Waiting for the R Train

Man dies after being pushed in front of NYC subway train

Wired Update, 4 December 2012

The slightest nudge has changed his perspective

fletched his attention to a focal point

tunnel vision infects the panoply of his senses

blue scented air charges from a tunnel’s jaw

a Mexican wave of synchronized stolen breaths

and the ground beneath his prone body rucks up too

like an undertow before a tidal wave

and he feels the dead weight of anger and hatred

the alienation of being, the sorrow of clinging

and, as he casts those traitors away

discovers the immensity of here and now

and starts to rise up, at first to his feet

but doesn’t stop there, rising up before the train

his own death inconceivable, at least to him.

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Night labours of the Buddha

Night shift raises cancer risk in men

The New Zealand Herald, 23 October 2012

That true love can only be made
in the searching light of day

I hold as axiomatic. Those cold
dark nights that cloak untold

sins and betrayals of faith,
so damning to mental health

and a man’s repute, are wholly
unwholesome. So crawl to me

in the flecked patchwork quilt
of light filtering through the nets

across this rucked eiderdown
and, mindful of my suspicions,

steel your gaze on me, leave
no dark recess for the memories

of lovers past to feed on my sex.
We bare all our senses to test

the flesh, yet aren’t our hearts
always kept a little in the dark

and even the brightest sunlit days
cloak the night some other place?

(c) 2012 Slush Poet

Disarming the smile

China unhappy at Cameron's meeting with Dalai Lama

The Guardian, 15 May 2012

This I have heard, that the Dalai Lama

is the reincarnation of Gautama,

the Buddha, who in his original life

claimed nothing survives the miracle of its birth

but dies in becoming the very next moment,

and in any case was anatta, soulless,

inessential, pure process, a stream

of consciousness tumbling down a mountain.

So if I were David Cameron

I'd ask the grinning Tibetan who he thinks he is,

once when he comes in and again when he leaves,

and if his replies are both times the same

in more than just name,

and he says he's the Buddha or stakes a claim

to the sangha, recite him the dharma

then send him packing to China.

(c) 2012 Andy Hickmott