The Rubicon

I have crossed the boundary
The die has been cast
Between self and non self
The terrain of doubt
The land of fear
Escaping into something
Light, ethereal, gossamer thread
The federation of states
Particle and wave
Consciousness or
Knowledge?
Perception or
Reality?
What do I know?
What do I perceive?
The difference is subtle
Yet dangerous, seductive
And casting a spell, weaving
Its sensuous, drifting
Invitation.
I take a decisive and irrevocable step
A loss of self. But who is self?
Where do I end and you begin?
No I have left that place!
Yet some part of my mind
Lingers
Looks back and regrets.

Choice?

Why do I reject the whole
In favour of the parts?
Why do I choose to be special
With all the pain it brings?
Me, myself, I
Separation, space and time
That’s what my cherished uniqueness brings.

Why do I reject the whole
In favour of the parts?
Why do I choose to judge
With all the pain it inflicts?
You, stranger, danger
Fear, guilt and anger
That’s what my ego brings

Why do I reject the whole
In favour of the parts?

Indra's Net

Interbeing;
infinite dimension
dependent origination
I only exist
because you do
in you I see me
in me I feel you.

When this isn’t
that isn’t.

Man;
volitional formations
feeling, craving, sensation
consciousness
anthropocentric
alienation
we declare our sovereignty
and despair.

Separated, eviscerated
Alone.

Opal coalescence
indigo interpenetration
intimately connected
mutually arising.
Indra’s net catches me
In mid fall.

From Your Seat On My Couch

We speak,
words which seem to have meaning,
concepts.
Mental representations of,
abstract objects.
Red, which is common to
apples, cherries and blood,
and all bachelors are unmarried.
You can see that it's true just lying on your couch.

Yet isn't it all made up?
Don't we weave,
concoctions,
of energy and light?
Yet, unconcious,
we believe them,
as if apples, cherries, bachelors
and blood
are real from where we sit on our couch

The illusion of form.
I sit at a desk,
writing.
An invention of matter and life,
a play,
where apples, cherries and blood
are bachelors
and red will never marry
while you sit and watch from your seat on my couch.

Dissolving Duality

Let me make love to your mind
take your hand and weave together
dissolving duality
the dissolution of deceptive
concepts.
Recurring madness
life after life

Let me seduce your thoughts
tempt you away from
seductive separation
the sentence of salacious
solitude.
Recurring insanity
life after life.

Let me enter you
penetrate your loneliness
enveloping ecstacy
the esoteric erotic
wholeness.
Recurring beauty
endless upon endless endless, light

I missed my mother today

I missed my mother today
I wanted to know what she thought
Does this suit me Mum?
The colour?
What about the length?
What about how the seams lay?

I missed my mother today
she would know and
she would care
not flatter.
She would know exactly
what to say.

I missed my mother today
there are some moments
when only she will do
one’s reflection
distorted , yet familiar
In every way.

After wine and Snow Patrol

The most profound and frightening experience
I wouldn’t have missed it for the world
descent into madness, fear and desperation
I looked death in the face
her seductive embrace beckoned me home
running with the crazies
wild laughter and cutting sarcasm
she took my hand and showed me
deceit and a wildness of mind of spirit
and of intoxication and wilful endeavours
life in a maze of hedonism and laughter
aching loneliness and partaking of endgames
and drama of affliction and fortunes
of the untenable life in a whirl of
Sweeping vistas of motorways and
listening to Morse code and miles and
miles of nothing and something
in the essence of knowing and disbelieving
in you and me.
The creeping of insects across my skin
I wake to deadening terror of guilt and pain
wrapped in Max Mara suits
endless meetings of air worthiness and steely
museums of the spineless creatures of mirth
with wild hair and mascara
groomed senses of what is right and what is
WRONG.
The passion of hate and the love of despair
I cringed from the longing and the want.
It isn’t wrong to be sad
to be melancholic to bear the weight of
the past with the hope of the future
but what of now? What of you and of me?
The garden, the house I wandered between
in vague hope of finding who and why
in gentle dancing graces of light and air
and the aura of your presence and the aim of
life here and beyond.
Tearing the bonds of energy in sequence of
Fibonacci and with you and with me
we disappear without a trace.

Alienation

Show me the path to take me home,
for my map is not of this land,
though born of its soil,
it is strange to me,
why I am here?
Set me free from doubt and fear.

Show me the guide who will lead me there
for I know you not,
though I have lived with your ere long
you are strange to me,
why am I in your life?
Set me free from loss and strife.

Show me how to leave my mind
their voices haunt my dreams
though they seem to know me well
they are strange to me
why do they hurt me so?
Set me free from grief and woe.

Show me my father’s house,
for I crave his healing touch,
he knows who I am, and who I was to be.
though he sent me here
I no longer know why
Let me free; let me die.

Sestina

It is the ultimate illusion,
said the sage to the mind,
to seek the lessons of life,
in the archive of knowledge;
if you wish to know the secrets of the soul,
look inside you to the heart.

Though I knew this in my heart,
I continued to live the illusion,
I ignored the song of my soul,
I succumbed to the call of my mind;
safe as I thought in the knowledge,
that I was in charge of my life.

So 43 years of life,
went by dismissing the heart;
years of gathering knowledge,
weaving, deceptive, artful illusions;
slowly entrapped by my mind,
slowly starving my soul.

But one can’t forever ignore, the quiet voice of the soul,
the meaning of life after life
the meaning of mind within mind,
the ache of the lonely heart.
Although it takes time to see the illusion,
it indeed takes time to acknowledge,

the sense that it’s not about knowledge,
but is a quest for the soul.
to see through the illusion,
that we have no answers to life,
to find truth is in heart,
not in delusionary mind.

So pray not be entranced by your mind,
pray not be a seeker of knowledge.
Fall in love with your heart,
dance a waltz with your soul,
finally shatter the illusion
that you know all there is to about life

So as I now watch the illusion of my mind,
Trying to understand life and the soul,
I know true knowledge lives in the heart, and I no longer seek.

Haiku - I think !

Fire fox run free,
claim this ancient land your own,
Night stealth hunter be.

Argentine Tango

Passion
She caresses her thigh
Against his
Eyes with fire
Longing and need
Media luna, they trace the moon

Desire
He clasps her hips
To his
Bodies in tempo
Yearning and ache
Molinete, they circle the wheel

Fascination
Their cadence across the floor
Staccato steps
Duelling feet
Challenge and tease
Colgadas, they spin the web

Obsession
Woman dragged across the floor
In masculine conquest
Hero and villain, threats and feints
Dominance and submission
Volcados, Adorno, attack & succumb

Veneration
He lifts her high
She melts her way down
Hands trace the divine man
Ecstasy and heat
Elevaditos, soaring far and high

Culmination
Dancing as one
Habanera rhythm
Parada, Gancho & Ocho
Climax and fulfilment
Resolución, un fin en sí mismo

Infra

In homage to the ballet by Wayne McGregor

My aching loneliness
in the crowd
they walk above me
around me
I long for their touch
their perception
their sensitivity.

The cello
cries my loss
the violin
sings my aching need.
I am below
they above
oblivious, unconscious.

Below audible range
longer than visible light
I am crushed
by the weight of lives
the frequency of second C
resistance of relative motion
they dance not lightly on my soul.

I fall in darkness
grey light illuminates
my descent
dissolving charcoal
discordant phonetics
Baudot code
radio silence


Amanda Wade 12/12/08

Three Poems

Teresa’s Ecstasy

He came to me in the night
the sleep of God still in my eyes
his lambent beauty,
young, virile and shining
I am indeed a willing victim
of his essence of light
the thrust of his spear
piercing my soul
the heat and fire, possession and pain.
I moaned in fear and doubt?
No, in ecstasy and joy
a violent love, yet manifest so sweet.
My feminine darkness
cleaved in aching response.


The Reagent

I am a transformer.
I transfigure.
I dissolve barriers
I break and reform anew.
The fire of the burning bush
the phoenix
burnt yet not consumed.

No I am not such.
I burn and bleed,
a test substance
sacrificed to elicit reaction,
to confirm the existence of others

and in the process, I am engulfed.
Purity lost in impurity
the fire of the burning stake
the witch
burnt, blistered and devoured.


Occasions of Experience (with thanks to Whitehead & Rescher)

I am of my mind and my mind is of me.
I have lived before through acres of time.
Infused with that past
I open the door to the timelessness
of now.
Interrelated, co-existent
the design of everyday things,
affords me the perception
of possibilities
latent in the universe,
waiting for me to act
in unison with who I was
and who I am to be.
Universal and infinite sets
all objects contained within oneself
no separation.
The phenomenal illusion
the koan
of seeking and being sought
the processual nature of existence
a matter of this and now that
storms and heat waves
are every bit as real as dogs and oranges.
Time and change
self engendering and self perpetuating
the handbook of nature states
what arises in the course of time
perishes in the course of time.
The non dual truth
Of me and of you.
We are all the same
in becoming actual occasions
of change and interdependence
living joys and sorrows
moving unendingly
towards possibilities,
latent
in the universe,
waiting for us to act.