under the blue and blue sky

Tags

1930s, 2020, 6*, blue, city, dome, horizon, identity, interdependet origination, London, lost, Ludgate Circus, morning, passing, pavement, seeing, sky, space, St. Paul's, stopped, sun, thought, time, traffic, work

                I stopped short
                caught on the kerb-

                side, traffic past,
                crawling from the morning

                sun; there was space
                before me here, but a

                city all about as far
                as I could see uphill until

                the consoling dome
                of St. Paul’s, deep behind any

                horizon, confirmed,
                yes, yes, it has come to this

                that you are found
                dressed dark and sober for work

                and lost
                under the blue and blue sky

 

 

who is it, who is it: that noticed or wrote or snapped or talked or stopped or dressed or read …?

 

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

blue & horizon wormhole: meanwhile
city wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
identity & time wormhole: sweet chestnut
London & sky wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets …’
morning wormhole: riders of the night
passing wormhole: YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams
seeing wormhole: ‘not sure …’
space wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
sun wormhole: silence
thought wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
work wormhole: slight sneer

 

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 …’

 

‘she shook the sweets …’

Tags

'scape, 1981, 6*, bed, blog, buildings, Carol, clouds, green, grey, lightning, London, love, marriage, Plumstead, red, seagull, Shooters Hill, silence, sky, smoke, Thames, time, wind

she shook the sweets
onto the bed

the grey sky
washed clean

metal smoke rose
then right-angled

a seagull
flew between the buildings

then

 

lightning

{the sweets were Lindt chocolates, individually wrapped in deep-red; the made bed was covered by a deep-green candlewick bed-spread; she was Carol, shortly before or after we were married, staying in what had been my bedroom, halfway up Shooters Hill, overlooking the Thames basin; this was the first poem I published on this blog, almost exactly ten years ago, and, in those early days, she got very little … no views; I think she deserves more than that; want a sweet?}

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

buildings & red & Thames wormhole: travel // when I die
Carol wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
clouds wormhole: here today and …
green & sky & time wormhole: meanwhile
grey wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
lightning wormhole: a crack of lightning / in the dark of night
London wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – tenderness
love wormhole: IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS by William Carlos Williams
Plumstead wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
seagull wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
silence wormhole: silence
wind wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley

meanwhile

Tags

2020, 6*, afternoon, angle, binoculars, blue, cranes, curtains, Eiffel Tower, flags, gorge, green, hope, horizon, mankind, moon, night, rite, rooftops, sea, seagulls, shape, ships, sitting room, sky, sound, stone, time, Tintin, travelling, walking, warehouses, water

                the seagulls, they glide about the
                cranes and warehouse rooftops

                they wheel above the pacing and fro,
                cut between pulleys and raised pennants

                oblivious to distant headland through
                studied binocular pointing out to sea, back in the day

                when the skies were afternoon-blue
                and the sea still sitting-room-green

                then, when there was dare to hope
                and ships anchored on the horizon

                under curtain-drapes of nightest sky
                while the moon snagged in line from

                fore-mast to prow; nevertheless, they
                trekked over crag and gorge, they walked

                through water and pushed through
                trapezoids – slab! – into rooms of stone

                locked and immovable despite
                horizon, fit or ninety degree angle

                oblivious to mankind’s rite and dress;
                meanwhile the twins climbed the tower

 

c’mon, now: a gold-plated no-prize to the first reader who can tell me which book this piece came from to celebrate my return to writing; perception – knowing what’s going on – is never as linear as it might seem to be in a story; already given that there is breadth and depth, even in the scant of depiction, there is usually a time (and a space, and we know how relative those two can be) during which something happens, but let’s not think that these are the only dimensions – there is always a right-angle to be taken that paisley-swirls to a far-wider cauldron than could have initially never been conceived but of which there were pre-echoes if listening askance intently-enough

 

 

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

afternoon & horizon & sky wormhole: travelling,
blue wormhole: silence
cranes wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
Eiffel Tower wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
green wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – tenderness
moon wormhole: ‘not sure …’
night & water wormhole: riders of the night
rooftops wormhole: travel // when I die
sea wormhole: then
seagulls wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
sitting room wormhole: the sitting room
sound wormhole: Four Noble Truths
stone wormhole: looking hard enough
time wormhole: travel // when I die
travelling wormhole: IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS by William Carlos Williams
walking wormhole: breakfast

 

a far grander / Sangha

Tags

2019, 6*, identity, mother sentient beings, Priory, Sangha, self, self-image, Swarthmore Hall, thinking

                went to Swarthmore Hall
                brandishing my fragile self
                to open up to all beings

                went back to the Priory
                with rising grandeurs
                of delusion; shall I

                relinquish this flaw
                of expecting I am so much
                more than I appear if only

                I were understood …;
                then perhaps I could be
                more than I could ever

                understand and recognise
                these beings as already
                my own and take

                my one and lonely
                place with a far grander
                Sangha than I could ever have allowed

 

‘Swarthmore Hall’ is where the Quakers began, Carol did a course there; it is in Ulverston in South Cumbria where we lived soon after we married and started our family, we were aware of the place at the time, but not as students; ‘the Priory’ just outside Ulverston is the Manjushri Institute, a Buddhist college that we lived in; this was the first time I’d been back to visit in 32 years; and … this is the last poem I wrote – 4th September 2019 – I haven’t written one since, not seized to, not tipped towards; I have been letting a lot of things go during these beginning years of my retirement, even my Batman comics … maybe more a spiral than a circle …

 

 

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

identity wormhole: ‘not sure …’
thinking wormhole: silence

 

‘and is there homage …’

Tags

2019, 6*, being, doing, equipoise, fields, geranium, immanence, leaves, mantra, rain, river, sitting, sound, Tara, trees, words

                and is there homage to the
                Venerable Arya Tara who sits whole

                within the river crucible one
                and severally to behold; her

                laughter of TUTTARE always
                through those trees, her huge knee

                bent graceful in a thousand diminutive equipoises,
                her right leg stretching out and out

                over rolling fields and far away;
                does she hum with

                proximate mass, does she remain
                when words have stopped –

                no, shh, listen to the fluvial rains,
blink, look at the geranium leaves

 

this is the running couplet to here today and …

 

 

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

being & trees wormhole: here today and …
leaves wormhole: looking hard enough
rain & sound wormhole: travel // when I die
river wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
sitting wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
Tara wormhole: Tara mantras
words wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields

 

looking hard enough

Tags

2019, 6*, Blake, books, earth, leaves, left, life, looking, path, private, right, roots, smell, stone, streets, Totnes, trees, walls

                down to the right are paths
                wrap ‘tween stone and wall and rind up dale

                that smell of leaf over earth
                and rooting writhed and coupling too to earth

                and down to the left,
                down through constant broadcast high through leaves,

                high streets of venue and outlet to cater for
                every private over life, that

                will yield a book on Blake,
                if not looking hard enough, and books

                that you already had if you
                were

 

and … eventually you have to go into town; in the 21st century you can’t escape from the town …

 

 

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

books wormhole: beneath
leaves & path wormhole: breakfast
life wormhole: despite all / depiction
looking wormhole: then
smell & stone wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
streets wormhole: riders of the night
trees wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
walls wormhole: travel // when I die

 

‘not sure …’

Tags

'scape, 2019, 6*, balcony, being, glass, houses, identity, illusion, light, moon, seeing, settee, streetlight, twilight, valley, wanting, writing

        not sure
        I wanted
        the over-
        head light
        on, until

        I noticed
        the grills
        of the bal-
        cony rail
        and the

        streetlights
        down the
        valley (before
        lounge
        lights were

        needed)
and myself
                between the both
        reclined to
        the write on

        the settee
        under a
        double full-
        se moon
        amid glazing

 

still in my friend’s apartment in Totnes towards being evening

 

 

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

being & streetlight wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
glass wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
identity & writing wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
light wormhole: riders of the night
moon wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
seeing wormhole: breakfast
twilight wormhole: only
valley wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley

 

‘from the cathedral window two stories / high …’

Tags

2019, 6*, air, balcony, bamboo, blue, breeze, clouds, cream, doors, facade, grey, height, history, pastel, pink, sweet-pea, Totnes, vertical, white, windows

                from the cathedral window two stories
                high above town

                the eiderdown cloud has settled
                patchwork greys

                (and pastels blue
                 through the pulled-back door to the

                 balcony); there
                and here, the various facades all cream

                and white, but
                the haphazard verticals of the sweet-pea

                crane pink
                with-out the bamboo spine

                exercising constant flexed ligament to the air
                but not the breeze

 

still in Totnes; ‘stories’ are definitely … sic

 

 

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

air wormhole: psssssh
blue & grey wormhole: travelling,
breeze wormhole: on / that / day
clouds wormhole: travel // when I die
doors & windows wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
history wormhole: despite all / depiction
pink wormhole: riders of the night
white wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen

 

nowhere / that can be seen

Tags

2019, 6*, being, black, evening, headlights, orange, river, roads, silhouette, streetlight, Sunday, Totnes, travelling, trees, white

                late from the evening:
                the second-floor apartment

                the lights are Jacksoned
                all about the hill, some orange

                and insistent, some white with no design
                to the gash of nothing

                of the river; wait, solitary
                headlights work slow down the road

                into town, but’s OK, it is
                Sunday, they sidle idly behind

                tree-silhouettes and get nowhere
                that can be seen

 

in September we looked after the apartment of our friend in Totnes; we do this from time to time; this time we travelled by train – takes the best part of a day to travel just over 200 miles; we arrived and settled and it was already getting dark; the apartment has a wonderful window, a cathedral window, from the floor apexed into the roof looking out over Totnes settled either side of the river Dart: there’s nothing for it, many evenings, but to turn out the lights and look across the valley at the lights …

 

 

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

being & black & orange wormhole: travel // when I die
evening wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
river wormhole: at Kreukenhof
roads wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
silhouette wormhole: riders of the night
streetlight wormhole: sometimes
Sunday wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
travelling & white wormhole: travelling,
trees wormhole: on / that / day