‘the Bat-Signal …’

Tags

1966, 2017, 4*, attention, Batsignal, buildings, clouds, curtains, neighbourhood, night, society, white

                the Bat-Signal
                up into the night clouds

                while buildings hang like
                drawn curtains

                in neighbourhood squares
                they turn white

                in unblinking mute
                attention

 

Batman #184, September 1966: ‘Mystery of the Missing Manhunters!’, written: Gardner Fox, artists: Sheldon Moldoff, Carmine Infantino

 

 

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

attention wormhole: letting them go
buildings wormhole: tram
clouds wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
curtains & white wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams
night wormhole: all // are // none
society wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams

 

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letting them go

Tags

2017, 6*, attention, awareness, b/w, blues, branches, chords, comics, doors, guitar, identity, improvisation, laziness, letting go, life, living, morning, mouth, notice, passing, perspective, retirement, sound, talking to myself, twilight, world, writing

                I used to be lazy and cast wide
                with absently open mouth
                greedy to capture every
                snippet of notice to write:

                finding the secret doorway
                in the b/w reprint vista
                that will be the perspective
                with which I will return, noticed

                finding the lingering trill
                and the shifted-chord refrain
                across the neck of my guitar
                inexorable in-tangent flight

                finding new twilight between
                turning bare branches in which
                to pace the following
                mornings in strange new worlds;

                but it was a laziness difficult
                to maintain, this finding of access
                through letting them go …
                into awareness – much more alive

 

 

 

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

attention & identity wormhole: to arms, then;
awareness wormhole: loss
branches wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay
comics & mouth wormhole: 1964
doors & life & retirement wormhole: lost the search
guitar wormhole: animus rises – powieview #37
letting go wormhole: chuckling
living wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
morning wormhole: abandoned sound mirrors
passing & sound wormhole: cross-section
talking to myself & writing wormhole: oh, alright then
twilight wormhole: without any buffet at all
world wormhole: ‘when travelling astrally …’

 

to arms, then;

Tags

1907, 2017, 8*, attention, Bodhichitta, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, body, carelessness, eyes, fate, fields, fire, focus, hell, ideals, identity, inner-self, karma, kleshas, laziness, Louis de la Vallee Poussin, mind, mindlessness, monster, mother sentient beings, narcissism, opportunity, over-reaching, phantom, practice, rebirth, resolve, smoke, staying, suffering, superhero, surprise, talking to myself, torture, translation, war, Warrior

                but there are plenty of opportunities
                to shave off indolence

                there are too many surprises
                to meet-off heedlessness, and stay;

                no use wailing and whimpering
                enfeebled by narcissism,

                when being unremittingly tortured
                of body and mind

                it’ll be way too late,
                I shall have nothing left but bad fate;

                the thing is, they don’t plot, they don’t
                manoeuvre and they

                hardly ever show
                themselves, so how is it I walk eyes-

                wide-open into each of their snare and
                realm; there, monsters

                slavering astride horizon cower me to
                craven identity, fires

                hot to match all my defences, afflicting
                me without notice

                or even much effort
                fires of the sun, fires of the atom, I’ll be

                engulfed but not
                consumed to blessed oblivion … oh, give me

                a break! – I’m
                ongoingly consumed even now, as long as I

                continue endlessly playing
                this solitaire, hitting the ‘new game’ button

                again and again
                until I … stop; but the cleverer I get

                with them the cleverer they already are,
                like shadow-boxing –

                these ancient enemies
                of mine; … to arms, then; not super-

                heroically, trying all the more better
                than I only am and

                then finding myself (on acrid fields –
                the smoke of fallen

                ideals and bombed aims) wanting, but
                inwardly, with

                attention and focus, the Way of the
                Steely Warrior; I shall

                be `ard with suffering, I can take it,
                I shall wear my

                oozed bowels and fallen head like medals
                in this, the War

                to End All Wars, not Mr Redfordman
                who is or isn’t

                good enough, but the wish and drive to fight,
                as long-suffering as mothers …

                … nothing to do with Mark Redford;
                ‘Je ne garde qu’une

                passion: celle de détruire les passions!’,
                these phantoms

                that stir the entire world; ‘dépouille-toi donc’
                the best translation prescribed

 

Bodhisattvacaryavatara IV, 43, French translation by Louis de la Vallee Poussin, Introduction à la Pratique des Futurs Bouddhas, 1907

 

 

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

attention wormhole: travelling // arrival
eyes wormhole: animus rises – powieview #37
identity wormhole: stuck in lower realm
mind wormhole: circuitry
practice & talking to myself wormhole: the turtle and the yoke
superhero wormhole: the quiet whale
war wormhole: looking ahead

 

travelling // arrival

Tags

2016, 9*, arrival, attention, awkward, black, blue, breathing, calves, Carol, clouds, co-ordinate, ears, eye, fields, groundlessness, hedge, horizon, identity, karma, leaves, letting go, notice, passing, sky, smell, teeth, thread, time, travelling, white, wind, wind turbines

                travelling – no theme

                when the wind blows
                leaves turn and follow like
                dislocated jazz-hands

                everything is parting
                and passing all around
                … me (is that the theme?)

                I can’t find what to
                think or notice; in the
                corner of my eye a

                small black creature
                keeps pace, stretched in
                leap over field, through

                hedge, unspite, imhindered,
                depossibly, gathering
                everything in disregard;

                bit between molars (for
                weeks, for days?) wedging
                teeth slightly awkward

                has just worked loose;
                there are skies, there,
                certainly, high, silky

                and whipped, and then
                blue-coagulated drifting
                like a fleet, like calves

                crossing fields ears
                waving, as wind blades
                heave beyond hill horizon

                I conjeal            myself
                in notice, relieved with a
                thread and co-ordinate

                where for to breathe
                again but having lost
                so much more that I

                never had; Carol shuts
                the Kindle and leans; I
                smell her warm head

                for miles – arrival

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: before any writing
black & blue wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
breathing & groundlessness wormhole: is this it // all the time
Carol & clouds & sky wormhole: Christmas 2015
hedge wormhole: free
horizon & white wormhole: looking ahead
identity wormhole: without any buffet at all
leaves wormhole: Batgirl –
letting go wormhole: “I need help”
passing wormhole: I am not yet ready
smell wormhole: St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton
time wormhole: looking / ridiculous
travelling wormhole: Tara mantras
wind wormhole: after all

 

before any writing

Tags

2015, 5*, attention, being, living, non-doing, non-striving, surprise, wondering, writing

                                wonder
                ing for months whether it is
                                worth

                                writing
                or living long with attention to
                                what

                                I am
                before any writing has appeared and,
                                with

                                out
                guile I find I have written
                                with

                                out
                much thinking about it any
                                way

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
being wormhole: without any buffet at all
living wormhole: when the rain has settled / the dust
writing wormhole: lack of center

 

the silent night of the Batman

Tags

2011, 7*, alley, attention, Batman, belief, black, blue, buildings, Christmas, city, east, fear, glass, green, guilt, ink, light, marble, marzipan, night, people, planes, purple, river, rooftops, rose, shops, silence, sky, skyline, smile, south, stars, streetlamp, thought, vista, windows, writing

                the silent night of the Batman

                even while they carried their
                gift-wrapped parcels and looked
                to each other with smiles of belief

                the shop signs hummed dark
                against the marbled frontage
                while above, quiet floors of

                clear-dark windows looked east
                looked south in the ink-black sky
                enough to write a novel in a

                single sitting, enough to hold
                a fleet of stars above the skyline
                stacking slowly; when the sky

                is ink-green the rooftop
                gathers ink-blue attention
                and leaps without step or

                swing through the glass and
                ledges of city vista, the lingering
                thought to shadow the guilt,

                the alley to streetlamp the
                fear, and over the river the rose
                cast high and wide to the stars until

                marzipan fingers reach across the
                ink-purple sky and marshmallow lights
                go out

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: looking back over the tack / and jibe of my life I / notice there is / a fetch // after all … / but certainly not / where I had planned / or where I thought / I’d been
Batman: cape and cowl
black wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
blue wormhole: out
buildings & people wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
Christmas & stars wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
city wormhole: city streets
glass wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
green & sky & smile wormhole: looking ahead
light wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
night & writing wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
purple wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
river wormhole: glide
rooftops wormhole: low afternoon
shops wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
silence wormhole: is this it // all the time
skyline wormhole: clear as vista
thought & windows wormhole: for / the first time

 

looking back over the tack / and jibe of my life I / notice there is / a fetch // after all … / but certainly not / where I had planned / or where I thought / I’d been

Tags

2015, 6*, attention, being, doing, eating, exercise, feeling, identity, life, living, need, notice, purpose, reaching, standing, strength, study, thinking

                looking back over the tack
                     and jibe of my life I
                          notice there is
                               a fetch

                I stand too much to attention
                     too alert to notice
                          where I am

                I reach far too far to get
                     that I cannot have
                          what I am

                I eat too much to treat me
                     and deaden
                          what I need

                I exercised too much and
                     stretched the ligaments
                          that contain all my effort

                I exercise too little now to realise
                     the strength I have
                          untapped

                I have studied too much to
                     know what I think
                          or feel

                                    after all …
                                         but certainly not
                                              where I had planned
                                                   or where I thought
                                                        I’d been

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: looking ahead
being & life wormhole: passing
doing & thinking wormhole: circuitry
identity wormhole: immeasurable love
living wormhole: addictive
study wormhole: reading // unstirred

 

looking ahead

Tags

2015, 20th century, 8*, age, attention, cypress, dark, daughter, dress, duty, eyes, facade, father, field, fields, green, hair, horizon, house, jaw, land, left, lifetimes, medals, mouth, portrait, Remembrance, sienna, sky, smile, standing, war, white, youth

                                                looking ahead

                at 18 he peered frightened and gentle –
                the high forehead and round jaw of all
                his youth, but that his mouth held duty

                faintly pursed on the left, in reserve and
                to attention, although the epaulettes were
                (the wings of a choirboy) – at the strips

                and strips of field and fields of umber
                and sienna and the deepest darkest green,
                as high as the land was wide, and it was

                wide, to the white-washed house perched
                on the higher horizon flanked by European
                cypresses, at home in the fields; at three

                she looked above the horizon, hair in all
                direction to the sky, the purse to the left,
                in attention and wan smile from above

                the ruffled dress (soon to be outgrown with
                every crumple-ene); the medals were worn
                on the left side, the eyes up to the right;

                they stood together to attention, in profile
                before the wet facades of eleventh hour,
                eyes forward, eyes down, pursed and still

 

three photographs in the house of an old friend: her father when newly enrolled in the army shortly before World War II – he served in Africa; herself in her then-best dress in the very early 1960s; father and daughter standing on a wet street collecting for Remembrance Day …

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
attention & smile wormhole: dear Lucy
daughter wormhole: mother and daughter
eyes wormhole: addictive
father & lifetimes wormhole: granny
field wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
green & white wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
hair wormhole: immeasurable love
horizon wormhole: Bexhill 140215
house wormhole: slightly / uphill
mouth wormhole: over-pink cagoule
sky wormhole: low afternoon
war wormhole: memorial

 

dear Lucy

Tags

2014, 3*, attention, face, heart, identity, letter, notice, self-indulgent, sitting, smile, therapy, walking

                dear Lucy

I would like to order some more of that mixture you made for me
could I have a bigger bottle

I think I’m noticing I walk about
with a slight smile in my heart

(although it easily turns to a grimace when I try to ‘put’ myself into the groove
and find myself not being there)

I think I slip some of those things that snag, or even when ‘snagged’ I don’t
dangle and I certainly won’t add to the soap-script

my sitting is no better, I still teeter all around ‘just’ sitting
but I think I am cusping

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let
identity wormhole: this time
sitting wormhole: tragic and archival
smile wormhole: bud
walking wormhole: and I lose sight of her into memory

 

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