DESERT MAN

The Desert Man sits in his arid haze

Staring at the Sun

While dark-lined accusations

Skate across him

Barely scratching

Wounds closing even as he watches

Sealed by the heat of an inner fire

Fuelled by the words of a friendly liar

Whispering like thunder

So no one else can hear

As they drift

Past him, through him

Looking but never seeing

Casting bolts of ignorant assumption

From bows strung with ego

While he waits

On a street lit corner of his mind,

Calling to the masses,

Delivering tracts on Stoicism

With the silent, knowing vigour of the dead.

Dave Hubble

SLIDE

Your tongue drags across my eye

As I force myself to stare,

Then, blinking,

Return the gift

(Better than receiving as they say),

Your weight

Pressing on my chest

Hot, I love it

My breath

Labouring

My limbs

Straining

I lift you

But pull you down.

Dave Hubble

SENSEI

On lotus-petal pathway

In suffusion of white,

Sits a man in pranayama,

Breathing the light.

Surrounded by conch-shells

Making susurrus speech,

Capturing wind sounds,

Their whisperings teach

Of wisdom embedded

In rocks as they breathe

With a wisdom of ages,

Never deceived.

Dave Hubble