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

 

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky

Tags

1967, afternoon, air, beauty, being, birdsong, black, breathing, camera, candle, church, clouds, colour, comet, consciousness, corridor, countryside, dance, dawn, depth, earth, elm, emotion, evening, eyes, fields, fire, gaze, gold, grey, heat, hills, horizon, identity, jade, leaves, life, light, mauve, Michael J Redford, mind, night, orbit, painting, photography, planet, rain, red, silence, silhouette, sky, space, spire, stars, storm, sun, sunset, the Boats of Vallisneria, thunder, trees, turquoise, valley, west

Sky

One evening about two years ago, there was, in my part of the country, one of the most magnificent sunsets that I have ever been privileged to witness.   Being a keen photographer (although not a very good one, for other peoples’ photographs always seem better than mine), I took my camera into the fields to capture the scene in colour.   It all began when the grey broken clouds, the ‘left overs’ of a stormy day, drifted slowly across the horizon, taking with them the tumult of the heavens.   It had been a somewhat dismal day with an atmosphere that clung like a warm damp blanket, enveloping all with an oppressive heat that made even the unconscious act of breathing an effort.   The day thus sulked its way through the hours, stifling the energy of life and suffocating the songs of birds until at long last, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, the sky, no longer able to contain its pent up emotions, savaged the countryside with a violent storm.   In fact three storms had tumbled into the valley that afternoon that gave rise to a continuous end-of-the-world -like thunder that reverberated about us for an hour and a half.   Fearful though the storms were, the rain felt good, the soil quenched its thirst and the air became cool, and when the storm had flung its final volley of anger contemptuously at us, I saw that the wilted leaves had renewed vigour and had turned their faces once more to the sky.   Suddenly, the late evening sun broke loose and shone low across the fields, igniting the treetops with a blaze of old gold and adorning the scene with the tint of an old master’s painting. Screwing tripod to camera, I raised it to my eye and squinted through the view-finder.   For some moments I indulged in a danse macabre around the field with the tripodial skeleton stiff within my embrace, searching for the most artistic composition to enter the field of view.   By now the sun was an enormous dull-red hemisphere reclining upon the distant hills, infusing the undersides of the remaining clouds above with a heavy mauve the deepened perceptively as I gazed.   The solar chord became shorter and shorter until finally the perimeter of the disc was extinguished suddenly by the horizon as one snuffs out the flame of a candle.   Then, in a most abrupt and startling manner, the populace of the heavens turned to fire.   The clouds appeared to radiate from a point somewhere below the horizon in the vicinity of the sun and spread out above and behind me, plumbing the very depths of space itself.   It was as if Earth had entered the tail of a super comet that had passed close by on its elliptical orbit about the sun.   Hurriedly I set the tripod firmly on the ground and framed the sunset between the jet-black silhouettes of two sentinel elms.

After taking the photograph, I packed the equipment in its case, stood up and looked once more through the elms.   My gaze passed by the silent trees, through the sunset and beyond into space, leaving the great orb of this planet at a tangent.   The moment developed into one of those rare intervals in time when an overwhelming consciousness of the beauty about one descends and becalms the mind.   Although my gaze flew past the elms at incomprehensible speed, I was aware of their crisp outlines against the sky, and as it passed on through the sky into the depths of space, I could see the fire shrinking before me like the glow of a lantern disappearing down a long, dark corridor.   My eyes were now being lifted by a power exterior to my own being.   Up, up they went until I was craning my neck and gazing out into the zenith of space.   I had always been conscious of the great depths of space about me, but could not help regarding the heavens as anything but a dome viewed from a central point, the stars being spattered over the surface of this invisible hemisphere, all equidistant from me.   But on this particular occasion, I became aware of the three dimensionality of space, each planet, star and nebula standing out in such relief from each other, that I felt I could lift my hand and pluck them from their ethereal settings.   Immediately above my right shoulder the crooked W of Cassiopeia pierced the depths with startling clarity and midway between this and the great square of Pegasus, there glowed faintly the spiral nebula of Andromeda, so far flung into the void as to make the magnificent gold and blue binary system of Gamma Andromeda appear but ten steps distant.

Becoming dizzy from the depths above me I turned and cast my eyes down to the eastern horizon.   The Pleiades had just shown itself above the distant trees and was discernible only by averted vision, but its presence was sufficient to tell me that within the hour Aldebaran, the red eye of Taurus, would begin its journey above the horizon to dissolve overhead in the light of tomorrow’s dawn.   But even before Antares had touched the distant church spire in the darkening west, the night air became chill and with a shudder I headed for home.

Some days later when I had the film processed, I discovered much to my dismay, that I had become so involved with the scene before me that I had forgotten to remove the dust-cap from the lens, consequently I have no visual proof to offer my friends of the glory I have witnessed.   Often I am accused of exaggeration when describing a scene that has made an impression on me, yet I experience difficulty in finding adjectives of sufficient depth, colour or subtlety to use in such instances.   How can one convey to others the emotions that rise to greet the song of a nightingale, or to what depths the heart yearns to fly with the swift and embrace all three dimensions.   How can one possibly convey through the medium of the written or spoken word the sight of an evening sky washed with the faint mauve streaks that herald a sunset, or describe the background tint of the sky that is somewhere between a shade of jade and turquoise?

My attempts at describing this beautiful sunset to a friend met with very little response.   Emotion is a very personal thing and that which gives rise to emotion in one, may leave another completely cold.   Even so, I was completely taken aback when my friend said, “what sunset?”

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

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

afternoon & grey & rain & red & sky wormhole: Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902
air & silence & trees wormhole: 10/30 by William Carlos Williams
beauty wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
being & black wormhole: in deed
breathing wormhole: there will be ovations
church & silhouette wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873
clouds wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
dawn & storm wormhole: birth in the world
evening & life wormhole: threshold to behold
eyes wormhole: mandala offering
gold wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
hills wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
horizon & sunset wormhole: in turgid reflection
identity wormhole: quietly in my quiet house
leaves wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
light & sun wormhole: Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890
mauve wormhole: travelling / back
mind wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
night wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
space wormhole: the reach turned to love
stars wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams
valley wormhole: coterminalism – there is nothing happens by itself, / 070118

 

Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902

Tags

1902, 2018, 6*, afternoon, autumn, branches, bridge, grey, Paris, rain, red, river, sky, speech, statue, steps, umbrella, woman

                the afternoon autumn skies
                had red taint in their greys

                from sodden divested branches
                grown warped and wet

                before the river – turn away,
                don’t look at me like this – but

                the iron rider on horse had
                none of it atop graceful steps,

                ‘pah’ said the old woman
                as she shook out her umbrella

 

de l’avantaged de Pont Neuf, Paris, 1892 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: La Route, Effet d’Hiver, 1872
autumn & grey wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
branches wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
bridge wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
Paris wormhole: looking / ridiculous
rain wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
red wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
river & sky wormhole: Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890
speech & woman wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877

 

La Route, Effet d’Hiver, 1872

Tags

1872, 2018, 6*, adulthood, afternoon, air, architecture, brown, childhood, chimney pots, cottage, flame, flight, future, grey, hill, horizon, life, lime, orange, Pontoise, red, rooks, silence, smoke, sunset, town, trees, walls

                over the roll of hill the town
                of Pontoise reared architecture

                of afternoon-future, grey and
                soupy air where I will try my

                life later, but here the sun
                has set, kindled treetops with

                lime air, blazed the tree
                across the road to brown and

                orange flame,
                until the rooks could take

                no more, split, singed and
                away in array before the

                silence of the cottage wall
                wide and orange with the

                lazy smoke, and modest
                from the blood-red pots

 

right there, from La Route, Effet d’Hiver, 1872 by Camille Pissarro (… actually, better if you could see the original)

 

 

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

afternoon & red wormhole: Dulwich College, London, 1871
air wormhole: stuck
architecture wormhole: pediment to behold
brown wormhole: {reading right to left}
childhood wormhole: LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM by William Carlos Williams
grey & trees & walls wormhole: on facing the Have
horizon wormhole: London, 1809
life wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XXII by William Carlos Williams
lime wormhole: mauve
orange wormhole: La Route de Louveciennes, 1870
silence wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
sunset wormhole: sun setting over a lake, 1840

 

Dulwich College, London, 1871

Tags

1871, 2018, 5*, afternoon, autumn, brick, college, education, gothic, knowledge, leaves, passing, Pissarro, red, rooftops, spirit, windows

                past the high windows and gothic
                finials of the college

                which kept its knowledge steeped
                like a redbrick afternoon as

                autumn leaves hurried
                like a badly-summoned spirit

 

Dulwich College, London, 1871 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: ash leaves
autumn & passing wormhole: {reading right to left}
education & knowledge & red wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XXII by William Carlos Williams
leaves wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
rooftops wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
windows wormhole: blister on me thumb

 

ash leaves

Tags

2017, 6*, advertising, afternoon, ash tree, branches, cars, girl, hair, head, nose, phone, portrait, reflection, Rome, sitting, speaking, sun, taxi, windows

                sat on the ledge of a display window
                in the via Germanico, she turned her head

                to speak on her phone, for the sun
                to light her half-forehead, her nose, her lip,

                while the old man wiped his car down
                with a wet rag; the girl – now looked

                at her text? – and grown a pony tail
                in her reflection, watched the taxi

                reverse across an open parking space
                with two antennae at the rear

                of the roof aligned under low-hanging
                branches of jagged ash leaves

 

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: low afternoon
branches wormhole: letting them go
cars wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
girl wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
hair wormhole: … the underleaves show
reflection wormhole: chuckling
sun wormhole: breakfast
windows wormhole: tram

 

1964

Tags

1964, 2016, 8*, afternoon, apricot, breeze, childhood, circle, city, comics, culture, docks, eyes, faces, groundlessness, growth, horses, humanity, Journey Into Mystery, life, mouth, Saturday, seeing, skyline, story, Thor, time, vision

                1964

                I found that
                there were circles
                in life turning

                wide and oiled
                around invisible axes above
                darkening city-lines

                the faces of ages
                at the circumference, caverns
                in their mouth

                and vision
                in their eyes that is lost
                in their own story

                which I cannot
                fathom; Saturday afternoons
                fashion

                an apricot balm
                that wingèd horses
                can scarce be seen

                and humankind
                is blinded in its
                multiplying culture:

                the tied piles
                at the docks are creaking
                the eyes, turn,

                down;
                in all the starry cosmos of time
                there is no floor

 

Journey Into Mystery #104, May 1964; Stan Lee, Jack Kirby; I submitted this to a local poetry competition – not even an honorary mention

 

 

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

1964 wormhole: 1964
afternoon wormhole: low afternoon
apricot wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
breeze wormhole: sweet chestnut
childhood wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
city wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
comics wormhole: Batgirl –
eyes & faces & mouth wormhole: I am not yet ready
groundlessness wormhole: travelling // arrival
life & seeing wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
Saturday wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
skyline wormhole: two profiles
Thor wormhole: pen and ruler
time wormhole: certainly a Captain, / but not America

 

low afternoon

Tags

1839, 2014, 4*, afternoon, blue, buildings, cathedral, chimney stacks, city, clouds, diagonal, height, painting, river, rooftops, shadow, sky

                low afternoon

                the diagonals
                make it work
                the shadows
                across the low
                rooftops from
                high chimneys
                and crossbeams
                of the buildings
                along the river

                but the cathedral
                behind reaches
                above itself where
                the diagonals
                converge to the
                blue sky above
                the city clouds

 

                                The Quay de Paris in Rouen; Johannes Bosboom, 1839

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
blue wormhole: all the sandstone / reflections in the / marble-blue troughs
buildings & city wormhole: clear as vista
cathedral wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy
clouds & sky wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
river wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
rooftops & shadow wormhole: between

 

in the Java ‘n’ Jazz

Tags

2014, 6*, afternoon, Ashdown Forest, balance, bay window, bossanova, clockwork, coffee shop, Forest Row, guitar, jazz, music, openness, pavement, Saturday, shops, Sunday

                                                                                in the Java ‘n’ Jazz the
                                                                                                                bossanova
                                                                                                guitar

                                                                chorded and semi toned (down the
                                                                                                neck) and
                                                                                always regained on the

                                                minor before the bay window-front
                                                                                onto
                                                                a muggy Saturday afternoon

                                like Sunday used to be with all the shops
                                                                closed and
                                                with clockwork

                the pavement shop sign is folded up
                                                and returned closed
                                by the door

with next week’s opening times

 

first published in the Poetry Jar 160914; the Java ‘n’ Jazz is a coffee shop that relaxes in the small village of Forest Row in Ashdown Forest

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let
Ashdown Forest wormhole: a nice grey woollen picnic blanket
balance wormhole: balance
coffee shop wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
guitar wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25
music wormhole: ‘someone …’
openness wormhole: this time
Saturday wormhole: time
shops wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
Sunday wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance

 

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