Transformation

since a child when dancing
with the family mop
whilst sweep-washing the floor
Stiv had fantasised heaven within
the innocent ballroom of his adventurous brain
where the mop handle
became a huge slenderly slimy serpent
the mophead a smooth human snakelike skull
with a frenzied haircut of flopping waves
bouncing a merry jig
he the inspired jockey
balancing precariously yogically
on the limbless spiralling body
praying for dear life
while the reptile twisted onward and upward
bolting towards enlightenment

the spirit guide who had granted
Stiv this one and only wish on his path to nirvana
now stood by below quite perplexed
at the impetuous manifestation of this magical ritual
having insisted that enlightenment demanded
Stiv live out his childish imagination
to even see a glimmer of insightful light
awakening on the distant horizon

Transformation

however the master hadn’t factored in
that he himself would have to suffer
the fate of being coiled into another’s adolescent antics
as the prescribed disenchanted onlooker
to the opening up of this all-engulfing devotional chasm
of which he could no longer be a controlling part
transformation of the follower seemed to be
not what the teaching promised for the preceptor
somehow

enlightenment
from the theorised
looked more like
the switch had tripped
and the light had
permanently gone out

whether or not the switch actually exists
is still open to much cosmic conjecture and debate
Stiv on the other hand
remains trapped in symbolic religious imagery
destined to the permanent hiatus of ethereal transformation