BLINDNESS KINDNESS
The Sun shines in a bucket of water and doesn't get wet
Blindness Kindness POEMS OF 1966
BRIAN TAYLOR
Brian Taylor www.universaloctopus.com
BLINDNESSKINDNESS POEMS OF 1966
Brian Taylor
www.universaloctopus.com
OTHER PUBLICATIONS Worm’s Eye View Going Out There is No Other Coming Back There is No Trace Blondin & Other Poems Toi et Moi Vienna Vajras & Dorjes Basic Buddhism for a World in Trouble Dependent Origination (Paţiccasamuppāda) What is Buddhism? The Living Waters of Buddhism Buddhism and Drugs Basic Buddhist Meditation The Five Buddhist Precepts The Ten Fetters (Saŋyojana) Centre: The Truth about Everything The Universal Octopus & Mr Tao Previous Lives & Astrals Oxford Blues Gnomonic Verses Buddhist Pali Chants with English Translations
COPYRIGHT © 1968 BRIAN F TAYLOR Published by Universal Octopus 2017 www.universaloctopus.com A catalogue record of this book is available from the British library. ISBN 978-0-9956346-3-3 All rights reserved.
For Morn
CONTENTS THE WOMAN AND THE SAINT… 1 FOR MOTHER AND CHILD… 2 A SHELL… 6 MATTER IS DEAD… 7 M-M-M-M-MEUM… 8 JOE-CHAIR… 8 YOU WORRY? YOU?... 9 THE BROKEN AND TRANSCENDED… 10 DEEP DOWN TO DEATH… 11 PYRAMIDS AND SARCOPHAGI… 13 IN A FLAT… 14 THE HAPPIEST OLD… 15 BISHOP’S POEM… 15 GARDEN FENCE REPAIRED… 16 YOU KNOW ABOUT VIETNAM?... 17 CHRIST SAID… 18 WHICH DO YOU DO?... 19 SMILE… 19 A CANDLE AND ITS CONCEPT… 20 NO EXIT… 21 HICKORY DICKORY DOCK… 24
CUT INTO THE HUMAN WOOD… 26 TO BELIEVERS IN OUR GOVERNMENTS… 27 NOBODY WILL HEAR YOU DEAD… 28 WHAT SHALL I DO?... 29 YOU ARE AT PEACE… 30 SWEET BAUM… 31 A TREE CLIMBED OVER THE WALL… 31 PUNISHMENT FOR LISTENING IS HEARING… 31 THE FALL… 32 THE HUMBLE WERE GREAT ONCE… 32 GREAT MEN… 33 NOW… 34 LIONS AND LAMBS… 35 WALKING… 35 WHAT’S THAT?... 36 MY HEAD IS CLEAR TODAY… 37 SPEAKING STATUE… 38 ANCIENT MARINER TO CLERK… 38 THE CUSHION… 39 THAT BIRD… 40 LONG ANTENNAE… 40 A BUNDLE OF FEATHERS… 41 THE ROAD AND THE HILL… 42
US AND THEM… 43 OEDIPUS COLEOPTERA… 44 TOMORROW… 45
THE WOMAN AND THE SAINT The woman came to the saint. It could have been worse, she could have sent for him. She said, “I seek understanding.” The saint asked, “Who are you?” “I am Elizabeth Doreen. I am 27. I am married and have two children.” “That’s not a very good start,” said the saint. “But it could have been worse.” “How, father?” “You could have been twenty-eight.”
1
FOR MOTHER AND CHILD Why wake him? You woke to nothing, do you think he won’t? Your hand will guide him firmly and away, your lips will teach the nonsense he will say, your sins on him every day. At best, he’ll pass the test you failed, but where you won will be undone. At worst, putting him first, you’ll chain his mind to you in front and you behind. At worst/best you pierce his blessed darkness, take his vision and fix his sight on the broken splinters of your light unmercifully shining. A savage in a hole dragging the sons of light to gaze at shadows on a wall. It’s not the tomb that leads to hell, it’s the antiseptic smell that opens on the womb. There are the white-coated and the flower-carriers 2
smiling in their blindness goaded on by kindness. Always, behind the chalk, the cruel admonitory talk, the printed notice and the pen, the forcing on to make them men, - the kindness; the blindness-kindness, the training of all that can be trained. Do they not realise that building is for gods? Cannot even the wise think it odd that a man must slave for what he cannot have? Is it left to be the knowledge of the few that life is only something to be got through? You needn’t wilt or tire, nothing need be built.
3
SUDDENLY SEPARATE SPIDER SENTRY STILLNESS is the space between movements the crack in the universe the gloved hand with the art to pull apart two thin life stitches and let a stab of nothing in. An eye with sky behind for mind, a face blind, a sunflower petal falling stamen to earth; or bird-song-bird calling either side of the path. No eye to meet your eye. FACES are petals falling (bird-song-bird), tongue shapes are spaces to be heard. Behind lip and fall nothing at all. Only this petal or that to choose to lose to stare at. FORGIVE a pronoun’s entry along a spine, a suddenly separate spider sentry wanting to define his continent of cells, wanting another 4
a more than mother brother. Like whispering shells sharing a spark the sun let fall into their dark. NOTHING will keep nothing warm, Form alone contents with Form. And so put out the need for the note scrawled on the music page, the cricket in the icicle. THE FRUIT is in the stone already grown. The cells group to fill already forming shells to keep out out. THIS is where lion lies down with lamb: in dried skin, dried blood powdered edges broken flame particles on particles the same, and again in the bone clutch of the brain, groupings, twitchings, pullings, tame. Slippings and slidings on a wet palette. LEAVE the child to his darkness.
5
A SHELL A SHELL a big shell on a warm sand shelf building long and strong out at last kept out. TIME to decide what’s inside for inside meditation for contemplation. Any answers? A SKULL a big skull with a warm snug self building long and strong to keep out out. EYE, ear and brain drag it all in again, sense saturation. NEVER left alone. No time to take advantage of the bone.
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MATTER IS DEAD Matter is dead, dead or dying. And in it, craving craves its dissolution, rehearses dissolution. Expense of energy in voluntary death. Do not keep it young or leave a creaky scream unwrung, a forbidden song unsung, a sin unsunned. A pleasure’s but a pleasure, and on pleasure’s wings a man gets high, remembers that sirens sing and dolphins sigh, that matter never matters.
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M-M-M-M-MEUM That ivory head with flattened nose dropping like a plummet from scythe-cut brows to a girl’s lips, old man’s smile and thumbnail eyes painted black. A fat Chinese satyr in the fretwork crown. You say it’s yours? You know, the previous one said that a year ago.
JOE-CHAIR The Joe-chair separates into Joe and chair, into one that is there and one that waits; who has chosen to wait somewhere else.
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YOU WORRY? YOU? You worry? You? Nobody cares. They may make sounds, give you talk, sympathy, a few smiles within bounds. None care beyond the question-answer-sympathy. Take them while they’re there. There is no empathy. Of course, others expect it too just like you; civilisation sits on that, alluring but absurd – and much too fat.
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THE BROKEN AND TRANSCENDED On the broken and transcended the Light shines brightest having more shadows to contend with mended. On the dead and transcended the Light shines clearest, there is least of all there to contend with tended. Blessed are the Beatitudes for they bring rest unto the people, if any of the people will look past newspaper platitudes into a meaningful book. Blessed are the clear for their lives are refutations of the mumble and fumble you hear, are humble revelations of a world they’re incredibly near. Blessed are those who think before they speak and care not who’s around to hear, are something more than just another leak in the human plumbing gear. Blessed are those who keep their message short, whose lives say more than anything they’ve taught, who think straight thoughts.
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DEEP DOWN TO DEATH Deep down to death with every breath and not one more for any faith. His skin has lost a glossy look. He only feels his single pain and waits for nothing to come back again.
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HIM AND HER AND THEM A bare chest is a cooler way on a hot day than a string vest. Her husband’s pain’s a sword. And, again, though she sees and feels for him and keeps her love and cooks his meals for him, she is bored. It’s hard to be free no matter what you see; something to do with the guts or too many ifs and buts.
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PYRAMIDS AND SARCOPHAGI Why did they spend so much time there in the anteroom of death? What could they prepare? Paper possessions as light as breath were too heavy for their dead to bear away from the fire. Why did they keep their eyes on pyramid, tomb and funeral pyre? Even the wise. Why did they go into the shadow and stare at the nothing there? Monumental keepsakes built with all the patience of eternity. Can we not wake from all these dreams of our identity? You’ll not find time between breath and breath to hold them safe within your mind at death.
13
IN A FLAT In a flat you think you could scream yourself to death and not be heard. Pressing your cheek against the cool of the sink. One breath upon another breath. No word for that. In a room, you suffer inside door, walls, ceiling, floor. You could shout, you could walk out, it’s not a tomb. In a crowd, you might suffer with everyone in, trade joy with everyone in; too loud to think alone in.
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THE HAPPIEST OLD The happiest old have nothing and don’t mind. The happiest young are old before their time. Few these. The others are behind their years, suffer thirteen-year-olds’ fears into their twenties, and in their forties have appetite for sins of twenty. But not the bite.
BISHOP’S POEM Let them stay up late to calculate what is due to them and how to get it and what are you to them and don’t you forget it. Fill your mind and let the mosquito drink her fill after her kind.
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GARDEN FENCE REPAIRED Garden fence repaired covered wires dangerously bared repainted refitted screens new carpet unclogged drains old stains new patched old roof new thatched bad tooth double operation complained of an acute sensation died of heart attack. The lawn needs cutting round the back.
16
YOU KNOW ABOUT VIETNAM? You know about Vietnam? You’ve been there? It’s all a sham. There was no war, no war, no view. For you the wallpaper was peeling. Is? Where? There? Still no war. The plaster’s flaking off the ceiling. Men who dream away a war with a barbiturate end where they end who participate. Where and what was the war then?
17
CHRIST SAID Christ said: “Give it all away and follow Me.” They even say that’s what he said and praise it, get their children spiritually fed (and then erase it.) “If the spirit calls you, Go!” they say, and, as you’re on your way, “Hey! It’s only a metaphor you know! Come back! Let’s talk some more. You’ll have to pack. But come back. And shut the door.” The door, yes, door, any door on any floor in any city anywhere. Go out now. It doesn’t matter how you look. Go now. Put down the book slip quickly out. Ignore the shout, don’t look back. Still there?
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WHICH DO YOU DO? Which do you do? Allow what is to grow? Or take a child you think wild and cut it down to know only the same imprisoned world as you?
SMILE You, five feet away, can share the smile there. Take care; you can’t possess, the smile can.
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A CANDLE AND ITS CONCEPT A candle and its concept played either side of the glass, each refusing to believe it was not where the other was. The candle is to the moon what the moon is to itself - matter becoming light for any outward-looking sight.
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NO EXIT “Oh Lord, I have terrified my soul at your graveyards, where the spirits of your people thought to rest, for an over-flowering morning to recall the world in, regale themselves with memories in, tremble in the glory of their souls, at what they please to call your throne. And all these yearning spirits who have tumbled half-asleep into their deaths, or taken them with eyes blighted, or been numbed into their graves with violence and fear, or wanted death and still been unprepared: - all these have framed a way of outward thinking and even something to look at, Lord. And it has served a purpose, kept both eyes in focus from their separating ways past your infinite divinity to an infinite blur in infinite space. And this they called your grace, lest it should seem a little strange that any God would take such pains to stand well in their sight, seeking approbation, adulation, in exchange for dubious delight; 21
almost cap-in-hand to woo the happy band to a fitting consummation with all creation in reverse absorbed in Him. A whim which only an invented God could think and not also think it odd. But it has served a purpose this deterrent for our eyes, and would do still were we not now content to fix our sight still closer along the street that’s in the mind on the first thing that we find, still closer, almost at our own feet. Or lost in contemplation of a footprint, sacrificing sense to sensation, retreating further from the older dispensation, Lord. Footprint and foot, past and present too, equal mind rests to consent to. If only to avoid the tiny terror of where foot touches ground, the small silence where a thing in finding becomes found. 22
Were we better bound with your cord, Lord? Our knot.�
23
HICKORY DICKORY DOCK A girl pedals. A boy with the dream of her shirt in his eye rides the metal carrier behind, pressing her feet down with his. An individualist stays within call. My shoe cushions a small Chinese forehead pressing down her eyes for money. Another kneels her black passin into the sand fingering a tin, shells she has collected to sell. Her child rubs dirt into the bright stripes of his shirt. Bird song bird thing-word-thing sand-me-sea. One between two so that nothing’s seen without involving all the rest: she, pressing eyelids, he, with prosperous vest, leading all the world in as their relatives. This remembered and puzzled in sala-shade where I had come to meet and be alone with my friends one between two (involving infinity) – 24
When the sun burst into rubbery fire through the smoked glass of waving branches at the wind-open western side, negating aloneness (or any other kind of activity), taking the form out of things and giving glorious light, swelling the colours on the bananas until they stained the plate. (Destroying a world of physics with one splash.)
25
CUT INTO THE HUMAN WOOD Cut into the human wood chop; pare; to find what is already there. Will the knife reveal what we have outgrown? Or does the sculptor feel along the veins and in the bone the shape already in the stone and gently, where the stone is brittle, cut only not too much and not too little? Or there again, you might be just the wall, my favourite picture on its hook; behind (if I should ever look), nothing at all. Like sea with sky reflected deceiving me, by birds rejected.
26
TO BELIEVERS IN OUR GOVERNMENTS Do you really think the others are any less stupid than you? All history is prejudiced and gossipy, all science misuse of the misunderstood. (But nobody waits to understand. There is no time jump on use it you can’t refuse it it’ll make you happy whatsitmatter whatitsfor?) A clumsy reaper might drop his scythe, put out an eye, bad luck. A clumsy airman might drop his bomb, put out his civilisation, bad luck.
27
NOBODY WILL HEAR YOU DEAD Nobody will hear you dead. It may be in time someone will remember something you said. Someone will forget. Death is not an end to a beginning. It unseams existence. Einstein is running, just ahead of darkness.
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WHAT SHALL I DO? There’s a lot to be said for a balanced world, stable and well-fenced-in, that plays early that prays late and industriously fills the within. This world’s a strange place to find one another, with alien flesh labelled father and mother. Flesh is just dust in a clearing of air, and air a flicker of light-waves out there. Yet the masses still form and the movements take place. Two faces stare blankly back from the glass, that of a mind and that of a mask. So let us watch shapes, shapes and their lovers, praise them and give them their due and beg them, discreetly, to let us in too. There is no molecule but strives to be the whole (or, if it can’t encompass that, a soul). They slide together each to each like spider crabs to scavenge a whole beach and sucking each its tremor from the rest contrive to make their own illusion best; so each to each binds close behind their targes. Swa priketh hem nature in hir corages.
29
YOU ARE AT PEACE You are at peace and someone comes, thoughtless not unkind, and jogs you with his moment; demands your recognition, your admission, your consent to his place in your mind. What do you do? What harm has he done to you? What calm had you won and no room for him inside?
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BLINDNESS KINDNESS
The Sun shines in a bucket of water and doesn't get wet
Blindness
Kindness POEMS OF 1966
BRIAN TAYLOR
Brian Taylor www.universaloctopus.com