- in solidarity.

 

May we tread these treacherous waters,

And always reach to the other side.

And when we find ourselves a’ swayin’,

with conversations that aren’t always true-

may the sound of the voice be a harbinger,

of a power which stays true through and through.

 

As in- the body of the earth.

As in -the old flame that searches out meanings.

 

In our ambitious will that devotes us,

that causes serendipitous unfolding’s to occur.

In our graceless endeavours for healing that fail us,

In the loss of unity we all know too well.

 

In the coming consequences of our era,

and the loss of life, of nature,

and our host.

 

And inside this-

this inclusive stillness,

without having much to do at most.

 

May we peer a little closer,

and allow things to just be.

If only for a minute-

may we set- ourselves- free.

 

As we never planned,

to become caged ones.

We were always spirituality vast.

Beyond the control of a flailing capitalist.

Who now faces unknown to unmask.

 

We get that history’s a’ rising,

At the bottom of the psalm of our hand.

So we pause, and leave time to grow near to us.

For the voice of survival to band.

 

There is more to be found,

At the root of things.

Than an imposition we know and incur.

There is a different kind of substance here,

A natural one born to infer.

 

The selling of the spirit will leave us,

With its absence and meaningless too.

The erasure of memories will cease here.

And the stories of life and death will retell.

 

No longer will our lived experienced be moved to disorder.

Or our disorder to a sense of difference and affront.

No long will there be embedded rules in feelings,

of centuries of dissidence and distrust.

 

May we be definitive in our aim clear to us,

may we celebrate the spirit we all have.

As a radical resource and response to dust,

As a remembering, a learning, an old hand.

 

With a beautiful dreamlike symphony,

with all the feelings and emotions that concur.

With a sustenance that sustains us and our unanimous rights:

 

To be liminal-

yet still connected.

To have lack –

that gives us meaning,

To be excited-

by the power of the heart.

 

Our human rights,

more-than-human rights,

-to being alive.

 

 

Ode to being alive no.9 (a) titled ‘Force of Nature’

Beyond our windows of televised concoctions,

a fallen little son unpacks their odd socks;

squiggles and flying pigs.

Living together in a rocky complexion,

of love triangles,

and black and white stripes.

As it unfurls,

there is no room for hiding strangers

undernATH.

CAPSLOCKDOWN.

Release,

from below the light,

on the finger tips,

where the strength of the heart is.

The courage.

Son jumps,

from an ocean into doing what is needed.

If we as humans are held in solidarity by our deviance,

what do we judge as

ATTENTION SAVIOR?

Yodels are like black pools that slink from our nest.

Tax that’s accumulated in high pitched things that cover with envy and cool.

The way I imagine sex and intimacy to be prayers from a far.

If we are as humans…

Ode to being alive no.16 titled: ‘Desire’s Whole’

Like a brick man falls to be free of doubt,
to uplift what is possible.
In God’s grace he is finished,
forgetful of his loneliness and suffering.
He walks the path of purity and serenity,
as a companion does for the dancing blind.
Along the way he meets many beggars with despair,
to have their stolen truth revealed in an ever present surrender.
He begins seeing beings arise that go to help,
no longer afraid of the silence but listening to the voice of the Wholly Other.
He starts to take space for the death and dying,
to be one and align with hope and vision.
And within the miserable pessimism of abundance,
he finds the numinous of the mad. 

Ode to being alive no.14 titled: ‘Practicing Connection’ (sung)

With ability to walk,

on hands and knees,

callin’ up at the ocean.

 

Life has dealt me as it pleased,

its treasure’s beating my waves,

life boats unspoken.

 

Here we are,

on the wind,

death beds a rollin’.

Uncanny it seems,

nowhere to begin,

our cups are broken.

 

It is only passed the hour,

unbridled night,

my virtuous closing.

 

Asking will we ever know?

Or vanish between,

protests and angels?

 

Empty cans,

Aboriginal lands,

running dry in this earth.

 

Beyond you and I,

behind these lies,

stretching out in a mother’s birth.

 

I can hear the sound of grace,

see its face,

in your reflection.

 

Feel it illuminate my need,

anywhere,

any greed,

all our affliction.

 

Here it call,

up the wind,

it’s my tomorrow.

 

And the big red pine,

welcomes divine in,

with a love’s crow.

 

Don’t need to get,

or forget,

where we’re going.

 

No reason why,

all live and die,

sweet dreams be tender.

 

 

 

Ode to being alive no.13 titled: ‘Allowing Renewal’

Zarathustra’s clouds are where connection yawns.

A small monument, outside of its image.

They take youth at its claws.

With subtle lines,

blank like candy.

To flicker beside the flame.

What else can they do? except rise.

Rise amidst this jungle.

The love not theirs,

and the thoughts as well.

I do not know that I am in a paralysed land that I’ve been taught doesn’t matter.

The wheely bags I fill with my masked serenity.

My senses have departed.

And the beauty it interrupts us.

With the beating of my not ok heart.

We lapse, realising dawn.

Zaratustra’s clouds must be all gone.

As the zooming about has been too fast and comes to its end.

And the little youth,

is with me and cares about us.

We scratch each other’s back as do friends.

We don’t look now forward in anger’s past.

We do not ask for redemption.

Our shiver’s turn to daylight,

and we reach outside,

outside the descriptor’s blow.

Ode to being alive no.12 titled: ‘Psychotic In Sight’

As high as buildings,

we pash cooing delicately,

to the heat-of-the-sun.

They keep exhaling the past,

the cars do,

as they do,

romancing,

and masquerades.

I wanted to be different.

To dance and trust a new dimension.

To start doing the fieldwork of getting to know myself.

To learn to love and live with the other.

If we are witnessing a hope,

we are privy to a piece of heaven.

And when we speak our utterances,

we can just listen.

With hope heading towards the songs of community,

I am being alive.

I’ve found it’s ok to wake up and stare at the window with a lonely embrace.

I am here with each of us.

I’ve stopped the searching,

or not.

There is just so much to do and say.

We have been invited to a party,

we don a polka dress and take a friend called

‘chance’.

 

Ode to being alive no.11 titled: ‘Freedom Inside’

A shot in the middle of the room.

I hear the driver of the AK47-

their head is cocked back, and their jaw is quivering with that all too familiar glistening elevation in their eyes.

They stand there confused.

Looking at me,

as if they had an emptiness about them that has been captured by something else happening just to the outside.

The shot was like rape.

I rose up out of bed sweating and pumping my chest.

It was as if they had drilled me into the earth,

and although I could see,

my senses were so skewed I couldn’t tell if they really hadn’t touched me at all.

Memories of the rush came flooding in.

I’d turned on the pipes accidentally.

I needed to god damn it! I swear!

I had to relieve myself the best and only way I knew how.

:Death- by drowning.

An urgency filed in secrecy meets my breathless conversation.

It knew that chance wouldn’t show up so easy next time so it had stressed me that I must act now.

Everything was changed in an instant.

At the speed of a flicker.

I am able to see things clearer now,

for better,

or for worse.

One more wasted moment night in this nightmarish reality will be the end of me.

Ode to being alive no.10 titled : ‘Reflective Self-awareness’

Part of me thinks this is an odd affair,

the way I keep saying we are going to make things better.

Because then somehow your holy music tends to pollute my intent for justice.

It has fearful seams,

and a buzzing shield that you and I lash with.

Helpless or insane are we,

I do not know?

I say ‘I am ready’,

then you back down,

and I let you finish.

You zoom in,

and I zoom out,

telling you what to do.

A little voice inside my head has its own direction.

It never loosens grip on me.

It just tells the same old story time and time again.

I stretch myself out whilst giving my darndest to tune in to the both of you.

Ode to being alive no.8 titled: ‘Complex Meaning Making’

Whirled, I must be nuts.

To simply crossa—–road’-

I need flashes of dysfunction to park alongside.

Come off of it!

There is no need to wrap yourself up in aluminium like that,

And there is no need to bark at some, any, every damn tree.

The tree might appear like some awesome dude,

clear and angelical,

your sun-kissed threat.

The road may be materialized projections,

all peeling at the truth.

Yet, regardless of that, your heart,

still bubbling,

is oozing out your name as you piss on the nature strip.

This so called dysfunction is clearly in the air.

The truth must be nestling like a frightened animal does behind your knee caps.

And there never is a calm before the storm.

Instead a bleeding like broken down tooth on the corner of the police station.

It is going through all the motions, you know oh so well,

a mis-used past.

There is no reason to pull in, or in fact,

pull out.

To stay on this die hard side of the road,

or to cross to the other.

These lines may smell like vinegar,

like madness for so long.

But that is no reason not to love.

There is never a reason.

 

 

Ode to being alive no.7 titled: ‘Oppressive Seperation’

‘A real greeting’ she said,

with an orange peeled smile that was somehow mis-located.

It stood, sweeping the streets after casually clubbing something that unbeknownst to me artificially interfered our same old conversation.

I thought by shooting the leaves no one would believe me.

No one here would sing aloud,

though clutching a radio in hand wasn’t uncommon.

On the railway line we realised a gift.

A gift that is hardly met in these neck of the woods.

The need to hear,

to hear the yellow n-knot green,

to hear the black dislocation.

Sometimes we feel seriously locked in to “the” sometimes have to know.