Looking for My Name

I'm looking for my name.
Have you seen it?

It cannot be
a sound invented
by someone else
before I could speak
because your name is invented 

only by you.

Nor can it be
a sound copied
from man to child
across so many centuries
nobody really knows
where it came from
because I know
where my name comes from.

It comes from
the deepest part of me,
deep and dark and wet,
where muscles pound
and light is myth.

It comes from
the tenderest part of me,
which I'm afraid to touch
in case I feel
the flickering of eyelashes
magnified by a million.

It comes from
the youngest part of me,
as young as the unborn future,
so young
it is coming into being
forever.

So I know where my name comes from,
but that doesn't help me know
where it is.

It's in an unnamed place
as layered as road
as hidden as hurt
as alive as magma.

And when I find it,
I will carry it to the Sun
in the East,
hold it up
in my two hands
and blow.

The Thirty-First of December

Usually, when we celebrate,
we remember:

a child leaving its mother's womb,
the formalisation of love,
the departure of a loved one.

Tonight, we celebrate endings,
but we have no endings to remember
because nothing ever really ends.

In truth,
life flows into life
as year flows into year.

However,
I have no doubt
that the vast puzzle of existence
is gradually solving itself

moment by moment,
with each dawning of truth,
with each feeling of love.

I have faith
that we are gathered
in the midst of a perfection
being made
quite simply
for the pleasure of doing so.

And that one day,
everything will end.

And so all our celebrations of endings
are being held
in the name of that one ending
still to come
when all that was ever made or dreamed
is finally complete.

Water

You may think that water is just
the primary moving part
in the machine 
of the world.

But when it rains,
it calls out to us
from gutters, drainpipes, 
rivers and ditches.

And so it is a communicator
of the secret and forgotten passages
by which it passes through
the human layer.

And when it rains,
the roads and pavements shine
and street lights live again
in the darkness of puddles.

It is a renewer
more honest than snow,
and it gives second chances to those
who have burned theirs away.

Water does so many things
and does them so many times.
Perhaps its power of revival stems
from making each its first.

No Prior Experience

Do you realise 
that babies 
are being born 
every second
with no
prior 
experience? 

That's why you get all this crying 
and digestive malfunction 
going on for 
years!

Just think
if we could find a way
to get babies born 
with a reasonable grounding 
in the mechanics 
and philosophy 
of being a person. 

Wouldn't that be 
fantastic?!

Just think of it!

Executive babies!!!

This Is Not About You

Go and look at the waves
See how they crash on the shore
Again and again and again
No newspaper reports them
You saw them with your own eyes
No billionaire chose for you to see them
You went of your own accord
No authority gave you permission
You did that yourself
But this isn't about you
It's about the waves
And how they do what they do
Without the slightest human intervention
And it's about more than the waves
It's about the dripping in limestone caves
It's about the creatures in the Mariana Trench
It's about the formation of rain drops at two and a half thousand feet
And how none of them depend on humans
They do not require photographers in order to exist
No commissioning editor controls their existence
They just are
And they just do
Whether you know it or not
And that's not just true on Earth
But in the great red spot on Jupiter
And the soft gyres of the atmosphere of Neptune
And in the nuclear fusion of the sun
And in the elliptical paths of comets
And in the swallowed light of black holes
And in the slow but inexorable expansion of the universe
None of it is about humans
None of it is about you
None of it cares about you or has the capacity to do so
It has been happening
It is happening
And it will go on happening
Whether you know it or not
Whether it's in a big book of high resolution photographs or not
Whether any scientist anywhere has observed it or ever will
And this is true of almost the entire universe
Ninety-nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine percent of it
Everything except for the tiny lantern of cognition here on Earth
A theatre in which every audience member also sits upon the stage
Almost everything that has happened, is happening and will happen
Does so wholly one hundred percent regardless of humans or whatever they happen to think
And the crashing waves on the beach
Are just the beginning of a thread
That begins here
And wraps all the way around the universe
And you can go
And look at them
And remember
This is not about you
None of this is about you

River and Her Man

I, a witty human,
buzz at the surf.
It, a muscular river,
paws at the shale.

A mosquito and a hippopotamus,
we live up to the limit
of each other's worlds.

Applying tiny forces
in highly specific ways,
I call myself
sophisticated.

It roars in ascent
and in retreat,
ever outward facing.

It does not choose.
It is the most complete
embodiment of its own
possibilities.

In a boat, I row across it,
drawing a line
in the extended now
of my inner world.

It whispers
directly into my dreams,
from beneath,
at the softest part of my mind,

rolling against my
least-known shore
and doing what she
always does,

shaping me in ways
my clever brain
will never comprehend.

Half Man Feel Double

I came away from it all
Pulsing with seismic aftershocks

The feeling of having been open
Of having let my substance slip
From cracked hands

It left new marks, 
New scores and scuffs
On oak-hard skin
Added to a thousand,
No different to the casual observer
Than the last raindrop to smear the window,
But spelled out on me in pain
Like a word

I am scattered across oceans,
And the effort of holding myself together
Is so great
That the needle of time
Scratching out tunes on my surface
Pushes too hard, too deep
From the white and dead
Into the living tissue beneath

Painting a Statue of a Woman

Imagine:
the task of applying a coat of paint
to the statue of a woman; 
it would be to apply oneself 
to each and every aspect of her beauty, 
at once frail and human,
at once ethereal and undying; 
it would be a love letter to her, 
even if the statue represented 
no soul on Earth, 
and a love letter to the world; 

and yet all they would see is, 
oh, the statue is duck-egg blue now; 
yesterday, it was white; 
they would not understand the tenderness 
in each brushstroke, 
nor how it felt to take 
each aspect of her unworldly, 
worldly beauty in hand
and show that you understood it; 
understood its posture and geometry, 
understood its relationship with light 
and the human eye; 

the whole time, you would be whispering 
I know, I know, I know, 
I know; and she quietly, not looking up at you, 
would say: I love, I love, I love, 
I love; and you would ask - how could you not? 
You are made of love 
as all works of art are acts of love, 
love letters to the world 
written in self creation and self sacrifice, 
in genuine communication,
with the intention of being overheard; 

every second you would fear 
putting your brush in the pot of duck-egg blue paint 
only to find it dry, 
yet your brush would find it ever lubricious, 
new-smelling with the just-made odour of fresh paint, 
and as you completed the painting, 
you would find yourself wishing 
the gentle agony would never end;

once finished,
you would refrain from kissing her
still-wet duck-egg blue cheek,
and gather up your paints
and painting paraphernalia
as the brightness eased from the light, 
and you would go home, 
your bicycle wheels squealing,
and you sighing in the crepuscule, 
rejoicing that you're going home, 
lamenting that the day and all the work is done.

Solving the Surface

Just as the people could turn their heads in unison
and form a bold new republic,
the waters of the ocean could shift
and reveal the shale and rushes 
of a new continent,
a glistening child world,
knitted together
from corals and ancient whale song

And now knowing that,
you gaze entranced at the water's surface,
wondering what seashell charm
could compel it

Knowing it is possible because it can be seen
in the privacy of the mind's garden
and so also knowing:
the way exists

Shimmering footprints of moonlight hint at 
the great choreography that would enthrall 
the ocean's heart, 
so that it willingly surrendered:

brooding soil, 
swallowed islands, 
lost coins, 
monstrous skeletons,
surf,
mermaid-bearing delirium,
scatterings of stolen light,
fallen mountains, 

and all the other treasures
to which your hand is connect
when you but place it beneath the surface
of the gurgling, swaying, 
salt-crazed waters

And so you stand at the railing,
your eye stroking the soft blue-grey fabrics
and gently coaxing
the birth of a new world

Never So Quiet

As I played the opening bars of my new composition
An old man stood in the darkness and began to dance
A curious dance in which he would spread out one hand
And then the other
And then there was a curious bowing routine
In which he would tilt forwards and backwards
And raise his hat to the young woman in the row behind him
It was mesmerising as a candle in a darkened room
It was profound as broken silence
It was tragic as a fugitive's fatal error
It was a dance none of whose steps or movements he would be able to recall
Though he stared at his polished shoes
And gazed at his beautiful old man's hands
And when he realised at last
That he had not performed the dance
It had been the other way around
He smiled and bowed until his forehead touched the soil of a distant shore