sweet chestnut

Tags

2015, 6*, ageing, air, being, buttress, chestnut tree, compromise, earth, generations, grass, growth, identity, leaf, letting go, life, reaching, time, trees, trunk

                     sweet chestnut

                     I have
                     long
                     since
                shifted the earth apart
                imperceptible for grass to grow,
                now, unknowing, so new;

                     I have
                     forgotten
                what it’s like to emerge
                without design, and have
                grown buttresses for so long
                they have twisted to comprise;

                     the trunk
                     of upward
                     direction
                that I reach from
                aimlessly with diminishing wisdom
                to a top leaf shifting

                     this way
                     and that
                     between air

 

{there is some anger and sulk that I do not write anymore: not sure if I couldn’t keep up the hi-octane perception or that ‘I was only seeking attention’ explains it all; I still don’t know, but maybe I don’t need to hold such stoic upper lips about it all, arms crossed, turned away; maybe just a bit of compassion wafting this way and that …}

 

 

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

air wormhole: ‘from the cathedral window two stories / high …’
being wormhole: silence
compromise & letting go wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
grass wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
identity wormhole: a far grander / Sangha
life wormhole: looking hard enough
time wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets …’
trees wormhole: ‘and is there homage …’

 

“I need help”

Tags

2015, 4*, career, dream, fear, letting go, passing, shame, speech, stairs, teacher, teaching

                vulnerable and stuck
                on the way to first lesson

                taking the short-cut over
                the main stairwell, narrow

                foot-ledge, I cannot
                continue, don’t look down,

                I cannot go back, “I need
                help, get a teacher” and

                I am not ashamed to
                call out loud, no one

                does, I cannot go back,
                a teacher passes, I

                cannot remember her
                name “I need help”;

                I realise there is a balcony-
                corridor behind the ledge,

                safety partition is loose,
                I can lean back into it,

                break the screen, fall
                back, no more fear

 

 

 

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

career wormhole: circuitry
dream wormhole: breathing through hypnagogia
letting go wormhole: place
passing wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
speech wormhole: Sandwich
stairs wormhole: is this it // all the time
teaching wormhole: I turn to wake up

 

Christmas 2015

Tags

2015, 4*, Carol, Christmas, clouds, film, glance, living, sky, The Tree of Life, thought, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, true nature, view, vow, worry, writing

                Christmas 2015

                paced a day with Carol like a spread of cards
                walked under cloudy skies, watched the thoughts
                behind the glances of ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’;

                stopped worrying enough to write: I renew
                the vow to mix all that I live with its true nature;
                watched the view of glances in ‘The Tree of Life’

 

 

 

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

Carol wormhole: out
Christmas & thought wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
clouds wormhole: city streets
film wormhole: just
living & writing wormhole: before any writing
sky wormhole: river

 

looking / ridiculous

Tags

2015, 6*, accountability, debate, echo, event, future, history, humanity, injustice, Paris, politicians, politics, rhetoric, Syria, terrorism, time, white elephants

                there is always always a whole
                history behind every event

                never more so as we
                step over rubble into the future

                which we build now; and so much
                of politics has become

                so deft at skipping the history
                to gainsay the outcome

                that it has become flat
                blunt and spade-like for holding, nothing

                to account; history is human
                hurt from any injustice and from any experience which persists despite

                the rhetoric (oh, you weren’t
                reaching for the shelves, were you!);

                responding to Paris by
                bombing Syria was on the table there-it-was

                a rhetorical knee-jerk
                blind to any history

                hoping for crowd-approval
                like the echoes of a playground brawl;

                politics should be sharp and uncomfortable,
                include all difference

                include whatever white elephants are in the room;
                spade (sic) politicians who

                will not respond to the white elephant
                who will not respond to the history

                are left with only the puff of rhetoric
                braying like farmyard animals, looking

                ridiculous; air strikes in Syria are ridiculous

 

there were a number of terrorist attacks in Paris during January 2015; there was debate in the UK about launching an attack on Syria as a response; the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbin, was courting views on the response – I wrote a poem

 

 

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

echo wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
history wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
Paris wormhole: Le Pont Royal, 1909
politics wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
time wormhole: lack of center

 

before any writing

Tags

2015, 5*, attention, being, living, non-doing, non-striving, surprise, wondering, writing

                                wonder
                ing for months whether it is
                                worth

                                writing
                or living long with attention to
                                what

                                I am
                before any writing has appeared and,
                                with

                                out
                guile I find I have written
                                with

                                out
                much thinking about it any
                                way

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
being wormhole: without any buffet at all
living wormhole: when the rain has settled / the dust
writing wormhole: lack of center

 

without any buffet at all

Tags

2015, 5*, acceptance, being, depression, green, identity, notice, panic, pointlessness, self-compassion, silence, surface, true nature, twilight, water

                                                surfacing
                                from a quiet sag – only noticed when
                surfacing amid the twilight sump,

                                                only
                                the silence of lapping remembered when damp seam and sole
                feel cold and slimely green –

                                                still
                                I do not know my true nature, panicking and gasping,
                wanting to float, wanting to hover,

                                                even,
                                without any buffet at all, without taint, and
                the local too close to distinguish

                                                myse-

 

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: prelude: // travel
being & depression & identity wormhole: lack of center
green wormhole: river
pointlessness wormhole: is this it // all the time
silence wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
twilight wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
water wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha

 

lack of center

Tags

2015, 4*, being, depression, dwelling, emptiness, identity, notice, space, time, writing

                recent relapse
                months long
                before it was
                even noticed

                I cannot write
                about it even
                now it has let
                off, too pervasive

                I cannot separate
                myself from it
                and suspect I
                shouldn’t try

                but dwell with
                in and wide as
                it is only what is:
                lack of center

 

 

 

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

being & depression wormhole: Sandwich
emptiness & identity wormhole: is this it // all the time
space wormhole: clear as vista
time wormhole: when the rain has settled / the dust
writing wormhole: the silent night of the Batman

 

Sandwich

Tags

2015, 3*, being, cafe, choice, depression, living, sandwich, speech

                Sandwich

                in the busy café after yet
                another long lapse by stealth –

                “I have the white bread sandwich
                  and the wholemeal bread sandwich” –

                I think I should know better
                by now which I should want

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: looking back over the tack / and jibe of my life I / notice there is / a fetch // after all … / but certainly not / where I had planned / or where I thought / I’d been
depression & living wormhole: is this it // all the time
speech wormhole: Coleton Fishacre

 

river

Tags

2015, 6*, being, eye, fingers, floodlights, green, Hulk, light, night, reality, river, silhouette, sky, skyline, wharehouse, wharf, windows

                while masts bob about
                the wharfs and warehouses

                fingers that could snap
                towers like cinder toffee

                hover like another reality
                while the left eye

                questions how it came
                to this – wh’, the skyline

                turns to silhouette, a
                thousand windows hold

                dusty light, beams arc
                the night sky but find

                nothing, overlooking the
                lonely promontory on the

                river

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: looking back over the tack / and jibe of my life I / notice there is / a fetch // after all … / but certainly not / where I had planned / or where I thought / I’d been
green & light & night & river & sky & skyline & windows wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
reality wormhole: Jericho
silhouette wormhole: between

 

is this it // all the time

Tags

2015, 6*, Bodhichitta, breathing, corridors, depression, emptiness, fear, groundlessness, identity, living, mist, perception, pointlessness, questioning, quiet, rope, searching, self-cherishing, silence, snake, stairs, standing, stone, sun, time, trust, walls

                is this it
                coming again out of the mist

                that in my trust I find I still
                get nowhere that I want to be –

                by the walls along the corridor
                or at the top of silent stairs

                standing on the landing – it
                is not up here after all, nowhere

                else to go …
                is

                it
                this damn mist

                so easy to overlook
                so quiet to breathe

                that I mistake the stones for a figure,
                I fear the rope for the snake, and yet

                this mist will disperse
                the sun will always eventually appear

                I need not wear my collar up
                all the time

 

 

 

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

Bodhichitta wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
breathing & quiet wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
depression wormhole: to rescue something
emptiness wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
groundlessness wormhole: place
identity & stone wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
living wormhole: looking back over the tack / and jibe of my life I / notice there is / a fetch // after all … / but certainly not / where I had planned / or where I thought / I’d been
mist wormhole: while
pointlessness wormhole: is there anything to write?
searching wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
silence wormhole: circuitry
stairs wormhole: currency of generations
sun wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
time wormhole: sweet chestnut
walls wormhole: snapshots about Totnes