like butterflies on / buddleia

Tags

2015, Allen Ginsberg, buddleia, butterfly, Emily Dickinson, letting go, poetry, reading, Roger McGough, Sylvia Plath, William Carlos Williams, yellow

 

 

 

                I have a habit of
                discovering poets
                and buying their
                complete works

                outright, but then
                reading them like
                a book is far too
                rich, like a bowl of

                yellow butter icing;
                I worked my way
                through Sylvia and
                it damn near killed

                me; I tried it with
                Emily and it left me
                all terse; Allen left
                me lost on street

                corners with my
                genitals hanging out;
                Roger left me on
                the doorstep for

                the milkman; it
                wasn’t until I
                returned to Old
                Bull, all cantank-

                erous with acc-
                epted discipline,
                that I found my
                self flicking through

                like butterflies on
                buddleia, enjoying
                myselves for the first
                in a long long time

 

 

 

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

Allen Ginsberg wormhole: my life / of others
buddhleia wormhole: I’ve only just realised / after so many decades / that the smell of neglected land is lilac buddleia
letting go wormhole: prayer to my self
poetry wormhole: wriving
reading wormhole: the peculiar continuum of trains
Sylvia Plath wormhole: Black Rook / in Rainy Weather
William Carlos Williams wormhole: living mystery / murder theatre
yellow wormhole: gre[wh]y / has Daddy left us?

 

my life / of others

Tags

2012, Allen Ginsberg, allowing, America, awkward, being, bittersweet, breathing, community, decades, desert, doing, echo, eyes, family, fog, giving, gravity, horizon, identity, inclusion, ink, life, lifetimes, listening, loneliness, love, management, marble, mauve, meaning, others, planet, pointlessness, purpose, radiation, relationship, secret, silence, sitting, society, talking to myself, time, twilight

 

y’know; sometimes you’ve just got to have a rambling, indulgent, pig-headed, why-is-no-one-listening-to-me, pathetic, awkward (don’t forget the ‘awkward’), poor-me whiiine to realise just how rambling, indulgent, pig-headed, why-is-no-one-listening-to-me-ie, pathetic, and awkward you can be; sigh – but there’s still some poetry in it, so I’ll share the self-pity about (caution: this is quite a high-pitched whiiine; it is strongly urged that you wear ear-protection – or at least stick your fingers in your ear reciting la-la-la – if you undertake to read this; you have been warned)

 

 

                my life
                                of others

                                how long has this been going on
                how long this has been going on

demands in their eyes pull me to them like a planet
                pull on me to contain them
                                pull deep in me through the latest casual orbit

                                I give because I can
                learnt silently over decades
                                              I have lived to allow ever wider
                                in order to include
                                              to neutralise my gravity in order to listen
                and let them breathe enough
                                              to find their own solution –
decades of leaning a hundred awkward ways
                                              to be with others
                                decades of privately finding ways
                to re-collect my own gravity –
                                                              shiny marbles with petrified ink –
                                              and decades having to let them go
                                                              one by one
                                              tearfully
                                eventually

                                              all under the great broad horizon
                                lost before the hills on the great broad horizon
                the beautiful-twilight mauve desert
                                              and the radiation presence of another close planet they
                cannot do the same for me
                                                              they will not do the same for me:

                                the squalls and foreclosures,
                                              they are of my own making
                an audience extends only so far as to conclude that it is all my own awkwardness – all I have to do is fit –
                                              before I have even finished explaining
                usually I don’t bother to finish
                                or even start
                                              the solution is ready-made
                                                              (with a few ‘hmm’s to make it look kindly)
                or just kept to themself
                                echoing loudly behind their eyes

                                              like sharing secrets with the fog
                                                              I find myself alone
                each one of them was the last person I could turn to in the world
                                but they all uncannily agree with each other
                                              they are the Company Man

                                I have done my bit for the family
                                I have done my bit for the team
                                I have done my bit for the community
                                                              all by not being there
                                              all by not getting in the way
                I cried when I was acknowledged once
                                                                                 it never happened again

                                I suppose
                                it’s just
                                              they need to keep from shattering in a thousand pieces
                they need to hold the whole damn thing together
so I give because I can
                                because it is right
                                                              but cannot expect return
                                                              they cannot give
                                                              what they expect
                                                              in return
                                for sure things are done things may be organised
                                                              (sometimes even when I want them)
                                              but for some greater good
                                                              for some greater career
                                                              for some greater legacy
                                                                                 not mine
                                              certainly not mine (‘America I have given you all
                                                              and now I am nothing’)

                                              when I work it is all about them
                when I stop it is all about how they performed
                                all that I do and don’t do
                                              is how it sits as support or burden
                                                              to them
                                conclusion: it is only them who do the work
                                              the thinking the organising
                                                              I seem to do nothing
                                                              really
                and do it annoyingly and awkwardly and thinkingly – roll of eyes – I
                                have to be managed to be of any competence
                                              (that’s meant affectionately) I
                                              am just the recipient of their
                                                              good work
                                                              (what do they call them these days – ‘clients’)
                                              my value
                                              my contribution
                                              what I am
                                                              are the price I pay to receive

                so I don’t say anything much – what’s the point?
                                I’ll put a few things out
                                              tentatively
                                (where I might be patronised at best – if I’m lucky,
                                                                                 if the planets are lined up right)
                                                              told it’s cute
                                              or individual
                                or much too clever to understand
                or it’s not what was needed
                                              or sorry, Mark, did you say something
                                                              and the audience will move deftly on
                                to what it wanted to talk about anyway
                or what it wanted to be doing
                                              all along

                                I mostly keep it to myself
                                                              here
                                              in the place I claim
                                              each day – time to myself bittersweet
                                                              (at siege from service and compliance)
                to ‘indulge’ myself ‘stay up too late’ ‘contemplate my navel’
                                                              otherwise I get ‘grumpy’
                                              I talk to
                                              myself
                                                              I am not the Company Man
                                                                                 no one
                                                                                 to share
                                                                                 me with
                no one beyond the managed obliged corporate return
                                              oh yes I return to myself
                                                              find my own meaningpurposeaudiencelove
                                              safe in the fifty year relationship
                                which is good for only one

                                decades whittled away
                                              here and there
                                                              chips and shavings on the floor
                                leaving a petrified face
                eyes wide mouth open
                                              bas-relief out from being

 

 

 

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

Allen Ginsberg & giving wormhole: tag cloud poem VIII – growth
allowing & loneliness wormhole: letters to Mum VI – Years / after you have gone. Still.
being & breathing & sitting wormhole: the art of sit and follow
doing & identity wormhole: my beauty
echo wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
eyes & time wormhole: ambling around / the garden centre
family wormhole: sometimes
fog homework: tag cloud poem VII – form new freedom:
horizon wormhole: To my Mum
life & love wormhole: I love with all the history and lack of perfections at our command
lifetimes & others & pointlessness & society wormhole: Totnes
listening wormhole: before // writing?
management wormhole: poessay VIII: / educational behaviourism
mauve wormhole: ‘green post …’
meaning & talking to myself wormhole: the stance of Buscema // qualitatively

 

tag cloud poem VIII – growth

Tags

2014, Allen Ginsberg, childhood, doors, dream, earth, Eglinton Hill, emergence, emptiness, finding, floorboards, garden, Genesta Road, ghosts, girl, giving, glass, gold, grass, green, grey, groundlessness, growth, living room, looking, mist, moon, morning, night, open, space, tag cloud poem, time, windows, writing

 

 

 

                                it was in the garden where it all started
                                it is always in the garden where it all

                                starts (… save the living room at night
                                tracking the movement of the moon,

                                of course); the brick and clay of
                                Genesta Road*, earth to the ghosts

                                of Eglinton Hill*: the floorboards echo
                                with open doors where Ginsberg once

                                visited in a dream to exorcise the
                                emptiness, with all due and sober

                                consideration, clearing the morning
                                mist better to glimpse the girl who

                                suggests the secret (following the line
                                of her unknowing stare) giving the

                                clues to the green space found between
                                cracks in the glass (still holding plane

                                with no attendant shatter) where it
                                is rumoured the gold is to be found

                                between the edges of the blades of
                                grass that once were grey from the

                                groundlessness out from which
                                they had sought their growth

 

* Genesta Road, Eglinton Hill – childhood houses

 

 

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

[Allen] Ginsberg & emptiness & time & writing wormhole: living mystery / murder theatre
childhood wormhole: Christmas
doors wormhole: Dr Strange IV – ellipses
dream wormhole: ‘anyway / is it all just / a dream?’
Eglinton Hill & garden wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 – / the breath of London
emergence & night wormhole: dawn
Genesta Road & looking wormhole: glass
ghosts wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
girl wormhole: knees
giving wormhole: career came to naught …
glass & green & grey wormhole: new year’s eve 2014; train up to London to / walk the bridges across the Thames, and / listen to the voices say it is, and was, like, / but get back home before the fireworks / obliterate it all in the emptying twilight
gold wormhole: Kirby’s landscapes
grass wormhole: bass and piano
groundlessness wormhole: 1963
living room wormhole: great underbelly to the rooftops
mist wormhole: born again
moon wormhole: moon
morning wormhole: lobby
open wormhole: 1967
space wormhole: Batman#175
tag cloud poem wormhole: tag cloud poem VII – form new freedom:
windows wormhole: Buddha Amitabha

 

living mystery / murder theatre

Tags

'scape, 2013, Allen Ginsberg, attention, birdsong, breathing, emptiness, identity, life, speech, Sylvia Plath, thinking, time, William Carlos Williams, writing

 

 

 

                                                              living mystery
                                                              murder theatre

                                              let’s get myself
                                              into a tight corner
                                              and write myself
                                              out of it

                                I have the tools:
                                the embedded title
                                the variable feet
                                the next step stanzas
                                and no ideas but in things

                the breath and the lungs that contain them all
                I have the ‘scapes that define me inverse to what I see
                I have the candour of Ginsberg and the fibre of Plath
                I have the lifetime that tracks me sieved to the flow
                and all of birdsong set to time

                                              there is nothing that I, ze great ‘Ercule Redford,
                                              cannot zolve zat ‘as been pulled knotted
                                              by my inattention to the empty space
                                              at each and every centre

 

 

 

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

[Allen] Ginsberg wormhole: 20th century / schzoid man
attention wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
breathing wormhole: sometimes
emptiness & identity & life & speech & thinking & time wormhole: new year’s eve 2014; train up to London to / walk the bridges across the Thames, and / listen to the voices say it is, and was, like, / but get back home before the fireworks / obliterate it all in the emptying twilight
[Sylvia] Plath wormhole: Tulips by Sylvia Plath – How Far To Step Before You Raise The Other Foot
[William Carlos] Williams wormhole: hint
writing wormhole: lobby

 

20th century / schzoid man

Tags

2010, 2014, 20th century, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Allen Ginsberg, Chile, China, freedom, Gulag Archipelago, Have, history, Howl, imprisonment, Lhasa, living, Montgomery, others, Pinochet, Port Elizabeth, Rosa Parks, Saigon, Santiago, society, Steve Biko, Thich Quang Duc, Vietnam

 

 

cover(s) to “Court of the Crimson King” by King Crimson, painted by Barry Godber (1946-1970)

 

                20th century
                schizoid man

                                              … I am Rosa Parks
                tired of having to give way even though I am sitting on the right seat in Montgomery
                                I am Steve Biko
                still chanting with my bloodied lip face down on the cell floor in Port Elizabeth
                                                              I am Solzhenitsyn
                                              blowing warmth onto my hands far far across the Archipelago
                                              I am the Chilean mother
with pictures of my sons tied around my neck in Santiago
                                                                                 I am a Vietnamese family
                                              split up and adrift on several boats in the South China seas
I am a silent Thich Quang Duc
                                              sitting by the Austin Westminster
                                I used to be a monk
                now I am a tourist around the restored Jokhang in Lhasa, China
                                                              I am a ‘best minds of my generation’
                                succumbed to madness

21st century schizoid man by ivankorsario; found on deviant art

                                                              and I howl
                                              silently
                                against the society that put me in this cell
                                                              and told me I am free
                                                              I am tired but I push on
                                                                                 even pick up the pace a little
                although I forget: I am weak
                                              no one cheers me on
                                              others only notice
                                                              when I stumble

 

aaghhh; MOLOCH

 

 

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

20^th century wormhole: Dr Strange II – … things are the same again
[Allen] Ginsberg wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
Have wormhole: Dr Strange III – the needs of billions
history wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
living & society wormhole: – sigh! –
others wormhole: fully clothed

 

tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes

Tags

1960s, 2014, air, Allen Ginsberg, anxiety, beach, cafe, cars, earrings, earth, east, Eastbourne, eating, echo, economics, Eda, education, educational behaviourism, Edward Hopper, eggs, Eglinton Hill, Eiffel Tower, elastic bands, electric, elipse, elm, Eltham, emergence, Emma Peel, employment, emptiness, empty, endeavour, engine, Enlightenment, ennui, Eternity, Europe, evaluation, evening, evidence, exchange, existence, expectation, experience, exploitation, expression, eyebrow, eyes, faces, growth, Have, identity, journey, landscape, life, looking, pointlessness, school, society, sound, tag cloud poem, teaching, time, war

 

 

 

while earrings twinkle
the earth turns inexorably
east

in all the cafés along Eastbourne front
eating happens with clak but no
echo

economics doesn’t explain it
all said Eda* but I didn’t understand her then or now
despite my education

despite the educational behaviourism
I teach in schools of tomorrow’s children creating
life as treacled as an Edward Hopper

look what happened to Ginsberg’s eggs!
the journey from Eglinton Hill
to the Eiffel Tower took ten years

by elastic band and is still incomplete
because the electric was not current,
but elipse, and no one factored that in

well, just look at the elm which
grows into the ground and
only in Eltham is the emergence apparent

and Emma Peel with a face like a plate
in permanent employment modelling different styles of emptiness
but stuck and empty herself within that very decade

I don’t know: the endeavour should never be
the engine because where would you get off
for the Enlightenment?

ennui the constant air of Eternity
drifting across landscape of Europe despite
scar and plenty

the evaluation has still not been made
no matter how late into evening you wait
the evidence will always peel and flake

the exchange will already look to the next
the existence will writhe on the Utah beaches
to tailor expectation like Emperor’s New Clothes

experience is common but not the denominator
exploitation works best when dressed as expression
with only a wisp of anxiety betrayed by an eyebrow

just look deep into anyone’s eyes

 

*Eda was someone I fell soppily in fatuation with during the first year of university, but I was so naïve I didn’t know what it was and didn’t know what to do with it; I still don’t now

 

 

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

air & looking wormhole: on sitting / in front of / a hedge
anxiety & teaching wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
beach wormhole: gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared
cars wormhole: cold wind
Eastbourne & Dionne Warwick wormhole: promenade
echo wormhole: 1963
economics wormhole: 20th century
education wormhole: just saying, is all – III
Edward Hopper wormhole: Dr Strange #6-13
Eglinton Hill & evening wormhole: ‘“ruddy crows!” / said my Dad …’
Eiffel Tower wormhole: parc du Champ-de-Mars
emergence wormhole: vagued
emptiness & time wormhole: posture
evaluation wormhole: the View: from Here to the Learning Objective to the Learning Horizon
eyes wormhole: the Buddha head in an antique shop
faces wormhole: titanic
Ginsberg wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
Have & war wormhole: plethora: the Dark Knight Strikes Again (2002)
identity & life wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
pointlessness wormhole: first a mishap then clear vision
society wormhole: introducing / the stranger
sound wormhole: open window
tag cloud poem wormhole: tag cloud poem V – draft-ness

multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)

Tags

1930s, 2014, age, Allen Ginsberg, architecture, avenue, Batman, being, birds, buildings, choice, city, collective unconscious, consumerism, death, doing, doors, earrings, emptiness, faces, Frank Miller, giving, grey, Have, identity, Joker, letting go, life, lightning, lime, magazine, mother of pearl, night, olive, option, red, Shantideva, silhouette, sky, society, sound, space, speech, statue, steam, Superman, talking, talking to myself, thunder, topaz, tv, vindication, walls, wisdom

 

The Dark Knight Returns (1986); writer: Frank Miller; artist: Frank Miller & Lynn Varley

 

 

 

                earrings: left then right
                static square and upright obelisk

                steam across every avenue
                before the silhouette architecture with grizzly coat of ornamentation

                earrings: lime-olive horizontal
                and block full-stop

                the rabbit-chase fall below
                is sudden guttural and city-wide

RMMBL
                ‘a flash of lightning in the dark of night’*
                                                                                 KRAKK

                all the effortless intelligence beyond the door
                beyond the wall        with bat-darts

                earrings: mother of pearl
                pause and equals

and there he is jumping taller than a building across the only spaces left now:
                the sky and the ante-room before preconception (a cowardly and superstitious lot)

                the spires stand clean
                in the grey-wash sky

                where gothic statues acknowledge
                the impossible pinion and swing

                “… I have to know”**
                and stone manes splay when he sees “a reflection”***

                earrings: topaz pennies
                one and three-dangling

                and while the gently-cornered squares
                talk the Worm the Bluff and the Dribble

                others take the space down in the dump
                where a position cannot be found

                where the position cannot be resisted
                no matter how young you are

                no matter how strong you are in the realistic world
                in all the floorboard rooms the TVs and magazines

                stack positions on shelves and in refrigerators
                and in wrappers multifarious in choice and option

                any space here
                would make everything all the more ugly

                no
                no

                the move needs to come from
space of no choice and it can never be obvious it can never be choice

                Bat-signal
                bright on the side of Moloch****

                stone birds from the 1930s
                earrings: gone

                ah, but the world grows [not] up
                rather it folds over itself and regenerates

                with billowed ruffles
                atop old buildings

                “so many smiles / so many faces / all the same”*****
                “every year they grow smaller”******

                earrings: vampyre’s teeth soaked
                serious faces        all the same

                when you break too many of the important rules
                you’ve acted to define yourself vindicated

                you haven’t given    anything
                it doesn’t count

                death happens by itself without design
                all you have to do is let it all go –

                the purpose and the self –
                and you could live clean for a hundred years

 

* Bodhisattvacharyavatara I, 5, Shantideva (translated Stephen Batchelor): ‘Just as a flash of lightning on a dark, cloudy night / For an instant brightly illuminates all, / Likewise in this world, through the might of Buddha, / A wholesome thought rarely and briefly appears’
** Book I, P.43 & 45
*** Book I, P.47
**** Howl
***** Book III, P.25
****** Book III, P.25

 

 

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

Allen Ginsberg wormhole: poetry
Batman wormhole: tag cloud poem III – the journey to BEING and back again
being & vindication wormhole: heavy load
birds & talking wormhole: sunny day
buildings wormhole: the edges of my reach
city wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
death & life & night & sky wormhole: … sshhh
doing wormhole: the meaning is the moment all day long
doors wormhole: walking / right into the side of the very door left / open for me
emptiness & space wormhole: wha’
faces wormhole: quest in brown
giving wormhole: practise what you doing / give what you having / breathe what you remember
grey & lime & olive wormhole: Hever
Have wormhole: shared anxiety
identity wormhole: prologue
letting go & talking to myself wormhole: … and
lightning wormhole: jagged panel
red wormhole: that’s me / in the corner that’s me in the spot light / losing my religion*
Shantideva wormhole: walking
silhouette wormhole: clouds
society wormhole: the sounds the difficulty and the long long strands of liquorice
sound wormhole: someone called Frank
speech wormhole: mlewisredford introductory complete life audit confessional
Superman wormhole: inverse superhero
tv wormhole: Love Me Do
walls wormhole: Knapps

 

poetry

Tags

1950s, 2010, 5*, Allen Ginsberg, poetry, society, speech

 

 

 

                                   poetry

                     focused even fifties’ social classing into the
                     background as Ginsberg asked, ‘may we
                     own you?’ of Edith Sitwell a shock?

                                   a silence? the
                                   gloved
                                   raised
                                   palm

 

 

 

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

Allen Ginsberg wormhole: babble
poetry wormhole: poetry
society wormhole: poessay VI: // truth
speech wormhole: babble

 

babble

Tags

2010, 5*, Allen Ginsberg, City Lights, compromise, Neal Cassady, politics, speech, talking

It was announced on 22nd March 2010 that Harry Carpenter, a much-loved boxing commentator for the BBC, had died at the age of 84

 

 

 

                      babble

the day Harry Carpenter died I found a ‘rare 1965 film’
of Neal Cassady at City Lights with Ginsberg

hand reaching down to his right hand pocket
but there was – again – another point to be made
another group of people to refer –

you have to know when to say things and when to stay silent
even though you are being paid to comment ex-ministers
proffer their experience for financial gain

 

 

 

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

compromise wormhole: poessay VI: // truth
politics wormhole: Have
speech wormhole: poetry
talking wormhole: indignantly

 

Allen Ginsberg’s // child

Tags

2011, 5*, age, Allen Ginsberg, child, illness, life, speech

 

 

 

                                so sad
                reading Allen Ginsberg’s laments throughout his sixties
                                as if his American speech as mantra
                                had not been sufficient

                                                              still
                                              the collapse of old age and illness
                                              strips away everything

                                                              but the still-
                                                              vulnerable child
                                                              come along for the
                                                              ride

 

 

 

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

Allen Ginsberg wormhole: teaching
child wormhole: ”whatdoyouwantmylove…’ on the train …’
life wormhole: iffyakan / getawaywi`it / you can `ave it
speech wormhole: LET’S GO!