window

Tags

1830, 2019, 5*, artist, creak, crystal, fire, light, painting, silence, silhouette, sound, standing, Turner, windows

                oh,
                the Artist stood

                only he
                in silhouette

                daubing;
                his Admirers reclined

                or leant
                and all was silent

                save a creak
                and a lap of flame

                and the
                incandescent crystal

                of light
                around the floor-to-ceiling

                window

 

the sounds of light downloaded from Petworth: the Artist and his Admirers (the old library), c. 1830 by William Turner; when light enters through windows it turns to music if there is an alert-enough artist to express it and an audience-enough to hear

 

 

^{————w}(O)_{rmholes________________________________|—–}

light & silence wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
silhouette & sound wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
windows wormhole: “And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”

 

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looking for the right exit

Tags

2019, 6*, ampitheatre, arch, Chester, compromise, driving, gothic, history, identity, living, mosaic, role, Roman, roundabout, ruin, schoolchildren, settlement, sleep, society, storey, time, traffic lights

                there
                                may
                                                have
                                                                been

                bygone gothic arches
                pointing two three storeys up
                on the traffic-lighted roundabout

                and milling schoolchildren with
                Roman shields marching patchwork
                from the rebuilt amphitheatre, I know

                but that single vice in perpetuity
                above and beyond the call of living
                from which to sleep heavy,

                snug and secure under
                single tattered rank, and ever
                metres deep in tread across

                meticulous tesserae – mosaic
                to the measure of all settlement –
                was far too much to emerge from with any certainty,

                                looking for the right exit

 

back from a visit to the midlands; visited Chester for the first time – it’s an old town, back to when it all begannn annnd connnntinnnues…

 

 

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

compromise wormhole: my uncomfortable life
history wormhole: pursued
identity wormhole: writening
living wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
sleep wormhole: beguiled / desire
socoeity wormhole: boiled spangle with soft centre
time wormhole: then
traffic lights wormhole: travelling / back

 

boiled spangle with soft centre

Tags

'scape, 1833, 2019, 6*, building, ice cream, people, river, society, stone, sun, sunset, town, Turner, water, wheel

                boiled spangle with soft centre

                they came in tents
                they came on wheels
                down to the water’s edge

                all the turrets and span
                of stone were already
                faded with every ice-cream sun

 

OK … ‘Spangles’ were a boiled sweet, square and dimpled, which suggested a soft centre, but didn’t; their taste was a combination of visual colour and transluscency rather than anything other than sweet; Turner‘s A Town on a River at Sunset, 1833, had the colour of event and the transluscency of time, but also the soft centre of … life-ing

 

 

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

people wormhole: my uncomfortable life
river & stone wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
sun & water wormhole: then
sunset wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky

 

then

Tags

'scape, 1819, 2019, 6*, anchor, apricot, day, drifting, east, looking, morning, port, reflection, sea, ships, sky, society, spire, sun, sunrise, time, town, water, William Turner

                                                                                earlier,
                before the sun suggested the apricot immensity of coming day
                                fill up the sky and

                                                                                deep within
                glazed waters, the hulls drifted anchored, spindly masts
                                like antennae

                                                                                only port towers
                of decades stood still and reflected, later, jetties of planks and
                                posts tied onto

                                                                                the sea
                like ripples, there were centuries of town and spired symbol, then,
                                to bounder playful sky

 

prologued from S. Giorgio Maggiore, Early Morning, 1819 & Looking east from the Giudecca: Sunrise, 1819 both by William Turner; did you see the sunsets that morning, was anybody else there …?

 

 

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

apricot wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
looking wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
morning & reflection & sky & sun & water wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
sea wormhole: slight sneer
society wormhole: quietly in my quiet house
time wormhole: Sujātā

 

the Bodhisattva set out / for the Seat of Awakening

Tags

2019, 7*, Arya Lalitavistara, Bodhisattva, Buddha, calm, dark, demon, earth, echo, elephant, food, ground, happiness, light, lion, lotus, mindfulness, mountain, omniscient, past life, path, plateau, power, river, samsara, spontaneity, stars, step, three poisons, Tree of Awakening, view, walking, wheel

                so he bathed in the Nairañjanā,
                he ate the food, his strength

                returned, and he began the walk
                toward the Great Tree; he walked

                with easy gait, grounded
                as a mountain, each step gained

                and graceful with no fight, dream
                or idea; the placement pad of a lion,

                the calliper-swing of an elephant,
                a stride that touched not the earth

                but left perfect wheels
                upon the ground, a step that echoed

                across the plateau, a step that
                levelled mountain paths, each step

                that lead to happy lands,
                each step sprung from past lotuses

                of love and stable intention,
                that rendered demons powerless

                that calmed all view, that evanesced
                the darkness and stopped the

                endless endless rounds; his
                walk outshone the distant stars,

                his walk becalmed the rulers;
                the walk spontaneous, the walk

                omniscient, the walk mindful
                of every ancient step, with such a gait

                the Bodhisattva set out
                for the Seat of Awakening

 

from the Arya Lalita Vistara Nama Mahayana Sutra – the life story of the Buddha – originally using the words from the translation by the Dharmachakra Translation 84000 Committee which is freely available online here (for which thank you, thank you) and then other words once my gaze had settled into the image; the ‘Nairañjanā’ is the river by which the Buddha practised his austerities, the ‘food’ was that given to him by Sujata

 

 

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

Buddha wormhole: Sujātā
echo wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
light wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
path wormhole: alabaster balustrade
power wormhole: in turgid reflection
river wormhole: Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896
stars wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
walking wormhole: Valentine’s Day 2019

 

slight sneer

Tags

2019, 4*, black, clouds, dust, head, horizon, Lanzarote, life, passing, portrait, salt, sea, step, terrace, work

                slight sneer

                the weight of working life
                that steps heavy on the heel
                past the terrace

                slight-flicks the head away
                from the dust and building
                netting, but not

                as far as the black-jelly fruit
                sea with salt crystals tinkling
                the horizon under

                curtained cloud

 

 

 

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

black & clouds & life wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
horizon wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
passing wormhole: 10/30 by William Carlos Williams
sea wormhole: Valentine’s Day 2019
work wormhole: my uncomfortable life

 

Valentine’s Day 2019

Tags

2019, 5*, beach, Carol, circular poem, Lanzarote, love, painting, paper, sand, sea, shoes, Valentine's Day, walking, water, waves

 

 

 

 

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

beach wormhole: allowed all gain
Carol wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
circular poem wormhole: ‘ouch’
love wormhole: in deed
sea wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
walking wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
water & waves wormhole: mandala offering

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields

Tags

2019, 7*, birdsong, camera, clouds, corridor, dancing, drifting, elm, evening, faces, fields, focus, forest, gold, grey, hills, horizon, leaves, nebula, nightingale, photography, planet, purple, red, skeleton, sky, space, spire, stars, sun, thinking, trees, words

                                I took my camera into the fields

                but it was only after the
                purple-grey clouds drifted
                across the horizon and the

                wilted leaves had turned
                their face once more to the
                evening sky, when the sun

                broke low across the fields –
                old gold across the treetops –
                that I’d dansed macabre

                with the tripodial skeleton
                before the red hemisphere,
                reclined upon distant hills,

                extinguished like a farce
                and the populace of the
                heavens radiated above me

                and behind, the grates of
                all space between the two
                sentinel elms, it was there, I think,

                I left this planet
                at a tangent (glow of a
                lantern disappearing down the corridor)

                deep, until whole nebulae
                were within my pluck,
                but even before Antares

                had touched the nearby
                spire, the nightingale had
                been deep in construction

                of the following day’s forest façade,
                free free of all possible words and
                zoomed foci

 

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 – Sky

 

 

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

clouds & evening & gold & grey & hills & horizon & leaves & red & sky & space & stars & sun wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
dancing wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
faces wormhole: on facing the Have
purple wormhole: SPRING AND ALL I by William Carlos Williams
thinking wormhole: writening
words wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877

 

quietly in my quiet house

Tags

2019, 6*, anger, Anita Ekberg, fountain, house, identity, La Dolce Vita, others, quiet, sitting, society

                look at this one sitting to one side
                smouldering

                why does it sit there seething about
                it it it, while others

                get on doing stuff making
                a world-wide society of life

                with all of its crowns and repeated
                acts of shame

                look at their talent, their love,
                their art, their smile

                look at it, indulge in it; in fact,
                step into the pool and hold up your hair

                under the fountain for all to share
                glue-like to the society in which I sit

                quietly in my quiet house

 

drenched from under Bodhisattvacharyavatara VI, 76-77: [76] If someone is attuned enough to spiritual things to find delight and joy in recognising the appearance of excellent qualities and worth in another and praising them as a good person, and if this makes them happy and draws people close together, why then, oh (sulky) mind, don’t you join in with the recognition as well; why are you not rejoicing too and taking the same delight too? [77] (But isn’t feeling joy and delight an attachment, and therefore bad?) But this pleasure, this delight cultivated through praise of another’s virtue, is an entirely virtuous activity, a spring, a fountain, of joy, which is not prohibited, but, even, a precept, taught by those of Ultimate Quality and Worth, an excellent way to bring people together of which one should take full advantage.

 

 

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

house wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
identity & society wormhole: Renunciation
others wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
quiet wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
sitting wormhole: Sujātā

 

Sujātā

Tags

2019, 8*, Arya Lalitavistara, asking, branches, Buddha, flow, milk, need, offering, passing, place, rice, river, sitting, Sujata, time, wisdom

                Sujātā

                the Nairañjanā flows,
                it always flows, Sujātā
                knows the flows, she had passed there

                every day, she passed
                the Bodhisattva parched
                as a blackened tree-stump,

                and every day saw only
                the low low reach of
                the tree wide and high

                waiting for the One
                to sit under, axial
                to the universe

                and before it was even
                apparent and the need
                had yet to ask she

                had creamed the
                sweetest milk with
                bursting grains of rice

                and offered it by the
                ever-flowing river, all
                absent of design and

                plot, but ineluctable
                in both place and
                process; so few found so wise

 

from the Arya Lalita Vistara Nama Mahayana Sutra:

                “The village girl Sujātā, who has done much good in the past,
                  Continuously makes offerings, thinking: “May this guide complete his discipline!”                
                  When she hears the request of the gods, she brings milk porridge with honey;
                  She goes to the river and happily sits on the banks of the Nairañjanā.”

 

 

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

branches & river wormhole: Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902
Buddha wormhole: in deed
flow wormhole: transferring
passing & sitting wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
time wormhole: Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890