Feedback from a Mystic
with a happy, smiling face,
‘Andrew arose to dream a life
shortly before his birth;
choosing a fate to rock you,
to knock you off your perch;
a courier from the highest,
teaching to be yourself.
‘Stop all your pointless whining,
smile like the sun, use warmth
melting the walls of your wardrobe,
smashing the glass of your pane.’
For he’s a jolly good fellow,
when the saints go marching in.
Cool,
to love a boy who’s cool:
awesome - and crucial
to be full of awe - well
full of well-spring
dripping hope; for a boy who’s thirteen,
cool.
Me, I started to discern
how the world rotates around my brain.
I’m a snappy dresser, centre of gravity;
moi, it’s me, it’s me, me, me!
I know about sociology,
myself, I ‘get’ our planet’s ecology,
the politics of peacetime - a thought-leader
- a wizard quite as fine as Harry Potter.
I also notice, over a nice lunch,
how everyone I eyeball
sees themselves spinning at the fulcrum
of the universe: an amalgam
of magical good looks, theorems
and unaccountable delusion.
it came down a ramp
from the church before Easter;
a statue of Christ.
He dropped onto lower ground,
arms raised, before he returned.
Some archetype
disturbed my mammal eye.
An unmoving,
unblinking,
unlicking
stare
made me swear a dragon
could leap from
a wooden body
and scorch me raw;
eyebrows and hair.
The day of Jesus washing feet’s today,
a day when everything’s replete today.
I’ve gobbled fruit and vegetables down
and made a last attack on meat today.
My stomach’s full, my teeth have done their work
so now’s a time that we could meet today.
Can we tell our truth in love and coldness
or fire up anger, lies and cheat today?
All circles start and finish on a rim
and round and round we could repeat today.
It’s warm in sunshine, colder in the dark
and air is shifted up by heat today.
A smoke ring turns, expands and spirals up;
a day when everything’s complete today.
Together, we march like frail
wheat brushed by breath
on the day that Jesus fell
- the Friday of his death.
A procession sways for an hour,
a thousand people strong
and an empty cross with flowers
suggests that he has gone.
It’s obvious - but still that old shock
of death, a rising sob, an ache,
until a group of women gossip,
yak, distract my mind in a race;
closing up my heart as we step
to the rhythm of a funeral pace.
