Robert Graham
Conjunction
“In order to write poetry”, I say,
“I have to feel passion”.
“What is there that you would still like to do?”
the woman asks me,
blazing blue-eyes, searching,
exhorting me to abjure personal limitations.
My mind is blank.
For sometimes the immensity
of what we really want
defies words,
even defies our own understanding,
below the threshold of our consciousness
a sudden, momentary yearning,
beyond all reason,
too outrageous to articulate.
Conversing, I forget the time.
All too soon the Conjunction ends.
“Enjoy the rest of your journey”, I say,
“I mean your life’s journey”.
And she, with her father and her son,
vanish into the crowds at St. Pancras Station.
And I to the underground
To wander distractedly
In subterranean spaces.
Scattered Leaves1
Goodbye
He said to to her
And went and bought a book
. It was called Some Day I’ll Find You.
Perhaps.
Find whom?
Man or woman
Angel, god or goddess
Expressing the unknowable
Godhead?
Perchance
Behold a face
That created the stars
And launched a thousand galaxies
With love
Perchance
To discover
the internal landscape
Wherein the Source of all beauty
Resides.
To sing
Nunc Dimittis
In the face of beauty
So unearthly that fear of death
Departs
To sing
Nunc Dimittis
When you have found this Source
Which Wisdom through the ages says
Exists.
Maybe
The Higher Self
Projects itself outward
And sees others in transfigured
Beauty
Maybe
Then recognise
Love in those around us
To cherish family and friends
With Love
*
I’m lost2
Outskirts of town
Unfamiliar landscape
Global positioning system
Useless
Dreaming
The mind brings us
Face to face with the truth
Is it in dreams that we perhaps
Awake?
To change
Our destiny
Unfreezing the psyche
Loosening our tectonic plates
But how?
Perhaps
We need to drink
From the waters of Lethe
In this life: that we may forget
our past.
To sail
To the Land of
Lost Content maybe we
Perforce must lose sight of the shores
Of home
Rip tide
Sail into it
You will be borne away
Your life will never be the same
Ever
………These lines
Scattered pieces
Of a jigsaw puzzle
Awaiting our Higher Self to
Connect
*****
(1) “And within its depths, I saw ingathered,
bound by love in a single volume,
the scattered leaves of all the universe.”
(2) “In the middle of the road of my life
I awoke in the dark wood
where the true way was wholly lost”
- Dante
Your Precious Gift
Our parting kiss
Through Airport Security
Secretly smuggled!
The departure lounge
Playing Beethovens’ Seventh
A song of springtime.
I Wonder
I wonder why you come to me in dreams
As if there is some business left undone?
You want to speak to me - or so it seems –
And know that if you call me, I will come.
I wonder whether you will ever know
How much, across the years, I’ve thought of you
At light of dawn, or sunset’s afterglow,
By starlit nights, or early morning dew.
Perhaps beyond the shadows of the cave,
In some Platonic realm we really live
Transfigured, new; perhaps beyond the grave
We’ll know the pain we caused, and both forgive.
But then, I cast aside philosophy
And wonder: do you ever dream of me?
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