cobalt blue, lime green and
lemon yellow warp
stretches on a loom

the shuttle dances
back and forth
weaving my crimson weft
into the pattern of the universe

my pilgrimage zigzags
beneath the comb
as time winds the warp
which begins and ends
beyond my scarlet thread

It's not easy to wash feet
    in Messulumi.
Water fetched
    fire lit
          kettle boiled
              warm water poured
                    soap rubbed
rough towel dried.
Such care
                is needed.

I was called to walk on the water,
but I ****** in the lake instead,
polluted the whole of creation,
until all its creatures were dead.

I was called to heal all the people
with hands that are gentle and kind
but I couldn’t turn round a profit
so I shat on the lame and the blind.

I was called to bring peace to creation
but found it better to sell,
weapons of mass destruction,
and condemn all the nations to hell.

And if I complain that the world,
is *******, unfair and unkind,
it’s because I ****** in the water
and left all my refuse behind.

The drab
brown butterfly
sits on a white blossom
incautiously drinking honeyed
poison.

As the solution cools
the molecules slow their stochastic dance
and the liquid is less able
to keep the substance dissolved.

As a threshold is crossed
the power of solution fails
and atom by atom
molecule by molecule
the substance crystallizes
plane by plane
layer by layer
the form of the substance
gives rise to a growing crystal
revealing in its structure
the nature of itself.

Abandoned, Still, Silent,
only the dust is moving
dancing a noiseless perpetual waltz.
Here and there a mote
intersects the silent sun,
(that slips in through broken glass)
picking out the rainbow rays.
Just the quick perception
of mouse and bird
to observe the shafts of coloured light
that they do not comprehend.

Above the pulpit
marble eyes look out,
and stone lips
caught in the act
cry out
"Why have you forsaken Me?"
Immobile hands are pinned
out wide,
to receive the world.
They cannot open the door
but wait
for someone to come.

.                                                  Inch by inch,
                                            cruel word,
                                      indecision,
         ­                       pressure,
                        spin an avalanche
                    around my grubby life,
              cocooned, cold
          my sight
        goes
      black.
A crack, amber light bleeds
into my shrouding chrysalis.
      I struggle,
        tearing silk,
            escaping
                to smell the sun
                      taste its nectar
                            and
                          ­        see
                                        I am
                                              a
              ­                                      butterfly.