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Poems by Steve Taylor The Universal Lottery (to my Children)
Your eyes staring wide with wonder At a million mundane miracles 'Who would have thought it?' They seem to say. 'Countless strands of DNA Billions of potential people And me, the chosen one, Plucked out of oblivion Given form and life and freedom To explore this glorious gleaming world. I've won the universal lottery And I'm going to savour every moment.' A shining surging fountain Undiluted unpolluted From the source of life itself Every impulse like a ray of light Blazing to expression. Facing every moment Like a flower open to the sun Embracing every new experience Like a friend from your last life-time. No wonder you're so carefree. How could problems ever exist in a world so real and beautiful? How could shadows of worry ever fall Across such incandescent is-ness? I will be your guide I will nurture and protect you But I have nothing to teach you I can only learn The
Awakening Earth The
summer evening sky Blue
blotting paper with a thousand colours blurring Splintering
sunlight behind the clouds As
sharp and clear as laser beams I
can sense the turning of the earth The
whole solar system drifting through space Like
a raft that set sail billions of years ago And
I can see that the sky is not solid or finite That
there are no boundaries Between
the sky and the universe These
fields and the universe Me
and the universe This is the cosmos Surrounding
me, immersing me The
same space that stretches Through
endless solar systems and galaxies
Fills
this evening sky Infinite
emptiness Which isn't blankly indifferent but
somehow benign and radiant
And
I sense that the earth is a being of itself Whose
body is molten rock Whose
neo-cortex is this surface of soil
And
whose neurons are living beings And
like a particle collapsing into a wave
An island sinking into the sea The
illusion of There
is no I anymore Only
this glorious sentient pearl This
ocean flowing through me This
ocean which is me
The
Trick
The
trick is to trust yourself not
to try to trap your prey or
seduce your lover If
you feel frustrated the
animal will scent your anxiety and
veer away your
lover will sense your desperation and
spurn you Your
soul is delicate you
can't shake and squeeze her or
scrape her sides for
a few last crumbs of insight She
needs time to collect herself
to
gather her dissipated power Too
much force will break the mould
of
invisible patterns and potentials which
give birth to beauty. She
may seem barren now but
she's not dead, only sleeping New
life is slowly seeping through from
that deep underground source making
her moist and rich again until
she's ready to release strange
new joys Your
soul has never you let you down and
never will as
long as you are patient as
long as you are still as long as you are still
The
Meaning You can't explain the meaning Reduce it to thought or confine it to words Break it down to basic building blocks Or trace it back to an origin.
But when you see the meaning, you know it. Just when you've forgotten it existed You're driving along the motorway and turn your head to the side As if someone's tapped your shoulder And it's there, stretched across the evening sky Filling the spaces between the clouds. You open the door to empty the bin And it's there, rustling with the wind through the trees Stroking your face softly like a lover. You lift your head back to catch the rain And it's there, falling with the infinite silver points Bringing down benevolence from the sky.
Your eyes spring open in the middle of the night As if there's an intruder, an unfamiliar noise And it's there – in the dense, rich darkness that fills the room And the glow of unconscious communion That enfolds you and your partner. The most familiar forgotten place Your home from a previous lifetime A mother's soothing presence And her warm enfolding arms.
The
Secrets You can't grasp at the secrets Prise them from the earth Or pluck them from the air. The harder you try to hold them The more they lose their form Until they leak away. You can grind matter down to the tiniest grains Until it collapses into nothing But its essence will always elude you. You can pin nature down and torture her But she'll never tell you what she knows. You can't use force, or even effort You can only create the right conditions Reverse the beam of your attention And make a sacred space inside. Let your mind become as empty as a cloudless sky And as calm as the surface of a lake Until your depths are rich with stillness And the channel is wide and clear enough. For the secrets to flow through And reveal themselves to you. Moments
Without Thought A
moment without thought And
the background noise ceases And
I can suddenly hear The
silence between sounds The
silence beneath sound From
which sounds emerge Like
waves from the sea. A
moment without thought And
the fog disperses And
the world is filled With
translucent light New
dimensions of detail And
sharpness and colour and depth. A
moment without thought And
these suburban streets Are
a pristine new world Like
a garden glistening with dew The
morning after creation As
if a husk of familiarity The
accumulated dust of a million automatic perceptions Has
cracked and fallen away Leaving
naked primal isness. A
moment without thought And
I'm no longer standing separate No
longer an island but part of the sea No
longer a static centre But
part of the flowing stream A
moment without thought And
the train has stopped between stations
And
there was never any motion, never any track
A
moment like a wormhole Infinitely
expanding Like
stepping through a narrow gate To
find an endless open plain The
panorama of the present. And
this new world of no-thought Is
neither alien or unfamiliar But
a place where benevolence blows through the air And
soft shimmering energy fills every space
And
the sunlight is the translucent white light of spirit The
deepest, closest, warmest place The
ground where I am rooted. The
Force Four o'clock in the morning pacing about the room trying to coax our baby back to sleep I look over to the window - A square of pure primeval darkness between the half drawn curtains millions of years old millions of miles deep a pocket of the universe a tunnel into space black, cold and silent but alive. A force that flows through and fills the room thick and viscous but at the same time vapour thin and subtle enveloping and entering me like smoke, foaming through my body slow and heavy, merging and becoming me. Inside me there's only emptiness Only darkness Awesome darkness, of a frightening immensity But glowing with warm radiance
Making Time Always struggling to make some time to prise apart my duties and claim a little space for myself to fill with achievement and activity. But why should I rush? There is no shortage of time You are not sandwiched between birth and death The gates have dissolved away And there's an endless open space This is only a phase Not the entire journey. There is no need to regret Choices you have made Opportunities you didn't take There will be time To take other paths And rectify mistakes.
Birth and death are only demarcations Lines that we step over Not walls that hem us in.
There will always be time.
Whenever
you think Whenever
you think you're something Remember
that you are nothing. Whenever
you're full of your own success And
people applaud and compliment you And
you're proud of your achievements Remember
that you are nothing. Whenever
you think that you've arrived Remember
that this is a journey With
no destination, or even stations. Whenever
you think you're the centre of the world
Remember
this is only the circumference And
the world will turn without you. Whenever
you think you have the answers Remember
that questions are never fixed But
always flowing and reforming. Whenever
you think you're going somewhere Remember
there is never anywhere but here. And
then When
you know that you are nothing When
you know that you are nowhere Remember
that you are everything Remember
that you are everywhere Remember
that you are
The
Scarecrow Trees The scarecrow trees Clawing the darkness Against the curve of the hills Are speaking an ancient language A vibration so slow and deep Words that take hundreds of years to voice Stretched across the centuries Like an infinite string The echo of a cosmic accident from the beginning of the universe I am an intruder But as I walk amongst them An ancient part of me Deeper than my mind Older than my body Catches the vibration and stirs to life Like a refugee who hears his native tongue And a sense of reassurance Pulses slowly through me As if I am home at last The
River Inside me There
is a river inside me Rippling
with effervescent life Gently
pulsating with waves of bliss. Sometimes
I'm pulled away to the plateau And
join the crowds jostling for space and time I
lose myself amongst the melee Like
a plant so entangled It
can't trace its roots back to the ground. Sometimes
I'm swept away by whirls of thought Cascades
of images and scenarios That
cloud the present until it almost disappears.
But
the thread is never broken And
when the storm fades away and stillness returns I
sink back gently and let the river immerse me again. And
sometimes when my mind is silent My
whole being becomes translucent The
barriers dissolve This
river swells and spills Until
I overflow with ecstasy And
return to the Source.
The
night is alive I
wake up to the diluted darkness Grey
geometric streets Only
a few stars strong enough To
penetrate the orange streetlight haze But
the night is alive The
space from the ground to the sky Is
filled with a crackling electric haze Particles
spinning and clashing As
they weave in and out of existence.
The
hissing of cosmic radiance From
the first millisecond of creation And
encompassing every moment since. Every
dispersed atom, swimming across this endless sea Singing
their original oneness.
The Intruder Who is this intruder? This black shadow spreading across the bright open space this uninvited guest poisoning the atmosphere with pride chattering and smiling smugly curving the currents of air sucking attention towards himself like a black hole There should be something pure and full here a shimmering golden cloud the still surface of a lake whose shores aren't defined whose water merges and fades but never stops some unknown element lighter than gas, heavier than air glowing with a heat that never burns intensely bright but never blinding It's still there - I can sense it. Trapped inside the room, I can hear it outside. A pure blue sky covered by cloud. But the shadow is stalking standing astride making distinctions defining a space demarcating his territory assuming an identity occupying emptiness.
The Structure Dissolves I don't know whether this is desperation or elation There's only a gentle push between the two The slightest breeze could sway me to either side But somehow it doesn't matter It's just the same landscape through a different lens A structure which seemed so sturdy So deep-rooted I didn't even realise it was there A house I hardly ever set foot outside And started to think was the whole world Is so fragile that it's about to dissolve Just a certain frequency A certain pitch of stress and turmoil And the mighty edifice crumbles Leaving nothing behind A trail of dissipating smoke I don't know what's behind it What will emerge in its place But something vast and subtle A pressure, gentle but unstoppable Is pushing through All I have to do is trust it To let myself be blanked out To let this island be submerged By the mighty ocean. Sleeping
Baby (Finally) It takes so long to get him to sleep but when he finally goes he falls so far into silent stillness I peer between the curtains at the radiant blackness between the stars and I can hear subtle vibrations of harmony echoing from the depths of the universe And that's where he is floating through the infinite universe of his own being stars shining inside him the sea gently swelling with slow serene waves inside him The
End of Desire If
what you want is endless pleasure, wealth or fame Then
you will always want. You
will never reach a place of peace You
will never rest content The
tentacles of desire will always be grasping. A
few moments of respite While
you digest the experience And
then the same restless hunger The
gnawing incompleteness Only
a little more powerful and rarefied Because
your palette is a little more refined And
your sense of taste a little more dulled. Desire
is like a fertilised cell That
forever splits and multiplies And
never reaches a final form Only
disperses and dilutes your mind And
takes life even further away from the source. You
might think you've reached the end of desire But
then the mist clears And
you realise this peak is only a plateau The
bottom of an even higher peak. Seeking
attention is only a sign That
something is lacking inside you
And
the harder you search for happiness Turning
the world upside down For
a legendary treasure which was never there The
more you lose touch with the shining source Of
peace and joy inside you. Don't
desire anything except
the end of desire
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