Methodical Recklessness

A change in the weather,
A change in the times,
A shifting of sands that lie underfoot,
Staring at the ceiling at 4am,
Stamping my feet to shake off the day,
A feeling of methodical recklessness runs through my inner world,
A sense that the bridge has been breached,
The keys lifted from idle guards,
Its happening, its happening from the inside out.

Peculiar travel suggestions dance into my opened mind,
With secret destinations and coded travails,
All that I hear yet fear to obey,
The voice of a will that is grander than mine,
Yet grows restless ever restless at our recalcitrance.

A time for the brave,
A time for the meek,
A shift in the heavens that lie overhead,
Staring at the ceiling at 4am,
Stamping our feet at the start of the day,
A feeling of methodical recklessness runs through the outer world,
A sense that the bridge has been built,
The latch has fallen, tumbled, shattered and free,
It happening, its happening from the inside out.

(This poem was inspired by a conversation with Kay Cannon - a friend and fellow coach in the US. Kay was listening to me and captured my mood perfectly when she said 'it sounds like you're engaged in methodical recklessness'. I laughed since I loved the apparent contradiction of these two words. I said to her that it was the title of a poem and the next day I wrote it. Kay also shared with me two lovely quotes from which I pinched some of the words in the second verse. These were 'peculiar travel suggestion are dancing lessons from God' by Kurt Vonnegut (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Vonnegut) and 'All journies have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware' by Martin Buber ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber ). The poem describes an uncontrollable, unsettling, inevitable journey. A natural transformation. Maybe this would be how a flower would feel as it grew and changed if it were blessed with self-consciousness? Or even scarier how a caterpiller would feel when it was 'dying' into a butterfly? Maybe this is how the world feels when it is wanting to change, when it is bored of how things are, restless, shaking the ground and stirring the heavens? What would you be doing if you were living in times of 'methodical recklessness'?

Transition Throes

Flickering like a knackered neon,
A connection is breaking down,
Now you see me, now you don't,
Who can read in the dark?
With these half messages of mine
The two halves of my transition throe,

Flickering like an eyelid half open,
A window in me is opening up,
Now I see you, now I don't,
Who can see with eyes wide shut?
With these sleepy lids of mine,
The two halves of my transition throe

Learning through this flickering pain,
Glimpsing a future state of permanence,
Grasping for the excitement and joy,
Whilst flirting with the still distant past,
Waiting for the tipping point of my transition throe

This half finished palace resembles a dusty building site,
Yet its foundations are firm, its design a noble cause,
I will finish its construction, I will deliver the vision
And over that oaken door will I hang the garland of my new beliefs.

(This poem is about change, deep change. It doesn't come much deeper than trying to change your beliefs. Beliefs are the foundation of our behaviour, when they change then everything else changes - sometimes this can be disconcerting! It is most disconcerting when you are in the halfway house between one set of beliefs and another, when you are in the midst of the 'transition throe'. The word throe means 'a severe pang or spasm of pain, as in childbirth'. It exactly fits the feeling of giving birth to new beliefs. The old world drops away and the new world starts to take shape and inbetween lies the 'flickering pain'. Yet once started the job has to be finished. The new palace has to be built. Determination pushes you. The vision pulls you. There is no turning back. The second verse of the poem reminds me of the quote from Marcel Proust - 'The voyage of true discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with new eyes.')