King Stag and His Little Helpers

Whispering blessings
Under the old squat oak
Into the palm of tobacco
Little brown rivers
Falling into the wind
Settling like snow
That the secret knows
Knotted in the dirt
Tangled grass

Exude a yearning
Sound from the soft bellows
Of my chest, unfurling
In the air the umbrella
Of my opening head:
An earth
Facing flower

*

Little brother
Psilocybe
Fun-guide
Me to you

Drop your spores
And give yoursElf to me
I will give mysElf to you
We can share this mystery

Psilocybe
Little guys
Please show me where you hide
You are such a joy to find

Liberty caps
Elf hats
Nipple-heads
Little brothers
Fun-guide me to you

Please show me where you hide
Where you laugh
In jungle grass
Let me grasp
Your bell-shaped hearts
And crown mice-elf
A-gain

*

Hello, bless, but
No – not you -
I’m looking for the
Other brOthers.

*

I plead
But they stay away
Wrack my brains
Worry that I’ve misbehaved

My greed
Prompting me to pluck ’em too young
Before the mushroom cloud had sprung
In times gone…
(What a pinhead!)
I promise
To leave the children
Who are yet to fulfil
Their function
Growing in the grass

*

Little brother
Psilocybe
Fun-guide
Me

(Let me show you
Where you hide me…)

Unlock the gateway
of my mind,
Hide in visible
Plain sight
Un-why’nd

Wheel dance
On the other side
Spiralling unspoken
Many colours merged
One soul become diverse
A moving ghost
In the singing light
Of our flesh prism.

*

Ferns fizzing green
And rusting brown
Sunlit: one high frequency
Dimensionless like angel-spit
Smoothed around
The space of shade:
A breath into the void
Filled with kindly grades.
The canopy’s shadow
Dappled dimples like dips -
Am I the ship on this ocean?

*

Scan the landscape
To feel for a pull
Watch the flight of a crow
And ask for a clue:
First up & away from me
then turning into my direction,
Bidding on.

Caught like a lightning strike
In my scanning gaze
Leading landscape to a plane
A breathing tapestry:
Lit up for one eternal moment
In the warp & weft of distant trees
And fractal heath -
The tall shining skeleton
The bone-lit King Stag
Moon-flesh tied like wishing rags
To the windless cage of his proud ribs,
Antlers like World-Tree-veins
Pumping ancient days
Through the thin skin of night -
Time is a cyclic flicker
And memory is alive.

Immediate, unmediated
Memory – a meaningful picture
Like a flaw in the crystallised eternity
Of life. Like a crack in the mirror.

RE
EN
CHANT
ME

*

Little brothers
Fun-guys
Won’t you show me
Where you hide
Where you laugh
In jungle grass
Let me grasp
Your bell-shaped hearts
And crown mice-elf
A-gain

*

It would be just typical
To find the first of you here
Growing next to the lake
Beside the busiest of paths
- And there you are!
You unmistakable bell of heaven
Ringing in the untold depths
Of our shared being!
The dark gills of your hydraulic spreading -
You rise to release your children into the winds
Of our world: when the seeds are ready
The fruit will make itself known.
Rest in the hammock of my hand
Dear brother, join me in the juices
Of my mouth – transmit the earthly musk
Of your flesh to my flesh: the liveliest of soils
Is lit by the essences of many deaths.

*

Liberty cap
Elf hat
Nipple-head
Little brother
Little guy
Psilocybe
Fun-guy
Fun-guide
me to you

*

Sing gracefully
In wordless gratitude
A growing tune
A knowing tune
Sing gracefully

The resonating chamber
Clouds of coherent sound
The mists of awareness descend
Like tiny hands drumming into shape
The unfurling umbrella
Of the mind of never
Like a bubble
Rising from the deeps.

*

I think I am
Following my knows
But where am I
Being scent
?

*

On the sunny side
Of a wide & wise old oak
Smoke explores the possibilities of space
In air that is solid with light.
The strength of the sun
Strips form to its blinding essence
And sets it in eternity.
My map is not this territory
But together we write this story
And so the leaf of this tree is a flag.

I see it would
Make sense to meet
In the field known as: “Ham”
For that is the sound coming from
My little blood brother
Lit from all angles
In the warm womb-honey
Of our living memories
As he speaks my name.

Little brother
Psilocybe
Fun-guide
Me to you.

Share my senses
Make a present of my tensions
Free them like a burp
To be gobbled up by birds
And we will be now
Here together.

Make my senses
Share my meaning
Until the dreams of life
Become the winds of my feeling.

Little brother
Psilocybe
Fun-guide
Me to you.

*

And hear they come
The exclamation marks
Of my joyous song!!!
Little winks & laughs
From my brothers in the grass
Punctuating the weave
That permeates my being -
Purring mutant souls of the soil
Flinging themsElves into the path of my vehicle
Drawing my chariot, shuffling my sheep
With an invisible pen – sieving my particles
To find the wHole of
ME
RE
EN
CHAN
TING
The world responding
To some mutual urge
To meat – Two meet
Tweet To Eat & Chatter
Like a skeleton’s jaw
Caw! Cor!
The awe-full core
Cannot be guarded
Caw! Cor!
Nor can it be
Discarded.

It is alive
It is life itself
It is ever present
It is forever representing

I T S E L F

Testing

Seeing

Exploring

Living

Fullness

.

Give us
Oh lOrd Our
Daily breadcrumbs
And lead us not
To the which-is
Confectionary abode
But delight us by living
In the flesh of our fields
AHHHHHHHHHHHH
OMMMMMMMMM

*

Thank you
For making me

An unselfconscious
Hunter-gatherer

Once more

I stalk with the purposeful
Nod of the crow

And graze with the graceful
Dip of the deer

They do not fear man
When the mind of never is near

Important things are conducted sideways
As rainbows from the duct of a tear.

*

Pleased to be
meat, you?

*

It can be rude
To blow your blessings
Directly in the face of one
So radiant as the sun
(My coat of arms
is a brotherly hug?)
Better to put-put the smoke
Gently around its circular aura
Dabbling a soft spiral of acquaintance
As the breath peters out.

*

Little brother fun-guy
You are such a joy to find
Growing in the glowing grass
All things pass but small things last

You tricksy little monkies
You pretty micro-pigs
Snuffling out the wind
And smuggling in

The ringing
Of your bells
Inside the hallowed spirals
Of our sleeping shells

Humming with
The living memory
Of the first sun
F
A
L
L
E
N
So close to silence
In the calcified womb
Of the earth’s moon

Every faculty
In this universe-city
Swooning
With the deliciousness
Of sense itself

I T S E L F

Thinking

Singing

Eating

Laughing

Freeing

*

This is the field
I have been feeling
This is the field I’ve felt
This is the end of the trail
Of breadcrumbs, this is
The home of the sweet
Little baldheads, this is
The place where the pixies
Are meeting, this is the place
Where the golden-tops gleam.

*