Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
In search of the eternal springs
“Oh Life, Thou Nothing’s younger Brother,
So like, one might mistake Thee for the Other.”
Brian Taylor is a poet and philosopher based in Cornwall and the Far East. In this week’s guest post for The Culturium, we offer a selection of his finest verse, which explores the inherent unity of all things timeless, wise and beautiful.
I was born
just like you …
I came from
I knew not where
on my way to
I knew not where
just like you …
I had the good times
and the bad;
was by turns
unhappy and glad
(just like you) …
Till I determined
Be happy all the time!
Withdrawing
from I didn’t want
and making
as I wanted.
This I achieved
(just like you?)
making as I wanted.
But then I saw
that where to led
to the end
of making as I wanted;
to a losing hold of
and a forgetting
beyond all power
of holding and remembering.
So I chose to let go of
before I lost,
and I chose to forget
before I forgot to choose
(and not remember the cost).
And with my now
seeing
quite clearly
where to,
I turned around
to see if I could see
where from.
And I found
that where from
is here and now
where I have always been.
And where to
is here also.
(And you?)
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
THE ROAD AND THE HILL
The road humped over the hill and dipped
and out of politeness we dipped too
and didn’t go as the butterfly did
straight across and into the view.
We stayed outside and behind our faces
as the road curled steeply down from the sky
though the birds still saw it all as flat
with an unblinking eye.
Down here the houses have slid together
and startled a stream from a handful of stones
and clamped it down with an old stone bridge
to stop it snapping at their bones.
And the stream, we see, serves everyone,
spins a matchbox through a private forest,
splutters for one who
stops to rest
and scrape his shoe
and cough the drizzle off his chest.
—Brian Taylor, Blindness Kindness
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
US AND THEM
The tree relaxes there
with no thought of going anywhere.
Bird-song-bird.
The song is overheard.
Perhaps we invent the birds.
They might invent us
if they could spell.
Freak!
They don’t even listen when we speak.
Just as well.
—Brian Taylor, Blindness Kindness
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
FEMINA DOLOROSA
She passes like a shadow
across a silent floor,
lit by a sun that follows
and a star that goes before.
And though I know she walks in beauty
that is not subject to decay
yet she shelters behind duty
from the glory of the way.
—Brian Taylor, Going Out There Is No Other
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
GOING OUT THERE IS NO OTHER
Going out there is no other
coming back there is no trace
though one journey on forever
still the mind is its own place.
Still erecting fences facing
(still incorporating doors)
still vast nothingness embracing
(and declining “mine” and “yours”).
Still the sun in silent splendour
smiles its message through the Void
that each and every golden sunbeam
suffers where it has enjoyed.
—Brian Taylor, Going Out There Is No Other
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
PEACE
You can kick
a stone lion
as often as you like.
Though it will hurt
your foot,
you can never
persuade it
to bite you.
Everyman
his own prison makes
and keeps his peace
at bay.
—Brian Taylor, Coming Back There Is No Trace
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
DIAMOND MOUNTAIN
Wind blows.
Rattles an invocation
two thousand years old
from bronze temple bells.
Brushes a susurrus
from ten thousand oak leaves.
Draws from their branches
the moaning
of two hundred-year-old wood,
the dry sound
of a long-forgotten oboe.
Causes a seventy-year-old man
on a slatted bench
to tug the scarf across his chest.
Wind drops,
slips back
into eternal silence
of measured decay.
Wind undefiled
speaking in many voices.
Diamond Mountain is
one hour high,
one hour wide,
one hour deep.
Every hundred years
a small bird comes
and rubs its beak.
When the whole mountain
is quite worn away,
the first second of Eternity
has passed.
—Brian Taylor, Coming Back There Is No Trace
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
THE SUN SHINES
The Sun shines
in a bucket of water
and doesn’t
get
wet.
—Brian Taylor, Blondin
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
HAPPINESS
The great stone Hall is silent
that is now millennia old.
Through the western windows
shines a glorious sun.
It floods the walls and floors,
the tables, chairs and doors,
panelling, pictures, artefacts
and illumines every one
until the wraiths that gather
cry out in their joy,
“Everything is gold!
Whatever is, is gold!”
A majestic cloud
merges from the southern sea,
slides across the western sky
blotting out the sun.
Light through those western windows
pales to a thin grey day.
It dims the walls and floors,
the tables, chairs and doors,
panelling, pictures, artefacts
pales every one
until the wraiths in the shadows
cry out in dismay,
“Gone is gold, the gold is gone!
All joy has passed away.”
—Brian Taylor, Blondin
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
JUNGLE GREEN
Trees calm the brain,
absorb the poison
of its thoughts
and return them
clean again.
—Brian Taylor, Bamboo Leaves
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
POETRY
Poetry begins with pain
(like any other kind of birth)
but though it breeds and feeds on earth
it aims at not becoming back again
and reaches to the roots of things
in search of the eternal springs.
—Brian Taylor, Bamboo Leaves
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
1944 EDUCATION ACT
Leaves
blowing
in a wind
that has no origin
(and no destination).
Shadows
falling
on an ancient wall
(fade and fall).
Children
watching
the marks the shadows made
learning and learning
and learning
to name them all
(before they fade).
Hands
Reaching
fingertips towards a distant,
uncomprehending moon;
clutching
at it in frustration
(shattering
its reflection
in a puddle).
—Brian Taylor, Oxford Blues
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
CHINA-BOUND GIRL
China-bound girl,
Love at her heels,
how does she think what she knows she feels?
Glides like an image one flower ahead of sorrow,
floating through sun-mist to yesterday’s tomorrow.
Through the moving shadows
of this world’s blind-man’s buff
she has cared and been cared for
(but not-loved-too-much enough).
In her mind what pleasures lead her from A to Z?
In her heart what treasures are silenced by her head?
—Brian Taylor, Oxford Blues
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
INDIAN DEFENSE
If you put a cat in a cage
and lock the door
and it stretches
and rolls over on its side
and falls asleep,
you have not yet succeeded
in taking away
its freedom.
—Brian Taylor, Gnomonic Verses
Photograph: [Public Domain] WikiArt
EQUITES
Those two horses
eat the same hay.
But one
outruns the wind.
The other
drags a cart
out of someone else’s mud.
—Brian Taylor, Gnomonic Verses
