‘God, who am I …?’

Tags

2014, 20th century, 7*, distance, faces, girls, history, horizon, identity, library, lost, madness, motion, Nightmare, presence, progress, reading, sitting, sun, sunlight, Sylvia Plath, talking to myself, TH Huxley, thought

picked over, cajoled, placed this way and that, gazed at the upper corner of the room, and eventually written from entry 33. of The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-1962; Plath wrote this, I merely … Plath wrote this, but the failure is mine, all mine, I tellsya!

                God, who am I?
                I sit in the library tonight
                the lights whirring
                girls everywhere
                reading books
                faces

                And I sit here without identity
                There is history to comprehend
                before I sleep

                Yet back at the house
                there is my room
                full of my presence
                There is my date this weekend:
                believes I am human –
                only indication that I am whole
                not merely a knot
                without identity –

                I’m lost!
                Huxley would have laughed
                What a conditioning this is!
                Hundreds of faces
                beating time along the edge of thought

                a nightmare
                no sun
                only continual motion
                If I rest inward
                I go mad

                There is so much
                in different directions
                pulled thin
                against horizons too distant to reach

                To stop with the German tribes
                and rest awhile: but no!
                On, on, on, through ages of empires
                ceaseless pace
                Will I never rest in sunlight again?

 

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: 20th century
faces wormhole: jump start
history wormhole: tragic and archival
horizon wormhole: twilight / and parasols down / within minutes
identity wormhole: between
reading wormhole: reating & wriding
sitting wormhole: all the sandstone / reflections in the / marble-blue troughs
sun & Sylvia Plath wormhole: concordance
talking to myself wormhole: a nice grey woollen picnic blanket
thought wormhole: divergent // direction

 

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between

Tags

2014, 7*, Batman, branches, buildings, cape, city, cornice, cowl, dawn, dichotomy, edge, façade, identity, leaves, light, moon, rooftops, shadow, silhouette, silver, sky, streetlamp, streets

                above the edges of rooftop
                are ever silhouettes

                of taller building and watery tower
                by the light of the silvery moon

                sometimes hanging upside down
                will be the Batman

                cape hanging uselessly, otherwise
                he may stand on cornice

                and look down on a street lit by lamp
                and throw shadow

                over the whole façade – impasse between
                moon and lamp –

                the eternal dichotomy;
                outside the city the detail is in the sky

                between branch and leaf
                and as dawn approaches the cowl

                and the cape
                will come off

 

 

 

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

Batman wormhole: Infantino / district of Gotham
branches & shadow wormhole: such such potential
buildings wormhole: windows // and balconies
city & rooftops wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
dawn wormhole: every step I take
identity wormhole: circuitry
leaves wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
light wormhole: the evening
moon wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
silhouette wormhole: ‘avenue of wraggled gorse tops …’
silver wormhole: garden
sky wormhole: forgotten anything
streetlight wormhole: faintly apricot air?
streets wormhole: place

 

place

Tags

2014, 7*, capitalism, child, doing, doubt, earth, energy, finding, gentleness, groundlessness, hair, hands, hope, leading, letting go, London, lurch, market, placement, precision, seeing, shift, sound, streets, thinking, vindication, waves, weight

                      not seeing
                      the energy
                      shift and wave
                      underneath

                      I flex in all the
                      wrong places to
                      ground my own
                      earth to stand

                      on, there, there
                      is the precision
                      but then I easily
                      despise my hope

                      and put on weight
                      far too quick to
                      judge and lurch
                      toward vindication

                      it’s just ‘thinking’
                      that makes it so
                      a toddler’s head
                      chatters by your side

                      just let them all be
                      let their bouncing hair
                      be gentleness to the
                      palm of the hand but

                      don’t take them by
                      the hand to lead them
                      through the streets
                      of London, there’s

                      nothing to find in found
                      and always there are
                      smiling deals to make,
                      letting go, in the market

                      place

 

 

 

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

capitalism wormhole: miss / ad / venture – poewieview #22
child wormhole: municipal garden
doing wormhole: holiday
groundlessness wormhole: the quiet whale
hair wormhole: and I lose sight of her into memory
hands wormhole: twilight / and parasols down / within minutes
letting go wormhole: woman / has worked in the gym / got a build
London wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey
seeing & thinking wormhole: time
sound wormhole: Tara mantras
streets wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
vindication wormhole: the writing’s on the wall
waves wormhole: concordance

 

concordance

Tags

2014, 7*, age, armour, discovery, Donald Fagen, expectation, eyes, flow, Gran Canaria, Have, holiday, identity, image, life, looking, music, passing, Salinger, sea, sitting, sun, Sylvia Plath, waves, writing

                                                                                                how to be
                                                                                in a holiday resort
                                                                where the Have is strolled
                                                and swaggered and tattoo’d
                                catching glance like after-image
                when the eyes are closed?

                                                                ~O___,

                                why aren’t I writing?            Well
                                                                I am
                but I was expecting to see something else when I wrote
                                the flow of another holiday
                                                rather than the
                                                                concordance
                                                that I have still yet to discover
                                in my writing eyes wide
                                                closed

                                                                ,___O~

                                                                certainly
                                                the sun and skin keep me
                                                                lapping without gain
                                                                and replaying the chorus from the ‘Nightfly’                
                                                                                unsure if I ever got the verse

                                                                ___“O”—

                                                                but nevertheless
                                                I still worry that I don’t write
                                                                as Plath and Salinger would lifefully so

                                                                I even know the answer
                                but I cannot sit at the moment,
                                                                I thought I had armour by the sea but it has

                                                                so quickly rusted
                                                and I’m overweight and 54 thinking
                                                                of illness and waste

 

 

 

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

eyes & Salinger wormhole: slightly / uphill
flow wormhole: happen//ing
Have wormhole: pass and / fro
holiday wormhole: holiday
identity wormhole: h’rk ‘eh ‘heh ‘hair ‘yeah ‘eh?
life wormhole: I turn to wake up
looking wormhole: Tara mantras
music wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
passing wormhole: ‘someone …’
sea & sun & Sylvia Plath & waves & writing wormhole: jump start
sitting wormhole: woman / has worked in the gym / got a build

 

Tara mantras

Tags

2014, 7*, being, flying, green, head, land, looking, mantra, mother sentient beings, sound, speech, Tara, travelling, trees

                from ground to thirty
                two thousand feet

                with Tara mantras for
                every head

                that crisps and scrunches
                and overhead cl’cks

                looking left then right
                then down with their ‘like’s

                and occasional ‘I
                was …’s while the

                turning trees carousel
                over green green land

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: reating & wriding
green wormhole: the sitting room
looking wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
sound wormhole: I turn to wake up
speech wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III
Tara wormhole: thar she perched
travelling wormhole: forgotten anything
trees wormhole: this time

 

I turn to wake up

Tags

2014, 7*, authority, breakdown, Carol, determination, doors, dream, Emily, future, heart, Hillside, home, humiliation, identity, innocence, life, managerialism, neglect, power, presumption, pupils, responsibility, sound, streets, teachers, teaching, time, toilet, uniform, waking

the e-mail that clanked dank in my heart
                the report I hadn’t written
                                for so long, for Emily
[her future all depends on it, poor Emily, she is so innocent and so pretty she deserves all the future she can get and You are neglecting her of it with your own languid longevity] but I will

                                NOT be responsible for future lives
                when I am ill from the presumption which doesn’t let me
even crap in private outside my own backdoor pan-in-the-yard
                they have called for me at my front door
                                with the brusqueness of a uniform
                                                with the presumption of amoral (sic)
                                                                even here
                                                the uniform and the outside toilet in my own house:                
                the humiliation could not be more complete so
I pull the hood of my dressing gown over my head
                and sink out of the dream

                                This Will Not Be

                                                I rouse Carol from
                                                                her own dream
                                                and drift somewhat back to …
                                … pupils all around the street
                                                they
                                                should
                                                not be
                                                there but only I
                of all the teachers in my front room
go out to front and tell them –
                command of my righteousness –
                                that they should not be there they should be BEHIND the house
                                                behind the house
                                but they turn languid
                and run round the corner down the street, they know
they don’t have to listen to me and
                I am powerless because
                                I am ill

                                I am so fed up with this
                                                I turn myself to wake up
                                                                I turn to wake up

 

 

 

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

breakdown wormhole: slow enough / to have love
Carol wormhole: St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards / with the forelegs hanging down obscene / reaching some height blindly to connect / out from the long-stalk tri-separating up- / to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what / is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know- / what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and- / it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”
doors & life wormhole: every step I take
dream wormhole: make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let
Hillside wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
identity wormhole: dear Lucy
managerialism wormhole: ‘let them slide off …’
power wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
sound & streets wormhole: while
teaching wormhole: dream I // dream II
time wormhole: this time

 

make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let

Tags

2013, 7*, afternoon, attention, boundary, class, construction, defeat, defensive, dream, labour, letting go, lifetimes, living, morning, satisfaction, shift, silence, skill, speech, teaching, waking, water

                I woke saying “sit down”
                to a class who had
                been testing me like water

                moving silent against
                my every prescription
                demanded or presumed

                despite all the charm or
                cleverness I might use
                to a morning

                and then an afternoon
                of defeat and defence
                unable to use the skill

                and manoeuvre I have
                taught myself for
                lifetimes now

                all the shift and forming
                around the boundaries
                finding every fissure

                and fault just ahead
                of my every attempt
                to dam it all; what labour

                what want of satisfaction;
                let the water go
                where it will – it will

                all go there anyway – and
                make your rickety
                constructs strong with

                unbending grids
                of attention and wide-
                open grates of let

 

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: be
attention wormhole: divergent // direction
dream wormhole: wakeoutofadream
letting go wormhole: redundant
lifetimes wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything
living wormhole: free
morning wormhole: windows // and balconies
silence & speech & water wormhole: the quiet whale
teaching wormhole: a nice grey woollen picnic blanket

 

municipal garden

Tags

'scape, 2013, 7*, Bakewell, branches, breath, building, bus, cars, child, clouds, coach, finials, garden, green, grey, hearing, morning, parent, passing, pigeons, pink, roses, speech, traffic, trees, voices

                                municipal garden

                pigeons along the ledge
                below the finials of the municipal building
                heads collapsed down into their shoulders

                the grey clouds convene
                from all across the morning
                the hangdown branches variously shuffle

                the municipal dustcarts and buses –
                      sorry not in service –
                the livestock carriers the plant carriers
                      and the coaches
                make their careful turn across the
                      mini-roundabout
                and all the cars cannot be seen but
                      are heard behind
                the long screen of pink rose bushes
                      constantly

                ‘can we go on the grass?’, ‘no’,
                inevitable as the next breath ‘why?’
                upturn voice ‘because you’re not allowed’ …

                … ‘why is it so green?’ the pigeons
                flock variously down to under the trees
                forming perfect rounds of pecking heads

 

 

 

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

branches wormhole: ssreet chak-chak
breath wormhole: just saying, is all VIII: keeping up toxic appearences
bus wormhole: 1968
cars wormhole: Luton // couldn’t make a poem out of it
child wormhole: ‘quick – she’s gone to pay …’
clouds & garden & green & morning & trees wormhole: garden
grey wormhole: handsome
passing wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
pigeons wormhole: embodying
pink wormhole: the skyline
speech wormhole: mother and daughter
voices wormhole: singsong chant

 

St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton

Tags

2013, 7*, black, blue, brass, Castleton, ceiling, church, metal, patience, silence, smell, sound, waiting, wood, writing

                                smell

                of centuried wood and polish
                misaligned and creaky and
                still held by metal twist brace
                with brass lamp-holders polished
                and blackening and spore
                of pew-bolster-cushions patient
                and attentive waiting

                                silently

                but for the crease and crankle
                of the notepad as I write these
                lines high among the rafters
                of the powder-blue ceiling

                                St. Edmund’s
                                Parish Church
                                Castleton

 

 

 

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

black wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
blue & Castleton wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
church wormhole: and that’s where I are
silence wormhole: 1968 – orange sand and mauve mist
smell wormhole: too much in arrival
waiting wormhole: greedy
wood wormhole: prelude: // travel
writing wormhole: the goldilocks stance

 

garden

Tags

'scape, 2013, 7*, Carol, clouds, Eden, garden, green, hair, hill, life, Mam Tor, mist, morning, pine, silhouette, silver, sun, trees, valley, walking

                                garden

                walking up through the morning
                      to Mam Tor
                will the mist rise off the hill
                      as we rise
                well it doesn’t matter because
                      right there
                the sun has broken through the
                      upper cloud
                but not yet the misty-wet, making
                      the trees
                green-silhouette and the valley silvery-
                      incandescent
                as the new-born first day

                      in front
                is Carol’s forest of hair walking
                      slowly
                into the quick-grown pine getting
                      nowhere

 

 

 

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

Carol wormhole: handsome
clouds & trees wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
garden wormhole: lost and city ground
green & hair & mist wormhole: prelude: // travel
life wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
morning wormhole: mother and daughter
pine wormhole: clouds
silhouette wormhole: love and precision
silver wormhole: Life on Mars? – poewieview #31
sun wormhole: too much in arrival
valley wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow
walking wormhole: prospect