I

Tags

2018, 6*, anatta, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, identity, karma, left, lifetimes, looking, reflection, right, self-cherishing, time

                                    I get what I deserve,
                                    I can see it there in the mirror
                                    looking back at me,

                        it seems its left is my right but it is
                        all just the same
                        reflection

            it would be better
            if I hadn’t brandished this ‘I’ about in the past
            making it all right and powerful over others whenever I could,

            simply ending up
            with this pain in my
            own neck …

            it would be better if I
            didn’t have this
I

 

from Bodhisattvacharyavatara chapter VI, verse 42: In previous lives and former times, I myself have subjected just such pain, suffering and torment on other sentient beings, therefore, it is only just and fitting that I, the former perpetrator, who distressed, wronged and harmed all these beings, deserve the return, that I become the attacked, that this becomes my lot.

 

 

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

identity wormhole: the reach turned to love
lifetimes wormhole: oh, alright then
looking wormhole: somehow
reflection wormhole: travelling / back
time wormhole: alabaster balustrade

 

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Khandro Tsering Chodron

Tags

2018, 7*, anatta, beach, being, blessing, breathing, cheek, distance, feeling, fetch, identity, immanence, Khandro Tsering Chodron, Lanzarote, love, sea, shoulders, thinking, touch, virtue, waves

                                that fetch that waved
                                a thousand miles

                                caressed my shoulders
                                smoothed my cheek

                                makes me feel loved
                                and particular; thinking

                                                of Khandro Tsering Chodron
                I wonder of something far

                                far finer that needs no
                                distance to accumulate while

                                there is nobody to mark
                                its touch, spreads spume

                                of love everywhere, all for to
                                breathe and to bathe

 

Khandro Tsering Chödrön (1929-2011) was recognised as a living dakini within Tibetan Buddhism, although she was always uncomfortable with the recognition and resisted being treated as such; she was very influential during her life, not because she taught or was learned or headed an institution, but because she dwelt in (not even exhuded that you might choose to react against it) a blessing and a peace that was completely un-designed, always spontaneous (sic) and as natural as a child’s experience; if anything, she was recognised for her devotion to her Spiritual Guide, even during the 52 years after his death – constant prayer, constant envelopment within the guidance and inspiration given; her presence made it real to believe, and dwell awhile in, the immense power and transformation of subtlety;

 

 

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

beach wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
being & sea wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
breathing wormhole: cowl
identity wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams
love wormhole: scintillating to mind’s content
thinking wormhole: moon- // washed
waves wormhole: all // are // none

 

stuck in lower realm

Tags

2017, 6*, anatta, Bodhisattva Vow, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, buffalo, choice, identity, karma, lifetimes, morality, perfect human rebirth, perspective, rebirth, self, self-containment, snake, spontaneity, thought

                stuck in lower realm

                … OK

                when in woeful state
                I grunt like a buffalo
                and sting like a snake

                but when human
                I have the choice
                to exercise: I – won’t –

                do – that; except the
                swarm ‘oh, it doesn’t
                matter’ or the won’t-

                think-but-lunge-in-
                thrill-of-spontaneity;
                every time I acquiesce

                I create propensity to
                tip to wrong perspective,
                which predisposition

                magnifies as a whole
                realm of being after
                this human is done;

                but for a silent vow
                I made despite my-
                selves and which I

                keep despite myself
                to hold myself to check,
                is my only identity

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara VII, 19

 

 

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

identity wormhole: growth
lifetimes wormhole: looking ahead
thought wormhole: turned backs of saddened victory

 

with all love released

Tags

2016, 8*, air, anatta, birdcall, blue, breathing, Buddha, change, civilisation, dark, earth, echo, finding, glow, groundlessness, impermanence, inspiration, karma, letting go, looking, lost, love, purple, red, shadow, shelf, time

                I still look for you on the
                shelves and by the way

                head tilted to one side
                feeling in the shadows

                under foliage between
                stems for something lost

                shining darkly red
                pushing up through

                purple earth – fold of
                blue shadow – I knew

                you’d be here somewhere
                without remembering

                where I’d let you go,
                mutated through cycle

                as wax will wane; and
                I know when I find you

                I’ll notice the glow
                where it shouldn’t be

                obvious when discovered –
                I knew it! – but now

                my daylight groping is
                done; I have found no

                ground to stand on
                I must let you go again,

                my friends, and face
                the only task … alone

                I could track back
                through centuries of

                millennia and tectonic
                inch and breathe the

                same air, amid forming
                civilisations, the only

                air replenishable, as
                the man who strolled

                through parklands and
                birdcall, all possible

                echoes collapsed, and
                I could breathe that

                same heir both in and
                out with diminishing

                return dispersing the
                hanging proliferation of

                ténèbres hautes and
                redoubtable as they may

                seem, as known as I
                am not, with all love released

 

 

 

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

air & Buddha wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
blue & time wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
breathing & letting go wormhole: travelling // arrival
change wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – reaping
echo wormhole: looking / ridiculous
groundlessness wormhole: 1964
looking wormhole: between
love wormhole: cinnamon / milkshake
purple wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
red wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
shadow wormhole: low afternoon

 

weight

Tags

2017, 8*, anatta, April, beauty, breeze, career, circle, clouds, countryside, identity, lesson planning, right angle, seeing, stone, stone circles, teaching, thought, time, view, work, world

                                                              April clouds are stone
                                              foreboding over the countryside
                                                                                   placed in circles across the land
                                                                                              over millennia

 

 

                I had wanted
                to follow thought and view

                at right-angle
                to all the world

                to find it beautiful
                in all its stark

                to lose my weight
                in perfect shifting breeze

                but had to work
                and plan the bend

                and case the sight
                and lost my sight

                (and gained some weight)
                I … had to work

 

retirement #8: when you slip out of a career and look back on what was achieved, there is only a quiet and drifting cloud to contemplate although the experience of working through it was of unworkable stone which you knew all the time shouldn’t be the case, but it was, it was; read the whole sequence as it drifts across the skies: in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …

 

 

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

beauty wormhole: Sylvia
breeze wormhole: 1968
career & identity wormhole: strain
clouds wormhole: the // orange rose
seeing wormhole: Day Out
stone wormhole: reprieve
teaching wormhole: seen but not heard
thought wormhole: handsome
time wormhole: time travel
work wormhole: holiday
world wormhole: reading // unstirred

 

Doctor Strange II – … things are the same again

Tags

2012, 20th century, age, anatta, beauty, belief, chaos, consolidation, consumerism, Dormammu, Dr Strange, emptiness, Have, health, heart, life, power, society, thought, wealth, world

 

the last few lines from Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street without which the title [and the poem] of Doctor Strange II … will not make much sense; I post these works in anticipation of the Doctor Strange movie which is due to be released this November/October …

                                                                                 the face in the orb implied                
                                that everything had changed and that
                                                              things
                would never be the same again

 

 

                                                              II

                                … things are the same again
                                              always have
                                              always had
                                                              the second half of the twentieth century
                                incorporated it
                                                              you either had it or you wanted it
                                              either way it fed the corporation
                                              everyone fed the corporation
                                                                                 by wealth by health
                                                                                                            by belief
                                                              this is the way things are
                                                                                 dwelt at the very heart of the world
                                                                                                            turning growing fiery
                                there comes a time
                                              when the power and the beauty
                                                                                 become elliptical
                                                                                 to each other
                                                              to themselves
                                                                                                            then chaos will come                
                                              you mark my words
                                thinks the aged Genghis high on the edge of the world
                                                              aged enough in life
                                              to see beyond the self:                                there is nothing there
                there is nothing there

 

Anyhoo, I wrote a series of poems tracking Doctor Strange through a key set of issues written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Gene Colan; (Dr Strange #6-13 (Feb 1975-April 1976)); these issues are some of the best comics I have ever read; they were also seminal in shaping me to become the significantly un-noticeable writer I have become to this day; I posted them in 2012 and then re-posted them again in 2014 because I thought the film was immanent – it wasn’t; but, dammitall, I like these babies so I’m going to post them again, spread out until November 4th …

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
beauty wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
Dr Strange wormhole: my / superpower
emptiness wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
Have wormhole: my seat // now
life wormhole: tiling
power wormhole: tired
society wormhole: the / bright yellow / world
thought & world wormhole: Elektra

 

no point

Tags

2013, anatta, being, doing, identity, letting go, meaning, non-doing, pointlessness, reaching, settling, superhero, writing

 

 

 

                     there is no point to seize
                wispy and evanescent no matter
                     how slight and deft
                         I reach

                     there is no point to make
                tensile and unassailable no matter
                     how muscular and ever
                         I hold on

                     even if I define myself
                inscrutable or heroic by them I was
                     never there to match
                         their word

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: library windows
doing wormhole: when / ever
identity & meaning & superhero wormhole: poessay X: soul love
letting go wormhole: because
pointlessness wormhole: New York Movie, 1939
settling wormhole: ‘filtered coffee …’
writing wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915

 

truly invisible

Tags

2013, anatta, anxiety, being, doing, ghosts, giving, identity, invisible, letting go, life, realisation, work

 

 

 

                      in my life I carefully and
                      experimentally crafted
                      a ghost with which to be

                      I long-time realised, out of
                      a fog of anxiety, that ghosts
                      do not exist; it was a nice idea –

                      the invisible liberator – but
                      it was never going to get any
                      purchase; let us quietly celebrate

                      the release of myself from all
                      that rattling and dooing and watch
                      as I become truly invisible

 

 

 

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

anxiety wormhole: Black Rook / in Rainy Weather
being wormhole: earthed
doing wormhole: rather
ghosts wormhole: Brugges April 2015 – looking lost
giving & life wormhole: my life / of others
identity wormhole: nothing // matters
letting go wormhole: [start where you are III] – delve
realisation wormhole: addicted / compulsive / identity
work wormhole: is that so!

 

gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared

Tags

2014, anatta, Batman, beach, being, cape, childhood, cowl, doing, emergence, emptiness, eyes, field, haiku, husband, identity, life, night, parent, Plumstead, sitting, sky, skyline, teaching, waves, windows, writing

 

 

 

                                                            gazing at the night
                                         as my eyes passed the jagged hole
                                                my head disappeared

                                                                                            when it all goes wrong
                                                                      and I am not the person I thought I was
                                                                                      again

                                                                (even when I thought
                                I was the person who had understood that I am not the persons
                                                I would like to be)

                                I am left – clean and confused –
on some faraway beach usually (eventually) looking around for
                new clothes to wear but

                                                potentially (fortuitously)
                I could stand       where I am       and wear the clothes I haven’t got with
                                no shame or embarrassment …

… well, I like to write (from the middle of nowhere); I sit (but still working on the still); I wear the cowl, the cape and the skyline of the Batman; I am stuck in the Plumstead of my emergent childhood; I am (constantly) diffident (except when I think to be a leader); I am parent whose field is wider than the sky; I am husband whose picture is more than the point; I am teacher lower than the waves (cannot cope with the splattering in the eyes and the spluttering out the nose) …

                                                                … in the great wash
                                of life I am of no effect but then everything has happened
                                                because of this

 

 

 

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

Batman wormhole: where the real action // always is
beach wormhole: September – silhouette of leaf // the / inside and the / outside
being wormhole: enjoy the activity
childhood & emergence wormhole: H e a v e
doing & identity wormhole: enjoy the activity
emptiness wormhole: un … able
eyes & windows wormhole: oh,
field & sky wormhole: To my Mum
haiku(esque) wormhole: 1972
life & writing wormhole: Trinity Arts
night wormhole: ‘the red and white …’
Plumstead wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 – / the breath of London
sitting wormhole: (another / gulp of air)
skyline wormhole: in desperation and worthless art
teaching wormhole: career came to naught …

 

Buddha Amitabha

Tags

2014, 7*, afternoon, Amitabha, anatta, blessing, Buddha, buildings, city, clouds, distance, endeavour, identity, light, non-doing, posture, realisation, red, silence, sitting, skyline, windows

 

 

 

                                it was the Buddha Amitabha
                                sitting across the whole city

                                his red robes shaped of
                                every peak and building

                                like afternoon light
                                tinting the windows

                                drawing upwards and hovering
                                like a balmy shower yet to fall

                                airily with billows like a universal
                                banner and silent like distance

                                sitting nobly upright with
                                endeavour effortless in repose

                                where everything is already
                                done and yet notices even me

                                although he doesn’t look
                                and I cannot see

 

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: axis: bold as love
Buddha wormhole: Vajrapani
buildings & light & red & windows 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
city wormhole: great underbelly to the rooftops
clouds wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
identity wormhole: living mystery / murder theatre
posture wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 – / the breath of London
realisation wormhole: – sigh! –
silence & skyline wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
sitting wormhole: sometimes