Tibet
(photo of Sera monastery by McKay Savage)
Across the ice we walk on knives, Guided by stars and ancient stone steps, Up rickety paths that skate between chasms, Through tiny corridors out of the sun. Over immense broken plains, towering mountains, With huge coloured banners stretched upon rock. Light bouncing off snow peaks gleaming morning, Like the golden roof of the retreat at Sera, With its garden of jewels. From one form to the next, we remember the sun through cold, clean air. The Dalai Lama holds spiritual and temporal power in Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th Dalai Lama (born 6 July, 1935) was compelled to flee that imprisoned country…
Continue Reading →The Royal Commission
Royal Commission by Samuel William Reynolds
A ‘plane is down; Once contented heads are bowed. Where the lotos grew there are skulls in the grass. The experts are in shame, clowns dance in the swamp And the fool whose heart burns takes in the pleasures of the town. Now a `plane is down Inquiry lines are opened up, all concerned are getting counsel Transcript fees are mounting high — People in the clear scream At the ones who run for cover but the evidence just sits there, While the heavens frown. Monkeys in the sun Spin a giant wheel of fortune; A man out of place…
Continue Reading →Horror Matinee
(Helgi Halldorsson)
Renfield: Whither Dracula? Where indeed!? Where are the Z-grade starlets you need To scream and scream again And bleed? Those clods in boots to stake their claim Twixt starlets’ Legs And in your heart? Where thou art? Helsing: A mirror on the table, a picture window. Sunlight streams…A golden cross and a vicar’s dreams. A holy chant. The vestibule. You withstand all but ridicule. You belong to a crueler age When gothic treats crowded the stage And children fretted in the dark Vampyre: And welcomed terrors light rendered stark. The moon, for example, is a perfect shape. Why does it…
Continue Reading →No There There
Ascent of the Blessed by Hieronymus Bosch
Rabbits would explode as we paused to reload, Blown to the winds their marrow-bone jelly, Now I’m sitting on my own somewhere Admiring the stained glass windows. Sick light, in single shafts On cold concrete floors. My eyes bled as I turned my head And dreamed of a time When the wind is a raw, guttural laugh And slaloms through the streets like a press-gang. Bouquets mean nothing to the man Who was clinically dead for five minutes – He said to his friends when they asked How it felt, that the next one to ask, well, he’d show them……
Continue Reading →Would You Like a Lift?
It’s dark, cold, and good folk are in bed Dreaming of what the blue noise said, maybe about them, Such old and shrunken people, smiles at the ready, Toothless and with balding hearts On which of course you dote – Let them be, I’ll take you to the pictures, Just get my coat. Wait, something is missing, a lacuna in the room, See the mirrors on the ceiling reflect a face of doom, Excuse me, are you sleeping, let me wrap you up… These old shrunken people, no teeth, When proposed to or accepted, relief! Coffee and cigarettes lay waiting…
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