THISTLES

A THISTLE grows next to a LETTUCE and a POPPY

Each takes from the soil what its roots need

To keep a lettuce

Quite different from a thistle and a poppy

And a thistle quite different from a lettuce and a poppy

 And a poppy quite different from a lettuce and a thistle.

ATLAS

 It is not Atlas
 who carries on his shoulders
 the world
 with all its teeming life forms,
 its cities and citizens
 its poets and fools.

 It is the breath of life
 which fans the vital heat
 each time it cools.

                             Watching the breath                                                             you enter into that empty space

                             between Life and Death.

YES

Every moment
is a fork in the road
and every fork
is always the same,
the choice between right and wrong.

HORACRUX

When you sell a part of yourself
to the Devil,
you receive
the powers your payment warrants.

          He takes
          part of yourself as a deposit.
          You receive
          part of Himself as a witness.

          Your part in Him
          is his hostage.

          His part in you
          is your power.
          From Him.

CATCHING UP (Mr Moses and Mr Gates)

The more they take
     and do not make
 an adequate contribution,
 the more what they owe
 shadows them as they go
 to inevitable retribution.
 

    

(The more they know
  the more they owe.
     Is their Way In
     your Way Out?)

"LOVE THOU THE ROSE BUT LEAVE IT ON ITS STEM"

How odd that humans

choose to hide their sex

with clothes they have derived from plants

and so disguise them.

And yet they cut from plants their sex

(which they call flowers)
and stick them in rose bowls and vases,
put them on show
and highly prize them!

QUEEN MARY

She lays her head upon the block,
awaits the executioner's riposte.
The thin-spin life splits at the shock
and Scotland, England, France are lost.

    Empty phenomenon rolling on,
          Since there is no "me",
        there is no responsibility.

 

   But still the pain is real.