Hare Heart
Heart on a hair-
trigger – wild-eyed, twitching.
Dashing here, there.
Seeking, sleekily.
Caught between the
carrot and the stick.
Which to choose, which to lose?
Shadow-boxing –
projection versus reality.
Wanting wantonly
life’s thousand and one temptations
and ten thousand distractions.
A modern soul suffering
from priority anxiety.
Spoilt by choice. Information
overload. Channel surfing
with unconscious motor action.
Conditioned lab rabbits.
Nibbling, nibbling – what
was it I was looking for?
Cursed with the awareness
that there is always more.
Never still long enough
to realise that there
is always enough.
Kevan Manwaring
April 2012
Racing the Dark
Riding home on New Year’s Day
in the remaining light
– chasing the dusk –
after a fiery sunset,
an orange band
sandwiched against bars of deepening blue.
Trees, ink blots
stark against the winter sky.
Frozen spectres of shadow
straight out of Rackham,
a Northern European folk tale.
Absolute concentration
on the road, the line of a bend –
scanning for ice, for gravel,
the fata morgana of a diesel slick.
The grit spreaders are out,
leaving a chancy seasoning
on the macadam.
The cold hits you like an icy fist,
encroaching through the layers.
The outriders of frostbite
creeping up the fingertips,
inveigling themselves into toes.
Use of controls –
difficult; reactions –
sluggish. Can survive only
so long – before the
numbness wins.
Mean
while
witnessing the austere beauty
of it all.
Life, stripped to its essence,
its core truth.
Day One of a new decade,
perhaps.
The road unribbons before me,
full of possibility.
To be riding into the future
on New Year’s Day –
steering my destiny.
Turning the wheel
into tomorrow.
The darker it gets,
the brighter we become –
shining in the night.
We race against the dark –
Death always at our heels,
but he won’t win the race
this day.
Kevan Manwaring
From The Immanent Moment, Awen 2012
The Immanent Moment by Kevan Manwaring, Awen 2011
Ignition
Award-winning photo taken by Tim Platt
Summon lightning
and the thunder comes.
Kundalini rpm.
The dragon wakes,
flexes chrome muscles,
snorts hot breath.
A sneer on its lips,
a glint in its eyes.
A flick of its tail
and it’s off.
Trace pattern on retina.
The past a ghost of dust.
A roaring blur –
nothing but wind, vibration, a visor view.
The road unravels,
is devoured.
Finding peace in motion,
fully present –
now, now, now.
Never more alive
than on the cusp of death.
A knife’s edge –
riding the blade.
Into the unseen.
The road unmade
until you ride it into
existence.
From The Immanent Moment, by Kevan Manwaring, Awen 2011
