The Blakean Eye

The Blakean eye has scanned the sky, seen birds like cold stones rent

and in the marred decay of theirs, the death of innocence.

The Blakean eye regards the babes as clean of earthly sin,

yet watches on as, year on year, their joy grows deathly thin.

The Blakean eye has seen the Drakes, white and pure as air,

as their complexions dim to grey, life emptied, grey and bare.

This Blakean eye has sure surmised the deep heart's darkened core

in whose shadows it has seen the light come pulsing raw.

This eye has seen nature's gleam, has caught its violent light,

and in this dark malay of life has glanced the human fight.

This dappled eye knows not itself, its colours none, unknown;

in place of inward sight it sits atop a supernatural throne.

Mystic vision and clear perception, the eye informs the heart:

it leads it blindly by its strings to territories dark.

In destitution, unfair abjection, it lives not by its means,

surviving not on sustenance: on divination, magic, it feeds.

what is mourning?

having never grieved, it escapes me like vapour.

is it pain and shock, pure and simple?

does it change with age - and wrinkle?

is it feeling given in fear of feeling nothing at all?

in that case, I've mourned often, and full.

can closure come only through streaming tears?

or does that type of grief keep dancing for years?

maybe those who grieve best know most well -

after years lived with such love, they inherit loveless hell.

yes, it seems those are the ones who mourn best:

they know their loved ones more fully

than their own lives, and blessed

were their loves, their passions bright and fair;

so now stop all the clocks: there is nothing left to share.

The Open Mind

The open and enquiring mind

can wrap itself as if 'twere twine,

when open means the same, perchance,

as thoughtfully veiled ignorance.

A mind whose holes, plugged as a sieve,

starched and full of little bits,

can only so disguise its truth

before rushing water shows its proof.

Open knows when to close,

and verity when to disclose;

empty knowledge should not scoff:

it shows its tattered smile thereof.

The open and enquiring mind

knows where to search and where to find:

if answers lay at its feet,

it gives warily, lest it give nothing sweet.

Nirvana

Do you know why I love you?

It's because without you, my philosophy

would be incomplete.

Nirvana is not somewhere to sit in isolation -

that kind of peace is brief.

No, you complete me,

complete my situation -

allow me to complete myself.

Not through the repeated use of drugs -

no, not that alone.

Love is the gateway to peace -

Nirvana, my heart, my home.

On Social Injustice

Social position is all in the mind -

some gold is iron pyrites, you'll find.

Some silver spoons are made impure;

the plainer the silver, the purer the ore.

Some common blood is with fire infused.

The hierarchy rests on a bed of sand - it moves.

You'll find some people in shackles chained,

their minds held down by mighty weights.

But aspect of thought can pick the lock;

there's no such thing as caste or stock.

No, just preservation of blood and name;

through generations, bonds broken and bonds made.

Death

Death does not only take away:

it puts something far worse in place.

It gives wise men doubt, superstition;

in place of knowledge it puts supposition

and wishful thinking;

it taketh away eyes and hands,

rendering the sober insensible.

Fear slinks in on its stomach 

to bite at the heels of those etched in concrete,

it freezes those whose thoughts were fluid:

it turneth the mind against itself.

Death puts a sword in one's hand -

a sword which it commands we shall turn inward.

And in the illusion of life and spirit,

it inflicts its ultimate punishment.

The ultimate joke -

but no hands are there to clap,

and no mouths are there to laugh,

and no tongues are there to declaim,

and no crying echoes through the great

halls of humanity.

There is no compassion there,

each tongue twisted in the lie of death.