SUNDAY MORNING POEM

JUST SIT

WHILE SITTING

SO PLEASANT

IS THE 

BIRD'S SONG

ONE HOPES

FOR MORE

*

WHILE WAITING

PASSING CAR

PUNCTUATES

THE MORNING'S

SUPPOSED REVERIE.

             *

bernard hemensley @ GOLDY HERMITAGE
SUNDAY / 30 / AUGUST / 2015

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *




           

IN THE LAP OF THE GODS for Ken Trimble

SITTING ALOFT

AMONGST 

BUDDHAS

PLEASANT ENUF

BUT

THE SUN'S

NOT DELIVERED

THE GOODS

THESE

AUGUST

SUMMER DAYS

AS IT

MELTS

INTO THE

WATERY GREY

DILUTION

OF THIS

EVENING'S SKY.

 

THERE THERE...

DON'T

UPSET YOURSELF.

NO BETTER

DAYS

THAN THESE.

IT'S

ALL IN

THE LAP

OF THE GODS.

THE SKY'S

UNTROUBLED

BY

HIGH-FLYING

BIRDS.

THE GRASS

IS
JUST AS

GREEN HERE
AS ANYWHERE

&

EVERY DAY

IS A

GOOD DAY.

 

THERE THERE...

bernard hemensley

GOLDY HERMITAGE

11 / august / 2015

***************

MORNING REPORT FROM WEYMOUTH FOR "K" IN THE ANTIPODES AND THOSE READERS OF THIS BLOG WHO HAVE TUNED-IN FROM SOUTH KOREA, JAPAN AND PORTUGAL, OF LATE.......BUT WHO ON EARTH ARE THEY, "K"? IF ONLY THEY WOULD LEAVE A TRACE OF THEIR HAVING VISITED.......

MS."X" did not go all the way into town on the only bus of the morning that takes this route thru GOLDCROFT ROAD. We used to have a regular service with a big company but not any longer for a year or more now. The numbers of passengers did not warrant a bus service they said and cancelled.
MS."X" got off the bus just a few yards down the road but not before she had regaled the bus driver and most of us passengers with a monologue of her comings and goings for today and the next few days. Right now she had a doctor's appointment. Never mind if she was running late or if she was holding-up the progress of the bus and the schedules and timings of others. A good soul none-the-less said a fellow passenger afterwards.
WHEN WE ARRIVED in town at the esplanade there was a vividness of dark-blue and light- blue sails of racing-dinghys to greet the eye. Everything in sharp relief under the bright light and grey airy sky. How wonderful that the gloomy forecast that WEYMOUTH TOWN CENTRE would be underwater by the turn of the millennium by the environmentalists did not materialise. We still have all this every day. And geese flying south....
ON MY WALK HOME i saw a "V" formation of geese flying in the direction of "RADIPOLE LAKE". i had had an early autumn kind of feeling a few days ago especially in the absence of any good run of hot day after hot day. Nor were there any lovely balmy evenings when the breeze wafts warm before nightfall and our thoughts turn towards chilled beer and cocktails.
AH WELL, HERE'S ANOTHER OLD WEATHER PATTERN PREDICTION FOR YA : COOLER SUMMERS AND MILDER WINTERS. i would say that seems to hold true for Weymouth as far as i'm concerned.

*****

i AM STANDING looking at the skies from the corner of Goldcroft and Heathwood. i am leaning on a brick gate-post (not a lamp-post!)......or rather i am writing this down in my notebook using the pillar as a desk. A neighbour i greeted in town earlier buying his newspaper in W.H.SMITHS scootles past on his motorised transport on the pavement across the road from me. He flies past before i realise. A dribble of cars exceed the 20 mph speed limit as usual. There is a slight increase in the incidence of rain drops while the sun struggles with its luminosity from its place amongst the clouds. The hot and sunny day has not yet come to pass and it's already mid-day and ANOTHER "V" FORMATION is flying in a southerly sort of direction towards the lake........

*******

bernard hemensley

GOLDY HERMITAGE

11 AUGUST 2015

*************



3 POEMS ON THE MUDDY ROAD

(ONE)

A ZEN TEXT

CANNOT HOLD THE EYES

WHEN A WOMAN PASSES-BY

EVEN FOR JUST A MOMENT

 

 

(TWO)

INTRACTABLE VISIONS

OF THE MARKET-PLACE

SUMMER FRUITS

 

 

(THREE)

A HEAVY LOAD

TO CARRY HOME?

BUDDHA WANTS TO KNOW

WHAT IS THIS?

 

* * * * *

bernard hemensley

GOLDY HERMITAGE

08 / 08 / 2015

*****************

NIGHT SITTING AT THE HERMITAGE after KRIS HEMENSLEY/ for KRIS HEMENSLEY

What is trapped in the streetlight
is a solitary figure
yet he sits with all beings
in the ten directions
there are no sudden moves
or gesticulations
other than the occasional 
twirling of a flower.

In the hermitage
we sit by day
and by night
we are aware of our breaths
but we do not count them.

Today i
went to the beach
in case there were fishermen
i did not have a lady beside me
but i had my bicycle to lean on.

Tonight i
sit quietly
there is a full moon
and a sky full of stars
i long for my bed
to sleep and to give
my dreams free reign.

i light my lantern
as they do in Antibes
and climb the stairs...
*
bernard hemensley @ Goldy Hermitage
2 a.m. 31st. july 2015
*********************

For 40-odd years i have felt ill-will towards CHRISTMAS HUMPHRIES, who, at the 1971 Summer School of THE BUDDHIST SOCIETY, of which he was the PRESIDENT, or was it the CHAIRMAN? Anyway, he was a HIGH-COURT JUDGE, to boot and answered my questioning after his lecture on ZEN, that, FOR SUCH PEOPLE THERE WILL BE NO MORE SUMMER SCHOOLS! The "problem" was that i was looking to hear something practical, and he was talking as an academic....today ZEN...yesterday TIBETAN....i became entangled between this and that as a "young" 23-year-old...unheeding of my friend's mother's injunction to stick to poetry, for now, i conflated different systems. 44 years later, travelling back from DORCHESTER to WEYMOUTH, on the NUMBER 10 BUS,this evening, i realised that the great confirmation and encouragement i felt, at that time, by the JAPANESE MONK saying = DON'T LISTEN TO THAT MAN, regarding HUMPHRIES, as we sat side-by-side before after-lunch-meditation, was misplaced. For 44 years i held-on to DON'T LISTEN TO THAT MAN. But Chrismas Humphries was correct. i never did go to the BUDDHIST SUMMER SCHOOL again, out of choice. And the Japanese Monk was also correct = BE A LAMP UNTO YOURSELF. [Golden Goji Hermitage : 18 / JULY / 2015]

thinking of dogen / all afternoon / drinking clouds / from a teacup / tonight / a "moon in a dewdrop"

 

golden goji hermitage

8 / june / 2015

******************