Author Archive

Darklings

Traveling alone into the years
Alone together with others
Into the darkness
Of what I cannot see
Ahead of me
The inky black
Of the unknown
Transformed to beauty
By my calm
Knowing you are there

Darling,
I feel myself
Deep inside you
In your lovely warmth.
Pull me closer
Until I lose myself
In you.
You are a joy
To fly with,
To roll and kiss
And cry with.
Open to me again
And bathe me
In your flowing.
I need you
So much.

Lovers Beyond Time

Time – the distance between us.
Distance – the time it takes to meet.
Love – transcendence of separation.
And there we met,
Dancing our life to each other,
A courtship display
Subtle and beautiful.
Courtship –
The discovery of each other.
Bonding –
The marriage of separates
Into an active connection.
Love –
The alchemical power
To transform.
You and I –
The crucibles of change
In a joyous and painful
Transformation.
Then suddenly
The fire melting
The previous forms.
The liquid pouring
Into each other.
Then stillness.
Holy and secret penetration
As two become one.
And light bursts out
Of this new being,
Shining into the world.

The Ancient Roots of Love

Beneath the temple ruins
A naked woman lies softly on her side
Against the earth in hypnotic repose.
Over her a young Banyan grows,
His strong new roots searching confidently
Along the fleshy contours of her body,
Caressing and securing her within a woven nest of fiber
Anchoring her body along with his
Deeply into the earth.
Soon enough the taproot will
Penetrate her dark and damp kingdom,
And in the ecstasy of love she will submit
As the root rises up along her spine
Like the Serpent Kundalini
Burning a cool fire within her
Melding them together with the earth.
In time, his roots will grow stronger
And taking sustenance from her
She will eventually be absorbed completely
Into his towering might.
Then merged for all eternity,
They will finally be free…..

The Sacred Tree

Mornings,
And I wake as from bathing in a spring
That is your being,
Having been caressed by you
And knowing,
Wider and Wider
Who you are
And what our life.
Each waking is
Another branch of
That great tree you are
Growing ever more beautiful
As I touch your flowers
And know the scent
Of your blossoming.
And I,
Climb to one
Of your branches
To rest within
The folds of you.
Rest and give my very breath
To all your leaves.
When I die,
Place me at your roots
And take me
To be your very body.
What sweet wonder is that?

Lovelier Than This?

I asked of God
One long days eve,
Why we, who are both brought
From distance great
Or circumstances fraught
To find each other
Whole worlds apart?
Why we two people
Through love wrought
Bind to each other,
And whose meeting brought
Omens strange
And proceeded was by
Signs from heaven.

And God, with seeming smile
Whispered gently to me
That creating together
The sense of being loved,
And of being loving,
Was an end in itself.
Was there anything, he asked,
Lovelier than this?

Love is a Tree

Love is a tree that grows,
And if without roots
Falls quickly.
But if that tree of love
Catches up the earth
And holds it,
Then growth comes to it
As each season
Warms and scours it.
So is my love,
Taking nourishment from you,
A seedling forming roots.
And my love,
Not knowing many seasons,
Cannot yet say
I love you –
Only that a seed is planted
And is growing.

Like Bells

Is it sleep,
In which I know myself
A bell beginning to swing?
Its pendulous clapper
Starting to stroke
The rounded
Body of the bell
Calling it gently into life –
To stroke again.
That long slow swing
To bring the excitation
To the curving
Belly of the bell.
Provoking in that
Swinging motion
The bell to ring.
And again that
Sliding swing.
Deeper and richer
Till the cries of
That ringing bell
Like waves roll
On from one to another
Without pause.
Then I awaken to
The motion of the swing
Finding myself stroking
With my movements
The deep rich bell
Of you –
Deep and wringing
Out of you
And out of me the cries
As of bells
Calling their joy,
Pealing our carillon
Of pleasure.
Moving together and
Apart as bells do
In their excitation.
Swing your bell
My darling
That we may
Ring once more.

Do You Know?

Do you know what I believe?
I believe, beautiful woman that you are,
And tough old man that I am,
For no reason that I know of,
We are sharing this incredible story
We call Life and Living.
And I don’t mean sharing just here,
In this dwelling, in this day and year.
The story is beyond understanding,
Beyond any todays and tomorrows,
Or even of yesterdays,
That I can conceive of.
But you know, I can feel it
As I look around,
As I glimpse the past
And see the stars.
Just being here in the middle
Of this grandest of games
In which we hold each other
And bear our children,
Watch them grow
Or even lose them in death.
You know – it is all a part of the Story.
It is all a part of this immensity
That is happening all around us.
We may be so lost in our own part,
Our own existence and its tribulations,
That we forget we are a part of it all.
And when we live in that small view
We fail to let the enormity of it,
The everything of it,
The sheer spectacular
All at once of it, touch us.
So every now and then I let it in.
Then I howl like a wolf
Because words never encompass it.
I weep because it rips at my smallness;
I shine because it envelops me with love.
And I look around,
And where I can I lay my hands
On children to shine it into their lives.
I tell the plants in my garden
That I see them and share it with them.
I touch the wonder of your breasts
And make love with the passion of it.
Then the day goes on
And I wash the dishes and
Put out the garbage to be collected.

Coming and Going

Coming and going.
Going and coming.
So many times,
And how often
Have we met and parted?
How often have we found each other,
And the coming and going moves us again?
So much love to give,
Only to find your hand
And hold it,
Having held it
For too short a time,
To slip away.
And I long for
That frozen moment
That is eternity,
When our hands are together.

Ain’t that lovin?

We were up to our arses in that swamp, reaching into the water to get at them tender shoots.

Then of a sudden we both put our heads up and looked at each other like we ain’t never seen one another before. An we neither of us had a stitch of clo’s on, an my eyes went straight to that thatch of fine hair you have over the holy place – as if I hadn’t seen it a thousan time – and I sure as hell felt like worshipping there and then.

Then my eyes lit on what a fine big belly you have, and a wondrous lot of warm flesh. That fire lit up in me and I’m sure steam was comin off me. An I saw the fire come burnin up through you too – and we jest fell at each other laughin and grabbin, kissin and creating one hell of a mess of noise and gigglin. I could feel your wonderful great tits like huge warm places of love on my chest.

An after that hell broke loose like a prairie fire burnin right inside of us, till we never were there anymore.

Now – ain’t that lovin?

Ages of Love

I am a young man in love,
In an old man’s body.
In love with an ageing woman,
Who is a young girl inside.

To find spring in autumn,
And blossoming as leaves fall,
Ripens fruit in my life
That summer never bore.

I see you run to me
As desperately as I need you,
The grey hairs no hindrance
To the young girl shining through.

The Wordless Hymn

I have been teaching teachers,
And I have felt sick of heart
At what is involved
In the relationships
Existing in such meetings
In myself and others.

The only relief
In this darkness
Is in the humility
I might find through
My feelings of inadequacy
And failure.

And I walked out into the woods,
And stood among the trees,
Looking upon the beauty of the scene.
A carpet of yellow flowers
Had arisen among the tree roots.
I do not know the name of them,
Only their yellow cups and greenness.

And in the midst of the scene
A large enamelled oven,
Shining in the sun,
Exciting in its endless forms
As my child mind
Saw it as a cave,
A tank, and an aeroplane.

An old rusty bike,
Bedsprings,
A broken pushchair,
Grew there too.
Plastic bags were being cherished
By the earth and leaves;
Whether drawn in
By the earth’s passion for them,
Or whether they themselves
Sought this deeper communion
With the soil, I know not.
But the ants and worms
Found wonders in them.
There were scraps of food,
Intricate corners, and spiders.

And I walked on past the scene
To a village church,
Quiet and full of past worship.
I entered with reverence
To spend a silent moment there.
But the voice of rebellion in me
Cried out over my reverence.
“Why sit here in this
Empty joyless place?” it said.
“Can?t you hear where the
Hymns are being sung?
Listen!”

And the hundred songs of birds
Came to me in that
Empty silent brick house.
A tractor added its chorus to the song.
Cars hummed a background.
Somewhere a man hammered,
A cock crowed and a dog barked.
There was the rhythm of footsteps
As people walked by,
And the whole grand medley
Was the hymn of life.

Leaving the building
I added the quiet sound
Of my own walking and breathing
To the grand song.
Now I too would sing on.

Voice of the Jungle

India.
Squalid.
Dirty.
Uncaring India.
The coach shakes us,
Rattles us, unmercifully,
Through tea plantations,
Over hills,
Across scarred roads.
It moves through jungles,
Sometimes passing rough shacks
Flush against the road.
No protective sidewalk,
Just jungle, shacks, road,
And children leaving school.

Suddenly we stop,
As cars and lorries crawl
Through the shanty village.
And around us,
Screams, calls, crying,
Whistles from the jungle.
The jungle’s weeping.
Monkeys, birds
And unseen creatures
Voice their cries.

And there on the road,
Seen as our coach edges past,
A child’s skull and brains
Sprawled upon the road.
A life carelessly spilt,
And the jungle creatures cry out in pain.

The Way

Etched into a rocky hill on the Greek island Skyros is the path a river cuts when rains run in flood from the high ground. In summer it is a dry cleft rising sharply in a series of steps, formed by boulders, tumbled or revealed by the torrent.

As you walk up the dry bed from the sea, an almost bare cliff soon encloses you on the left with its height. And on the right, a slower rise harbors shrubs and dry grasses baked by the sun.

Climbing the gorge you enter into a deep stillness. Perhaps the cliffs and rising land absorb the sound, for it is like walking into something you can feel, something you are called to stop and listen to. With less bombardment from the world of sound, the other senses open to receive the subtleties of shape and colour in the rocks and contours of the giant steps. There is nothing here that humanity has directly shaped. Only the sun and wind, the water and power of growing things have sculpted the rounded rocks, have cut the groove in the earth. Only from this web of interactions have things emerged.

Into that web, through it, within it, I walked and sat in the quiet of the molded rocks. There was no sound of the sea, of people, or even of the wind. Silence enough for me to gradually become aware of a small live thing speaking to me. It was a woody-stemmed herb, which through the shape of its gnarled and twisted stem, spoke of its existence. Clinging lustily to the very edge of a midstream rock, where scant soil had lodged, it’s stunted wonderful shape sang to me. It’s silent voice informed me how its tiny form held fast amidst the torrents, and in the beating heat drank slowly from the rock, conserving, as with love, each hard-won drop.

And in its song, it told me too, of how it bore within itself, something of all that touched its life. Still as the silent air, yet it danced. For in its twists and curling stems, there were the movement of the rushing waters, the dryness of long summer heat, the hard unyielding of the rock, and still quiet of the gorge itself.

Then in that silent song, in the unmoving dance, it opened my full opened eyes to see the Way. This small plant had joy in its adversity, radiance in its dryness. It clung to life without a fight, it’s very body shaped by the forces that might have destroyed it. Can I too tread that narrow edge between the opposites? And can you walk with me? For this is a trackless way.

The Tree

I can’t remember it not being there —
On the cliff edge overlooking the sea.
I don’t even know how old it is.
There’s no way of knowing.
Perhaps an ancient oak tree
Yet barely to my waist.
Shaped and stunted
By harsh onshore winds,
By the salt and the rock.
It is clinging and growing
To the very shape of the wind,
Perfectly reflecting its environment,
And stunted, as you or I might be,
By circumstances of our birth,
Or events –
Yet still a magnificent oak tree.
Just as you or I, at our core,
Are magnificent human beings.

Next >

< Previous

Tony Crisp

Author Archive

Darklings

Inside You