despite all / depiction

Tags

2019, 5*, appearance, architecture, art, cows, Darmstadt, east, empire, history, illusion, life, line, mass, reality, survival, thinking

                so, lowing
                and looking east
                from all the crumbling musculature
                of past empire,
                chewing cud

                ninety nine percent
                of all and ever species have become extinct and I
                cannot deconstruct
                the categories-
                enough to read

                the lines and mass
                of stijl, reminds me
                that I try to be far too clever trying to read
                despite all
                depiction

 

mused from a visit ot the Museum at Darmstadt attending the celebration of Jon and Sara’s wedding

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

architecture wormhole: travel // when I die
history wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – An Old Piano
life wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
reality wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XXII by William Carlos Williams
thinking wormhole: riders of the night

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – tenderness

Tags

2019, 6*, cat, ceiling, children, chords, green, keyboard, London, memory, piano, walnut, World War

                                lost candle holders
                mother of pearl flower centres

                                upright for £6
                polished, tuned just before the war

                                new chords,
                putting the cat up on the keyboard

                                humming interior,
                green-felt arpeggios rising to apogee –

                                sitar strings –
                it cannot last much longer now,

                                turned to the
                walnut altar: evenings of war in London

                                the ceiling
                fell on it more than once with

                                tenderness

 

read the collected work of ‘Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters]‘ as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – An Old Piano

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

cat wormhole: POEM by William Carlos Williams
green & London wormhole: travel // when I die
piano wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – An Old Piano

 

POEM by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1930, 6*, cat, climbing, kitchen, William Carlos Williams

                      POEM

                As the cat
                climbed over
                the top of

                the jamcloset
                first the right
                forefoot

                carefully
                then the hind
                stepped down

                into the pit of
                the empty
                flowerpot

 

from Poems, 1930-1931: the care; and bother; to be so; meticulous; about no; thing in; particular; that it; becomes; everything; worthwhile; noticing

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

cat wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
kitchen wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
William Carlos Williams wormhole: THE ATTIC WHICH IS DESIRE: by William Carlos Williams

 

on / that / day

Tags

2019, 6*, arms, bread, breeze, brows, cake, chickens, Darmstadt, dog, ears, elderflower, family, feet, friends, happening, harps, Jon, Krishna, marriage, people, pine-cones, salad, Sara, serviettes, sunlight, trees

                                on
                                that
                                                day

                when the breeze was high in the trees and the sunlight
                occasional across pebble paviours

                when the harps cried ‘hallelujah!’
                and the puppy’s brows drew ears to attention of
                                chickens!

                when the cake was spread before the salad as only Krishna would have liked                
                and families multiplied like fanned serviettes

                and friends came together like classmates
                and peoples’ feet jumped one way, their arms waving the other,

                Jon and Sara pulled the bread and divined pinecones and elderflowers
                when things really had
                                come together beautifully

 

Jon and Sara married a couple of weeks earlier, but we celebrated later all together

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

breeze wormhole: at Kreukenhof
dog wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
family wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – An Old Piano
feet wormhole: waiting to be heard
Jon wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
people wormhole: boiled spangle with soft centre
trees wormhole: travel // when I die

 

poessay XI – piquant love

Tags

2019, 6*, arch, cause and conditionality, compromise, crane, doing, identity, intuition, knowledge, letting go, life, love, not knowing, obscuration, opportunity, others, poessay, scandal, self, shadow, sitting, thought, writing

poessay XI –

                lookitallathisabouttheplace –
                both the obscuration and the opportunity difficult
                either to see or to take:

                                I don’t know what to do –
                                inject into causality
                                project over condition (whatever

                                I’m sure that’s not the way to do) –
                                I can only know what I intuit
                                usually de-spite “I don’t know

                                but will step in line
                                if you let me join the gang”
                                best served unnoticeable

                                but not really
                                me no matter how deep the cover;
                                so back to the hunch –

                                crane reaching from the crumbling arch –
                                written up on giddy foolscap
                                (given half the chance, or notice)

                                but this is not me either
                                just a more clever ‘I don’t know’;
                                than all the others who don’t know at all

                                or know by some rote too lazy
                                or compromised to know (what I
                                might know) or those who

                                say they know holding me deficient
                                that I don’t behave as they know
                                (compromised to behold), or then

                                there are those who seem to know
                                despite the prevalence and norm all about
                                from whom I absorb

                                through my very xylem
                                and then heavy-shadow them all about
                                but they don’t know either

                                just more mystically or glamorously so
                                until the scandal;
                                so don’t try to know at all

                                because any of this knowing
                                is just a whorl somewhere
                                within cascading causality

                                making sure my specious self;
                                just let the self go
                this knower, this knower so much better and deeper than anyone else who does not even know what is to be known,                

                                let it all go
                                and sit with the not-knowing,
                                watching all the fluidity with

                                                                                                piquant love

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

compromise wormhole: looking for the right exit
crane & doing & identity & thought & writing wormhole: travel // when I die
knowledge wormhole: Dulwich College, London, 1871
letting go wormhole: at Kreukenhof
life wormhole: psssssh
love wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
others wormhole: quietly in my quiet house
shadow wormhole: breakfast
sitting wormhole: – creak —

 

travel // when I die

Tags

2019, 7*, accountability, afterlife, afternoon, architecture, bardo, being, black, brick, brown, buildings, capitalism, century, clouds, crane, data, death, decades, dedication, depth, doing, echo, fields, floating, green, ground, Have, height, horizontal, identity, industry, interdependent origination, iteration, length, lintel, London, magenta, mind, notice, orange, passing, perspective, pillars, presence, purple, rain, rainbow, red, reference, ripple, rooftops, russian vine, samsara, sandstone, sapphire, self-cherishing, self-grasping, silence, sill, sky, sound, speech, Thames, thought, tide, time, train, travelling, trees, Uckfield-London line, utility, walls, white, world, writing

                                                                                travel

                                                                                noticing
                                                                at all is a product of
                                                                shifted perspective
                                                                related to behold;

                                                                when I’ve nothing to write
                                                                I’ve lost any perspective,
                                                                cornered by both these walls
                                                                I’ve walked along

                when I die
                this mind will no longer whorl about this pinchèd self
                in a world of diminished return and profusion of iteration

                                                                cranes atop
                                                                pulling them further up and up
                                                                from the ground on which they
                                                                balance on receding point;

                                                                communities of them
                                                                each taller than the last and the next
                                                                all along the wharfs
                                                                of endless account

                it will be expansive
                high and up in industrial and sandstone sky
                it will fathom all the deep of brown kelp in shifting purple

                                                                kilometres long
                                                                courses of brick
                                                                grimed black and utility-studded
                                                                updown onoff foothold and wire

                                                                ripple along nicely
                                                                across right-angled centuries
                                                                and occasional shot bolts
                                                                of deepest russian vine

                with no sound
                save diminishing echoes of a pleading late self
                having nothing left to refer to and nothing left to here, and

                                                                believe it or not
                                                                a rainbow exponential
                                                                to the white arch of Wembley
                                                                we’ll chase for miles

                                                                orange shimmering to
                                                                magenta through staccato tides
                                                                out and over flat roofs
                                                                on and into the fields

                all data wiped –
                suds off my hands from my shoulders –
                and did I back enough up for some grander vector to reach?

                                                                where trees grow from ground
                                                                shaping over decades
                                                                green-flamed cupolas
                                                                clamped to the sky

                                                                and from perspective passing
                                                                of open field
                                                                turn – creak –
                                                                the whole world

                I may well
                have built pillars of cleverness and thought:
                plinthed, fluted, capitaled and giddyingly architraved …

                                                                and there
                                                                Lancashire red brick
                                                                with high and whitey
                                                                sills stale and lintel

                                                                before washed-out
                                                                sapphire-afternoon of steely sky
                                                                and horizontal fingers of
                                                                scud-rain

                … but they’d just
                floated there upright in space ‘neither use nor ornament’
                straining on the string in my baby-fat hands, I’ve

                                never really
                                made stuff happen
                                and didn’t have to try

                                more than let more and more
                                of stuff happening anyway
                                happen through me

 

train trip; East Sussex to London to Lancaster to Ulverston, Cumbria; where we lived for three years and started a family; stay at Swarthmore Hall; visited Conishead Priory where we lived for 18 months after marriage and graduation; notes and observations on the journey, sense of bridging 32 years of lifetime(s); notes > (maybe) two poems, but two which could nevertheless not be separate, although distinct, like train tracks; three years retired, still processing if I achieved anything in this capitalist and samsaric world …; London centuries old, still processing …; architecture as the stage-scenary of endeavour; the ‘here’ in the 9th stanza is definitely (sic); this is, positive

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

afternoon & sky wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
architecture & thought wormhole: “And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”
being wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
black & sky wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
brown & green & walls wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
buildings & crane & rain & red & speech wormhole: riders of the night
capitalism wormhole: `whappn’d!
clouds wormhole: at Kreukenhof
death & identity wormhole: psssssh
doing wormhole: writening
echo & mind & passing & sound & time wormhole: – creak —
Have wormhole: on facing the Have
London wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – An Old Piano
orange wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
purple wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
rooftops wormhole: Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896
samsara & trees wormhole: breakfast
silence wormhole: window
Thames wormhole: London, 1809
train & travelling wormhole: beneath
Uckfield-London line wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
white wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
world wormhole: none and all
writing wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later

 

it’s on it’s way …

they’ll arrive here tomorrow, I think,
to celebrate my sixtieth birthday

there’s, a poem coming …

there’s, a poem coming
two maybe; I’m not sure if they’re separate

it’s travelling north
out of London

travelling thirty two years
to arrive

back to beginnings, well
travelling anyway …

… but I’m not sure if it’s ended yet:
nothing has ever happened until after it has finished

Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VI, Patience – verse 125; reflectionary

Tags

arm in arm, requires chewing

Bodhisattvacharyavatara by Acharya Śāntideva

Chapter VI– verse 125

Transglomeration: From now on, as means of delighting all Tathāgatas, I shall make of myself the loyal and life-devoted servant to all beings of the world.   Let these beings walk all over me, let them kick me in the head, but even at the risk of dying – may the Guardians of the World rejoice – I shall not retaliate!

~~~ “BCA” ~~~

V. 124 confession for harm caused to Buddhas by harming sentient beings
↑ Stitch ↓
V. 125 confession follow-through: let them do anything to me, I will be the servant of the world

Text: deliberation over the words to use for (a) ‘pleasing/satisfying’ the Buddhas, of making myself the (b) ‘slave/servant’ of the world; I need to get to the intention of what these references mean otherwise it is going to be too easy to fall into a perverse sadomasochistic relationship here, which I am sure is not healthy; also (c) ‘the crowd’ of sentient beings, and also does the ‘crowd’ (d) put the foot on my head and break it and/or kill me, (is this ‘foot on the head’ as in the ultimate show of disrespect)? … Sanskrit: (a) ‘to please or satisfy’ (the Buddhas, (b) ‘servitude’ to the world, (c) ‘mass, multitude’ as in all beings, (d) ‘foot on my head’ – can’t find any explicit reference to killing, possibly the reference to ‘foot on the head’ is indicative of ‘all sorts of violent behaviour including up to …’, ‘foot on the head’ would be culturally and suggestively evocative of the ultimate violence rather like ‘taking a spade to the head’

Personal: and have you noticed, Mark, that this Vow requires that you benefit all beings even if they kick you in the head and kill you and far, far, far from benefitting them all with the hope that they’ll recognise what a visionary teacher you were or what jaw-dropping writer you may have been; this Vow never was, and certainly shouldn’t be some perverse mode of ‘me, me, me’; you have touched the minds of whosoever’s mind was to be touched in teaching quite independent of whether you had a wonderful mark-book or a cognitive infrastructure of lesson-construction or not; and you have moved whosoever’s mind’s eye was to be moved in your poetry quite independent of how many hit you have got on your blog; stop getting in the way of yourself, so much – let the benefit flow through you, despite ‘me’

Reflection: so this is like an echo/reflection of the Bodhisattva Vow established in chapter 3 but built upon the realisation, this time, that quite despite whatever nice intentions we may have had beforehand, we have harmed and damaged other beings through our self-centered behaviour and that, from this moment onwards, we will stop it (in order to fulfil this Vow); the avowal to go as far as letting people put their foot on my face or kill me doesn’t mean I’ll invite people to do that, but that beings may harm me back (as they will because of the karmic debt I have left with them through my previous behaviour) and that I would not retaliate even if they showed me the ultimate disrespect or killed me: this comes towards the end of the long chapter on the discussion of the minutiae of patience, what is therefore left implicit in this verse is … ‘I will not retaliate’ to this abuse and killing for all of the reasonings that this chapter has been exploring; this is not scary stuff, this is not sadomasochistic stuff, this is the inherent grandeur of the Vow that has been taken, this is how far a Bodhisattva is prepared to take it, either in actuality or aspiration … ‘may it increase infinitely’

Practice: bottom-line: ‘do what thou wilt’ to me, I will (use all of my mulched wisdom about how things work to make sure I do) not retaliate

Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VI, Patience – verse 127; reflectionary

Tags

arm in arm, requires chewing

Bodhisattvacharyavatara by Acharya Śāntideva

Chapter VI– verse 127

Transglomeration: It is just this that both honours and delights the Tathāgatas, it is just this that also wins fulfilment of my own true purpose, it is just this that ends the suffering in the world, therefore it is just this which is my life-long Vow and practice.

~~~ “BCA” ~~~

V. 126 because Buddhas see the nature of beings as themselves
↑ Stitch ↓
V. 127 serving beings serves Buddhas serves my own ends ending suffering = my Vow & practice

Text: Sanskrit has this verse as ‘my Vow’; Tibetan has it as ‘I shall always practise it’ – they are saying the same thing, Sanskrit names it from the point of view of the result (the Vow – vrata), Tibetan describes it from the point of view of maintaining the Vow (what else do you do with vows in order for it to be named the Vow you have taken…?)

Abstract: being the benefitting of beings by recognising and responding to their true nature as being identical with the compassion of the Buddhas … pleases the Buddhas, source of infinite personal virtue, dispels the suffering of the world

Reflection: Geshe Kelsang makes it explicit (in Meaningful to Behold), but what is otherwise referred to as a ‘Vow’ or ‘my Practice’ is actually keeping patience with beings and holding them as the same nature as the Buddhas in compassion, which is the other side of the coin of practising patience

Embroidery: is this Vow different from the Bodhichitta Vow taken in chapter 3: no, this is the very same Vow, but that the practice of patience, now, has enhanced and deepened it; the Perfections in general are the practice of that self-same Vow (‘… may I become a fully Enlightened Buddha in order to benefit all migrating beings’), which practice implements and deepens the Vow, each in their particular ways (giving, discipline etc.); the practice of patience is based both on developing the understanding that everything is subject to causes and conditions (and therefore there is no basis on which to get angry – so this stops anger) and (and this makes it the practice of the Perfection of Patience) realising the nature of sentient beings is that they are embraced by the compassion of the Buddhas; sentient beings are not just subject to causes and conditions rendering them like phantoms (cf. verse 31) and that’s all they are; they are also sentient, they want happiness and do not want suffering (a glimmer of that ultimate true nature of theirs (of ours) which is stuck in conditionality) and whose ultimately empty nature is infused with the compassion of the Buddhas; so they are more than phantom nuisances who just keep pushing my buttons and stop me practising patience, damn them, there is much more to them than this; and this ‘infusion’ is not some boon or grace bestowed from benevolent ones who have chosen to bestow it (maybe on some, maybe not on others … is it a punishment if I don’t get this infusion …?), rather it cannot not be infused, the same as water being poured into a body of water will become water without any transformation (of the nature) of either the water added or the body of water to which it was added; therefore the recognition of the empty-and-compassion-infused nature of sentient beings (a wisdom) and the response to that recognition (by deepening one’s Vow through determining to benefit beings according to this empty-and-compassion-infused nature, rather than vie with them as rivals to my self-grasping/cherishing nature) like water pouring into water (a method) is dissolving that trichotomy, benefitting both myself and others; this is the Bodhichitta Vow; with this recognition (of beings’ and Buddhas’ nature) and commitment to see them and myself as of the same nature, I and all beings become like water in water and the Bodhichitta that has taken birth, increases infinitely

Determination: therefore “just this” will be my Vow and practice, certainly for the rest of this life, and hopefully with enough momentum for future existences too