The Passage of the St. Gothard, 1804

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1804, 2018, 6*, ambition, being, clouds, doing, emptiness, feet, height, identity, leaning, path, power, realisation, space, step, striving, William Turner

                this hideous gulf
                I step into, the path

                kept too tight to the
                bulgeoning sides

                urging my center
                of balance out from

                my picky feet; out here,
                I see that now;

                futher up, that I’ll
                never make, the heights

                of terrible summit
                commit unspeakable act,

                leaning to void,
                becoming cloud

 

 

 

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

being & identity wormhole: to let be
clouds wormhole: SPRING AND ALL I by William Carlos Williams
emptiness wormhole: you
feet wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Pigs
path wormhole: the balance necessary between
power wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
realisation wormhole: despite that
space wormhole: ‘streetsigns …’
striving wormhole: the both passive and transitive / non-presumptive pre-conceptualist attenuation of being

 

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THURSDAY by William Carlos Williams

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1921, 6*, air, ambition, awareness, being, body, breathing, clothes, dream, eight worldly dharmas, feeling, feet, ground, hats, life, living, looking, nose, shoes, sky, talking to myself, Thursday, weight, William Carlos Williams

                                THURSDAY

                I have had my dream–like others–
                and it has come to nothing, so that
                I remain now carelessly
                with feet planted on the ground
                and look up at the sky–
                feeling my clothes around me,
                the weight of my body in my shoes,
                the rim of my hat, air passing in and out
                at my nose–and decide to dream no more.

 

from Sour Grapes, 1921

a song, perhaps, to sing when once one is retired, althout WCW was only in his thirties when he wrote this, which possibly means you don’t have to wait to be broken by the long haul in order to realise the beauty oftheworldwhichcrushesyou is precisely where you stand in it with being rather than reach …; we try to make ourselves so solid and de-fined by what we want rather than what we are, that we are afraid of the openness of the sky that arcs so far away from us, but that when we jump right into it – the ultimate skinny-dip – we feel ourselves so solid on the ground from which we leapt … he wasn’t a showman, old Bull Williams, but he knew his shit, even from the age when you wouldn’t believe it

 

 

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

air & being wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
awareness wormhole: letting them go
breathing wormhole: Khandro Tsering Chodron
dream wormhole: “I need help”
feet wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
life wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
living wormhole: `whappn’d!
looking wormhole: cowl
sky wormhole: we held cold hands
talking to myself wormhole: so / do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or … / Rumplestiltskin
William Carlos Williams wormhole: JANUARY by William Carlos Williams

 

too greedy

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2013, 6*, air, ambition, attention, breathing, coffee, distraction, experience, fruit jellies, love, passing, people, poem, sandwich, sitting, smoothie, staying, sugar, talking to myself, town, walking, walls

                you know, mark, you can be
                too greedy, not from the coffee
                or the four DVDs, not from the

                ploughman’s sandwich nor the
                pear and peach smoothie, not even
                from the bag of fruit jellies that

                now you’ve opened you’re
                probably going to have to finish,
                but from wanting to carve a poem

                out of every damn experience you have
                sitting on every damn wall in
                every damn town you visit while

                every damn person walks past thinking
                you’re a bit damn weird … but then,
                nah, I don’t quite think so, as long as

                you seep into the observation and
                don’t ride it through somewhere else,
                and you can check the ambition

                with enough wide-open love to breathe,
                you could sculpt poems out of
                the very air where you stay put …

                … and, besides, I’m getting one
                hell of a sugar-buzz from these
                sugar jellies … will I never learn!

 

 

 

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

air wormhole: retirement
attention wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
breathing wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey
coffee wormhole: too much in arrival
distraction wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
love wormhole: slow enough / to have love
passing wormhole: morning sun
people wormhole: where else
sitting wormhole: the goldilocks stance
talking to myself wormhole: where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …
walking wormhole: ‘avenue of wraggled gorse tops …’
walls wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams

 

breathing out

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2014, 4*, ambition, breathing, daily, emptiness, non-doing, openness, self-compassion, sitting, talking to myself, time, words, writing

                I must take
                the time

                to sit with
                an empty page

                each day

                without guile
                or ambition

                completely
                and openly

                and let

                the words write
                themselves

                with compassion
                as if I were

                breathing out

 

 

 

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

breathing wormhole: writing: // in turn
emptiness wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy
openness wormhole: con / sum / mate
sitting wormhole: pocket
talking to myself & writing wormhole: No
time wormhole: open window
words wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …

 

nu’ink, / that’s what

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2013, achievement, ambition, being, doing, existence, feeling, illusion, life, LoJong, non-doing, non-striving, practice, sitting, world

 

 

 

                nu’ink,
                that’s what

                                   I sit doing nothing
                                    achieving nothing
                                     evading anything which comes along and tries
                                     to feel something
                                     or to be anything
                                          it is not –

                or not –

            I shouldn’t even be doing it well
       or at least not try to be doing it well
                           or if I do anything well it is to give up all plan and ambition
            because I need to be trained well so that when I get up from sitting I’ll be limbered and loose to continue life in the unreal world
                                                         well

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: H e a v e
doing wormhole: Dr Strange VII – the madness of Mordo
life wormhole: Desolation Angels
practice wormhole: I am a solid block of stone
sitting wormhole: gently straighten
world wormhole: darkness

 

relapse

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2015, 6*, ambition, breakdown, childhood, circular poem, creativity, depression, dissolving, doing, doubt, expectation, eyes, heart, history, identity, letting go, life, naïveté, pride, realisation, self, self-love, thinking, time

 

direction of read:

 

 

                                                                               it is amazing
                                         I realise because                            how much
                       again and again before                                             the same old
                     unambiguous heart                                                           ambition can
             to find my naïve and                                                                      cover the
                 again and again                                                                              same old illness
              self and relapse                                                                                    and seem to be
    will have to build my                                                                                        the cure I suppose
  that it isn’t although I                                                                                           I should be grateful
   eventually heartened                                                                                            that I’m not cured
         broken, and then                                                                                             as I thought –
            and I am heart-                                                                                            gives me something
   virtuous was despite                                                                                             more for pride
    I thought everything                                                                                          to relinquish
       creative was despite                                                                                      and love to
          I thought everything                                                                                dissipate leaving
               was always despite                                                                          the cure ready-
                      I thought the cure                                                                 prescribed and
                              but for the doubt;                                                   dosed – a self-healed
                             slightly arched brows –                                 man without edges
                                                 without history and

 

 

 

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

breakdown wormhole: right to be
childhood wormhole: just words wiped across a line
circular poem wormhole: a known from without the unknown
creativity wormhole: sometimes
depression wormhole: anti-depressants
doing & identity wormhole: un … able
eyes wormhole: Dr Strange VI – to hold my face to the world
history wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
letting go wormhole: I need to keep my eyes open / in meditation
life & thinking wormhole: step
naïveté wormhole: scattered
realisation wormhole: gently straighten
time wormhole: the edge has come …

 

‘hello old friend …’

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2014, 5*, ambition, being, identity, sitting, speech, talking to myself, writing

 

 

 

                                              hello old friend
                                sorry I forgot all about you
                amid the wafts of ambition and the warps of identity I forgot
                                the habit
                                              of sitting
                                              and writing
                                fresh to the bottom of the page

 

 

 

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

being & identity & writing wormhole: I need to keep my eyes open / in meditation
sitting wormhole: – sigh! –
speech wormhole: Dr Strange IV – ellipses
talking to myself wormhole: thinking wide enough

 

the en-gentled / end of a wan / writing retreat

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'scape, 2014, 6*, ambition, avoidance, awareness, being, birds, birdsong, branches, comfort, courage, ground, groundlessness, growth, honesty, identity, letting go, passing, reading, retreat, roots, sitting, trees, wind, Woodbrooke, writing

 

 

 

                                              the en-gentled
                                              end of a wan
                                              writing retreat

                                              OK
                                I didn’t write anything
I could write (because I think I’m clever with words and could wave and flurry about in leans and reaches quite beautifully
                but saying nothing
                really in the end)

                                              but
                                there is something I’m not facing
something that would root me deep in the ground that I reach from that all the movement would strengthen
                to grow and
                eventually flower

                                              it is
                                the plan to write (and read and sit)
because I have travelled miles to be and committed space to see which has blown the idea
                clean like a branch
                crooked to the landscape

                                              when I
                                become awkward with sitting
(wafted with reading, empty when writing) I know (if I am honest) I have lost the courage
                to own the mismatch of
                my comfort and growth

                                              I could
                                write amidst the wind and lurch
perched cross-toed and angled to the branch gloriously noting gusts of word and thought
                and singing oblivious
                for all to see     maybe

 

 

 

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

awareness wormhole: what to do
being wormhole: ‘til death do us part
birds wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
branches wormhole: the edges of my reach
groundlessness wormhole: 1966
identity & letting go & sitting wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
passing & trees wormhole: prologue
reading wormhole: “I think I’ll have a nice sandwich”
wind wormhole: … sshhh
writing wormhole: doing

 

every time ambition / breathes

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2012, 5*, ambition, being, breathing, doing, settling, sitting, teaching, writing

 

 

 

                      tried to reform teaching –
                                failed
                      tried to effect through writing –
                                failed

                      do I give up teaching
                      do I give up writing

                      that would be to
                                fail
                                again

                      I could teach without ambition
                      I could write without ambition

                      but whatever I do do now
                      is everything without ambition:

                      by sitting and failing
                      by practising failing
                      every time ambition
                                breathes
                      just a little bit too much
                      even a little bit too much

 

 

 

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

being & doing & settling & writing wormhole: sometimes
breathing wormhole: Michael Redford: // someone missing
sitting wormhole: half an hour
teaching wormhole: I am the / luckiest man alive

 

in between

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2011, 5*, acceptance, ambition, awareness, beauty, blogging, evening, identity, time, vanity

 

 

 

                     publishing planning
                     statistics clicks
                     lost the evening
                     lost the days

                                              but look at me
                                this is what I do
                     again and again

                     it’s only

                                in between

                     when I have been finally embarrassed by my vanity
                     that I have the seconds of beauty and success

                     but never because of my
                                planning and publishing
                                              and never because of the statistics

 

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: alien / and awkward
awareness wormhole: what?
evening wormhole: 1974
identity & time wormholes: 2^nd November 2011