tired – diptych

 

 

 

                                                              tired

                     from sleep
                                   dream about to fight someone
                                                   poke my fingers in his eyes
                                   couldn’t control a class
                     even when angry
                                                   tired
                                   from looking for meaning
                                                              when writing
     drove 150 miles
                                                   nothing magical
                     no gorges of grey cloud
                                   to brace my fresh and steely view
                     sunny day
                                   people stupid
                     all acting lost to their wondrous nature
                                                   I, tired
                     and lost to my wondrous nature through judgement
                                                   stupid stupid stupid

 

                                                      ~ ^o^ ~

 

                                                              the Batman
                                                   is on a mission and a vow
                     absorbed and meticulous
                                   in every activity
                                                   the vow to strike fear
                     the mission to make justice
                                   even if he has to do it himself
     all without knowing his wondrous nature
                                                   at all
                     which cause his shadows and nemeses
                                                              to arise
                                   manifest and garish
                                                   askance and twilight-mirrored across town
                     the Joker – his freedom and adjustment
                                   denied and let wild
                                                   the Riddler – his doubt and guilt
                                   refused and shot with worm
     the Penguin – his child and hurt
                                                   abused and reviled by hope
                     the Catwoman – his love and beauty
                                                                      un-held and awkward to speak

                                   he climbs the outside of buildings
                                                              stupid stupid stupid

 

 

 

part of >>> Batman
travelling wormhole: travelling is fresh
mirror wormhole: ‘small town busy …’

 

the end

 

 

 

                      maybe it was the tinted glasses
                      walking uproad to town

                                the
                                wide
                                low
                                grey
                                cloud
                                hung

                      then there was space
                      between the buildings

                      a woman walked handsome out
                      of the House of offices uphill
                                for lunch

                      the bus bsssh’d and waved
                      some suits across the road
                                downhill

                      then there was silence
                      and we all waited for

                                the end

                      under the green steeple

 

 

 

stamina

 

 

 

                                              dreamed through the day
                      tired bones from walking yesterday
                      too many late nights
                                   chasing the excitement
                                   I think I haven’t had today
                                   to make it significant
                                              chasing so much
                                              to make my life significant

                      chasing comic-colour treescapes
                                   buildingscapes
                                              to reassure me significance
                                   making lists of them
                                   making points of them
                                   making a fetish out of them
                                              to keep them close
                                              and keep them fresh
                      but find in the end that I am tired
                                   all that chasing
                                   all that keeping
                                   such a long and lonely mistake
                                              dumb and stupid
                      with all my collections around me

                                              except when I sit
                      and have the stamina to keep sitting
                                   even through one lurch
                                              to excitement
                                   even through one blank
                                              of boredom
                                   charging even one fibre
                                   of a muscle to be alert

                                              to glow

                      so that I could spend all day
                                              walking

 

 

 

walking wormhole: write / in / g

 

gotcha

 

 

 

                           gotcha

                right in the middle of the wide open space
                between late-Victorian apartment buildings
                where the avenues and streets acutely dissect
                           on the one side
                and the right-angled 1960s canyon of higher business
                           on the other
                two hundred and seventy feet up will you
                never learn Riddler there is nowhere you can
                show yourself that is safe from my happenstance

 

 

 

part of >>> Batman
blue bat wormhole: The Batline Life-line

 

William Carlos Williams

 

 

 

                                   William Carlos Williams
                                   sat on the hospital roof
                                   to write and enjoy the sun

                                   through the mist were lilac buildings
                                   large as the horizon
                                   with small menacing windows but

                                   the occasional buddleia plants
                                   grew out mauve between
                                   the cornice stones

 

 

 

horizon wormhole: fir trees
lilac wormhole: avenues of uprise
mist wormhole: classic

 

from my childhood

 

 

 

                                  from my childhood

                        untied            un-navigated            foggy
                        in the house on the hill now too big for us

                        out of the dreams of colours and glass
                        ‘… need to be the Man of the House now’

                        something high and far-out to be
                        constructed                reaching

on the edge of a collapsed crumbling viaduct – a society that no longer thrives

                        but persists – I will never succeed in building
                        on such a structure                scared of falling

                        buildings too high to raise my eyes
                        ledges too narrow to ste-        pp

                        hills becoming vertical as I climb
                        branches lurching with my weight

but this is all I know to do                                  
this is all I have done                                  

            but then I didn’t have to be
            anything other than what I was I was

sufficient as I was to be everything                                  
that was needed to be                                  

            the Man of the House ‘the Man
            of the House’ made me other

because I reached after the sublime                                  
to be the Man of the House                                  

            I don’t know myself
            I am someone who has striven

beyond himself all his life and yet                                  
there isn’t a hidden me covered over                                  

            waiting to be found I am what I have striven
            not what I have striven away from

I should accept me as I am and sit and                                  
when the fear and failure come up accept them                                  

                        when the anger and violence
                        come up accept them

                        when the reading and sublimity
                        come up accept them

                        these are the child who stood
                        in the garden smiling at the sun

                        through the branches but frozen
                        because they were moving

                        delighted but bewildered
                        reaching but blinded

 

 

 

a room in the House on Eglinton Hill
branches wormhole: Plumstead Common / Road

 

‘awareness is like a huge arc light CRACK! …’

 

 

 

                      awareness is like a huge arc light CRACK!
                                buzzing powerful unwieldy
                      and I am sitting meditating
                                like a tall building
                      I do not sweep the streets trying
                                to follow a thought
                      I train it wide and still and let
                                the people and cars pass through
                      even those now out of the spotlight
                                I know have passed through

 

 

 

awareness wormhole: while / walking

 

1955

 

 

 

                      1955

                      two-tone shoes
                                brown with cream sides
                      beside the parked car
                                cream with brown seats
                      by the pavement
                                raised and crowded
                      on the dirt road
                                flat and receding
                      through poles cables and signs
                                on colonial buildings
                      so much difference
                                to the ever-rising hills

 

 

 

wanting to be loved

 

 

 

                                     wanting to be loved

                           when I was young
                           I would be a superhero who secretly
                           jumped across buildings
                           achieving – at a touch –
                           dawn for a whole city

                           as I grew younger I would
                           write the poems which would
                           still a lifetime at a single glance
                           I would be the husband that remained
                           wider than the ground the father
                           that was constant beyond notice
                           and the teacher who would teach
                           10 000 lessons to learn

                           that he was lost
                           and almost foetal

                                     and it is here
                                     that I must stay
                                     and be
                                     myself

                                     and it is here
                                     that I must stay
                                     and love
                                     myself

 

 

 

part of >>> writing and being
superhero wormhole: wrong

 

lifetime

 

 

 

                                     lifetime

                           I look and I gaze
                           and wonder but I don’t
                           notice

                           lives shift and change but
                           I am quiet
                           and not noticed

                           I see dawns over rooftops
                           I see angles from the pavement
                           but no one else notices

                           and then I speak
                           but everyone continues
                           to listen to themselves