Both/And

Today, my chest opened –
and the world
fell into it.
 
(Not what you expect
on a Wednesday afternoon.)
 
So now I am a woman

in the world 

with the world 

in my chest.

 
The world is in me now.

The world is in me now. 

 
Funny, cos I’ve tried 

to keep it out 

when – oh look –
it’s in me 

anyway.

Plenty

Imagine a world
in which everyone
had enough,
no-one had more
than enough,
and everyone knew
their own enoughness. 

Entirety

There is a wild and devastating love
that cares only for our wholeness.
 
 (It is loam and tears and
all the things I thought love wasn’t,
and it has laid me bare,
taken me apart, piece by tiny piece,
and it was this that I always wanted.)
 
It will make you think
you are losing your mind
and most probably your life, too,
but it has had enough of us
sheltering in the shadows.
 
This wild and devastating love
will no longer stand for
anything less than entirety.

Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart

 I'm delighted to announce that my poetry collection - Eve Was a Realist: Poems for the Untamed Heart - has been published and is now available in paperback and ebook formats from the usual online outlets. 

I'm really grateful to everyone who has subscribed to my writings via this blog over the last twelve years. Your responses and support mean the world to me. Thank you. 

Liberation

 since way back when i felt inadequate, wherewithal-less

- not that i would have called it that back then -

so i set about finding people, things

that might adequatise me because

god forbid the shame of being less than

whatever the fuck late-stage capitalism

and the spiritual marketplace

tell us we should be.

 

on one particular day, not so long ago

i began to feel how much energy

had got tied up in trying to overcome this,

to this’s detriment, and how the overcoming

shamed this, so terribly,

this being the inadequacy, the lacking-ness.

 

this does feel wholly inadequate according to

whatever parameters might be applied, and for so long

i was in thrall to the idea that

something needed to be done about it

(i’m so glad i don’t believe that any more).

 

this (me? i don’t really know any more) feels utterly inadequate,

wholly lacking in all areas, totally without wherewithal -

not that that’s being claimed as a badge of honour,

or paraded in a look-at-me kind of way.

 

this inadequacy – i saw that day – never needed me

to take it on or pick up its cudgel or

attempt to correct it or overcome it or

better myself out of it or

love it or accept it or or or

take it to any number of healers or

self-described spiritual teachers or anyone else

who fell under the category of

people i thought were superior to me

to do with it whatever their schtick was (frankly,

all the schticks left it untouched, save

for feeling a little worse still,

having supped at their supposedly superior cup).

 

that day, it was a monumental relief to say:

this just is breathtakingly inadequate and

totally lacking in wherewithal (and

any other kinds of -withal there might be)

and right now,

i fucking love it,

not with some sappy welcome-it embrace-it love-it gloss

but with a sweating-in-the-mosh-pit,

too many beers and smudged mascara kind of love

that wants everyone (including me)

to keep their (possibly) well-meaning but

otherwise very misguided hands off it.

 

and that day this – my – inadequacy had never felt so good or

so real or so alive or so glorious, because that

was all it had ever wanted,

and it was such a liberation to repeat, on and on,

utterly inadequate and totally lacking in wherewithal,

and with each repetition

my body sighed and smiled and

i began to fit into myself like never before,

a yes throughout my being at the truth of this

and a wonder at how it is to be real.

 

Body

 And my body says:

there's a fucking cosmos in here

suns stars galaxies comets

you should know

I am so much more than 

a storehouse for your trauma or

a battleground for your conflicts or

the bearer of your scars or 

the carrier of your soul

so don't pull your reductive objectifying imperialist bullshit on me

I am not something to be colonised by

whatever good intentions you have this month

or your warped ideas 

about purity and perfection. 

Let's just say

I know all your sleights-of-hand

your baiting and switching

we both know who you are

and we both know that you should be

on your knees

sinking into me

worshipping at my feet

and howling at my very miraculousness. 

Aftermath

In panic

I ran

from one place to another

to another

to another,

from one person

to the next

and the next. 

I took to hiding

in the spaces between words - 

silence a temporary refuge. 

I took to disappearing

into the slivers of stillness

between moments,

those lulls in which

no-one was noticing -

(there are more of them than you think) - 

putting off the inevitability

of emergence. 

I was always going to have to come out,

eventually. 

Table-Turning

 I want us to rise up and start a war -

Or at least to cause a commotion.

I want us to go to town on a Saturday night

And start a fight. 

I want us to rain down blows 

And cause men to fear. 

I want us to lose our shit in public. 

Long have we borne, cared, endured. 

Long have we nursed, tended, understood. 

It's time the tables were turned. 

Contribution

Lying on my sofa in the late-afternoon sun

I sink into time, and time takes me 

To the duck-egg blue of the cabinet

And I see that somebody – somebodies –

Made all of this.

 

Wrote these books,

Painted these paintings,

Fitted these windows, more than once;

Plastered these walls,

Played this music,

And laid these pine floorboards,

A century and more ago.

 

Somebodies made these things of beauty,

These things of practicality,

And now their commingling voices

Come rippling through time.

 

Countless hands, countless minds,

Countless contributions, both seen and unseen;

Cups of tea made,

Dishes washed,

Secrets heard, 

Locks fixed.

 

Tears streaming down my face, now I see:

The preciousness of our souls cannot be measured

By the size or visibility of our contributions.

 

Wild

No more pain, the wind says - 

You've been too long in its quicksand. 

Beyond the muteness, 

Beyond the cravenness,

There's this -

This inlet where the tide comes in

These limpet-strewn rocks and

The orange beak of the oystercatcher

In the dim winter light.

Yes, layer upon layer has been stripped,

But what of wildness?

On this rain-lashed beach

It will no longer wait.

It wants me back:

I have been on loan to civility for far too long. 

Inhibition

If I was uninhibited
my hair would be wild and long
my eyes would be dark-ringed (like they used to be)
I would wear silver boots – legs akimbo -
and show my cleavage whenever I felt like it. 
 
If I was uninhibited
my house would be a sumptuous,
beautiful, eccentric mess -
as would I.
And if I was uninhibited
I would take up space like I meant it;
Sisters, there would be so much more of me.
 
If I was uninhibited, you would know me.
 
If I was uninhibited,
I would take back my sexuality -
lock stock and both smoking barrels -
and refashion it entirely for my own ends
 
If I was uninhibited
I would be spunky as you like
spilling over with generosity
I would be in the fray, punching my weight,
all muscles and teeth-baring,
snarling, howling, shrieking uproariously
and with the biggest shit-eating most glorious radiant grin
you have ever seen -
that is, when I wasn’t being silent because -
well, because.
 

On the Quiet

On the quiet, 
this cold and misty morning,
grace comes in - 
somewhere between sofa and window -
and tells me that I am forgiven.

Straight away,
I know that I am being forgiven
for trying to steal fire from the gods
and spilling my own jar of evils. 

Grace sneaks in
on the quiet,
subtle as always;
forgiveness does not come in a blaze of angels. 

You are forgiven, and I will be with you always. 
 

Bittersweet

I bathe in the bittersweetness
of ill sons
and bereaved friends
and strangers connecting
and and and
old friends back on track
and death in life
and birth after death
and the limitations of language
and the beauty of words
and pain with depth
and the realness of me
and all this turning upside down
and creation from destruction
and who'd have thought it
and I wouldn't have guessed
and we know so much
and we know so little

and the bittersweetness
sits in my heart
and pulls at my heartstrings
(you know we have heartstrings)
and I'm in love with it all
and I wouldn't want anything less
and I'm not looking for anything more

I bathe in bittersweetness,
that tang in the heart that leaves nothing to do
and nowhere to go
and the tears run down my cheeks
and one drops from the end of my nose
and I can't pretend that I don't love it all
and that this isn't what my heart was made for

The Second Coming

The meek shall inherit the earth. 

Quake in your boots:
Those who presume on the souls or bodies of others
Those who assume title, rank or reign
Those who betray heart-filled goodness,
Those who sunder the flesh of innocents to feed the maws of greed
Such vile, violent treason.

Quake in your boots:
The meek are rising to reclaim the earth 
This is the second coming. 

It Is Not Necessary

It is not necessary to demean yourself
Or to dramatize your life
(it is not a fiction
and neither are you).

The proliferation of things has brought us scant riches.

I grieve for the poverty of plenty,
for the ignorance of knowledge. 

Our souls do not long for complication. 

True nourishment is simple fare:
taste, touch, smell, sound, sight. 

The heart loves
The mind thinks
The stomach digests
You are the perfect orchestration of being,
an instrument of wonder. 

(It is not necessary to demean yourself). 

To Whom It May Concern

Stop. Just stop. 
Stop warring, aggressing and fighting. 
Stop pontificating, aggrandizing and diminishing. 
Stop consuming like you do
and stop despoiling the earth. 

Stop denying and lying. 
Stop killing, maiming, torturing, abusing and raping. 
Stop bullying, cajoling, intimidating, threatening, endangering.
Stop competing, favouring, trumpeting, boasting. 
Stop manipulating, disempowering, swindling and profiteering.
Stop terrorizing.like you do. 
You know who you are. 

Stop. Just stop. 

Still Standing

Without self-pity
Standing still, 
and still standing
having with-stood those waves
that threaten to obliterate:
shame, pain, grief. 

I simply stand
Not bowing, but willing
A stand neither rigid nor flaccid

I Am:
no more, no less. 

Water and rock,
we flow and contain
we are motion and stillness both.

All this life already come and gone,
and still you stand
because You Are:
no more, no less. 

The Walls of Jericho

What if we died to division,

to my-way-or-the-highway,

to squabbles, large or small,

to she-said-he-said,

feelings, good or bad

or memories, ditto?

What if we died to the sacred cows

of suffering, pleasure and pain,

to yes-but, if-only and not-now?

What if we died to the whole shebang?

To buying and selling,

to preaching and prostrating,

to taking a stance,

making a claim, or

having an opinion (right)

which makes yours (wrong)?

What if we stopped

and the walls of Jericho fell?

Iconoclasm

Body and soul were cleft,

cathedrals built on the bones of women

and wombs made unclean

Creation stemmed and stymied

by the sheer pain of denying that flesh is spirit

We went from true communion among us

to looking up to some idea of god

It is not that you are not your body,

for your body is the most sublime creation of what you are -

creativity made flesh

so that it may create -

Your constant companion through all your travails

The bearer of your sorrows

Worship not god but hand, eye, foot, breast

The true bringers of love and sustenance

Dismantle your temples and shrines

Make your icons ordinary

Tend to the divine in your midst

This wound runs deep in us all. 

I Beg To Differ

Let’s not sugar-coat this, please.

I am so dismayed –

the merchants and money-changers are still in the temple

the Pharisees continue to preach

the Samaritans are still being vilified

and Pilate is still

somewhat obsessively

washing his hands.

No wonder Mary Magdalene weeps. 

I understand

if you would rather run and hide

or stay silent

or comply.

I understand

if you are totally paralysed.

Let’s not try to make silk purses

out of this particular sow’s ears.