the simple prayer // the tattered poem // the bitter lament

Tags

2022, 8*, action, architecture, balance, black, blindness, Boris Johnson, Bowie, cause and effect, cave, daughter, desert, Donald Trump, female, God, gods, heart, history, internet, invisible, king, land, lies, Life on Mars?, love, male, Manjushri, market, noise, notice, others, people, plateau, Plato, poem, power, prayer, proliferation, propaganda, quiet, resource, rhetorical interrogative, Russia, science, self, serendipity, slave, smile, soap, soap-opera, springs, stranger, sword, throat, time, tragedy, truth, Ukraine, value, Vladimir Putin, war, windows, wisdom

the simple prayer

may quiet springs of
value-in-other always disperse
the black and grimy history
of power-over-other
like soap



—~~~\\\ ” sp ” ///~~~—

                                                                      the tattered poem

                                                  may …

                                        over millennia
                                        between peppered millions
                                        at surprise times and sad

                                        across rolling lands
                                        and conserved desert
                                        and steppèd plateau

                                        quiet springs
                                        everywhere
                                        serendipitous

                                        hand-cupped chin, lipless
                                        smile, no-halt act, surge
                                        `tween heart and throat

                                        unnoticed invisible
                                        daughter stranger slave;
                                        the black and grime of

                                        history of power over other
                                        storeyed and high-
                                        windowed, cacophonous

                                        and market-squared
                                        rhetorically interrogative
                                        aside truth:

                    … may they disperse
                    this impossible tension
                    like soap

—~~~\\\ ” tp ” ///~~~—

the bitter lament

“may” is a petition – to a god, to God or to ‘let it be’, it doesn’t matter as long as it is beyond ‘self’ – a directing of hearts (the only armaments that don’t cost a nation), a massing of resource (as-yet untapped and unexploited), a manoeuvring of cause and effect (the only true use of science), a discernment of love like the sharpest of flaming swords; “other” is anything or anyone which is not “myself” and, like a tragic farce played out on the widest of stages, cast of a thousand-thousand “myself”-s (hurry – for one aeon only; apply for auditions here), proliferates inponentially to the power of blind-folded distinction; “history” – I don’t want to know the history that led up to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, it is a soap-opera that I have seen “ten times or more”, not sure if “I’ve wrote it ten times or more”, “it’s about to be writ again” and I’ve long since abandoned any hope that an original line is to be found anywhere in the entire web of the universe; “power” is male, but male woefully out of balance, to act, to control, to make, to command on the basis of a wobble-board, the king of the castle chanting empty rhymes, unbalanced with respect to “other” and with respect to what-is without blindfolds, a spoilt child who smirks what he wants, a Johnson who dares what he deceives, a Trump who deceives what he wants, a Putin deceived by empty rhymes, so involuted that even before they think to open their mouths have been lying for generations within centuries; “prayer”, “poem”, “lament” is “female”, which is never mentioned, it is “wisdom” (which is never used), it is the balance to male (which is never considered – ‘too impractical’), it is the reference to “other” and the reference to “what-is” (whether “what-is” is blind-folded or not), it is not the replacement of male (that would make it … male), it is the heart-surge of care empty of all self-reference which, unfortunately, has been left in a cave, somewhere, some say in chains, and entertained with flickering lights on the back-wall, for millennia …

 

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: despite all / depiction
balance wormhole: the balance necessary between
black wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
daughter wormhole: looking ahead
history & time & war wormhole: mirror
love wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets…’
others wormhole: ‘the practice &…’
power wormhole: eyes like petals
quiet wormhole: – creak –
resource wormhole: the Apple
smile wormhole: light of all interaction
windows wormhole: YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams

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breakfast

Tags

2019, 7*, blindness, blogging, branches, breakfast, breathing, canopy, coffee, dark, echo, energy, eyes, flash, gooseberry, ground, growth, jam, leaves, life, light, living, monkey, path, reaching, reading, samsara, seeing, shadow, sound, sunlight, toast, trees, walking, way, wind, woodland

                breakfast

                these shadows on a long walk
                through the woodland with only occasional sun

                all there, underneath the undergrowth
                cannot see the ground, the stems that grow from it

                branches reach, leaves envelope everywhere
                from nowhere; weave

                and grow round and entwine each other;
                if I lift the leaves to see my way forward –

                searching for light, searching for life
                to grow, to continue – and if I break the smaller branches to

                make way
                I will scratch my arms, sap will sting my skin, my

                eyes, I cannot see, I cannot see;
                and I won’t see; some trees

                are quicker and older (than me)
                they hold the path and reach wide,

                and creepers make them fat
                and vines hang like curtains of water;

                the canopy above, maximised
                to greatest energy, sent back down through rough wires;

                only when the wind leans
                or a monkey leaps, is there a flash of light, gone by the

                time I’ve looked back down to the path
                blinded, to see where I am

                there must be so much light somewhere
                out there, if only I weren’t stumbling around and bleeding

                … really; I come downstairs
                and breathe coffee and spiced home – made gooseberry jam on home – made toast                           

                while reading my posts … yes,
                a thousand hacks and sap in the dark

                where I cannot see
                and cannot know where I am

                a thousand ‘choks’ deferred
                the undergrowth too dense to echo

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara chapter VI, verse 12: How can I attain happiness when the causes for happiness are obtained only through great effort and very rarely, and when the seeds­ of pain and sorrow are so prevalent, relentless and multifarious that they are realised easily and without any effort? And yet it is only from suffering that the thought and longing for escape and liberation from the suffering of conditioned existence will come about … therefore, O my deepest mind, hold yourself strong, patient, steadfast!

 

 

^{————w}(O)_{rmholes________________________________|—–}

branches & breathing wormhole: blue sky high
coffee wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
echo & path & walking wormhole: the Bodhisattva set out / for the Seat of Awakening
eyes & life wormhole: eyes like petals
leaves & living wormhole: everything is caused by something, which / something is caused by something else, nothing / stands alone where all pass as phantoms
light & trees wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
reading wormhole: {reading right to left}
samsara & sound wormhole: at Kreukenhof
seeing wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
shadow wormhole: alabaster balustrade
wind wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley

 

faulteous beings

Tags

2018, 5*, anger, blindness, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, delusion, identity, ignorance, infatuation, naïveté, society, un-virtue, world

                lookitall, this un-virtue,
                all this aroused anger –

                naïveté, infatuation,
                ignorance, delusion,

                blindness; there is
                no righteous anger, we

                are all self-branded
                faulteous beings

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara, Chapter VI – verse 67: Someone acts badly influenced by delusion, naïveté, infatuation, and another gets angry at them also out of ignorance, infatuation, blindness; of these two, which can we say acts without fault, and which is at fault?

 

 

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

identity & society wormhole: and … // … sound
world wormhole: travelling / back

 

A Solitude by Denise Levertov

Tags

1961, 7*, air, anxiety, being, blindness, breeze, children, Denise Levertov, doors, exit, face, hands, image, journey, joy, light, movement, nowhere, passing, people, presence, quiet, right, seeing, shame, smile, solitude, sound, speech, stairs, staring, station, stranger, streets, sunlight, thought, train, water, way, world

                                A Solitude

                A blind man. I can stare at him
                ashamed, shameless. Or does he know it?
                No, he is in a great solitude.

                O, strange joy,
                to gaze my fill at a stranger’s face.
                No, my thirst is greater than before.

                In this world he is speaking
                almost aloud. His lips move.
                Anxiety plays about them. And now joy

                of some sort trembles into a smile.
                A breeze I can’t feel
                crosses that face as if it crossed water.

                The train moves uptown, pulls in and
                pulls out of the local stops. Within its loud
                jarring movement a quiet,

                the quiet of people not speaking,
                some of them eyeing the blind man,
                only a moment though, not thirsty like me,

                and within that quiet his
                different quiet, not quiet at all, a tumult
                of images, but what are his images,

                he is blind? He doesn’t care
                that he looks strange, showing
                his thoughts on his face like designs of light

                flickering on water, for hedoesn’t know
                what look is.
                I see he has never seen.

                And now he rises, he stands at the door ready,
                knowing his station is next. Was he counting?
                No, that was not his need.

                When he gets out I get out.
                ‘Can I help you towards the exit?’
                ‘Oh, alright.’ An indifference.

                But instantly, even as he speaks,
                even as I hear indifference, his hand
                goes out, waiting for me to take it,

                and now we hold hands like children.
                His hand is warm and not sweaty,
                the grip firm, it feels good.

                And when we have passed through the turnstile,
                he going first, his hand at once
                waits for mine again.

                ‘Here are the steps. And here we turn
                to the right. More stairs now.’ We go
                up into sunlight. He feels that,

                the soft air. ‘A nice day,
                isn’t it?’ says the blind man. Solitude
                walks with me, walks

                beside me, he is not with me, he continues
                his thoughts alone. But his hand and mine
                know one another,

                it’s as if my hand were gone forth
                on its own journey. I see him
                across the street, the blind man,

                and now he says he can find his way. He knows
                where he is going, it is nowhere, it is filled
                with presences. He says, I am.

 

how to be in another’s head about being in another’s head: this is a wonderful example of Whalen’s ‘graph of the mind’ – the reach and score of effervent; there is a wonderful clarity and excise about these words such that the encounter is ours as much as just reported; thank you Denise Levertov, as she touches her throat lightly to feel the vibrations as she listens

 

 

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

air wormhole: THE DESOLATE FIELD by William Carlos Williams
anxiety wormhole: anxiety
being & water wormhole: `whappn’d!
breeze & hands wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
doors wormhole: letting them go
light wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
passing wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
people wormhole: tram
quiet wormhole: new blue porsche
seeing wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
smile wormhole: SUMMER SONG by William Carlos Williams
streets wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
thought wormhole: presence
train wormhole: all the low clouds keeping pace / through the train window, / always arriving, whether fast or / slow, but never actually moving
world wormhole: scintillating to mind’s content

 

the turtle and the yoke

Tags

2017, 8*, arrogance, benefit, blindness, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, breathing, facade, faith, glamour, honesty, kleshas, laziness, meditation, ocean, potential, practice, rebirth, self-indulgent, spontaneity, talking to myself, turtle, voices, windows

                the turtle and the yoke

                here is something cold-sweaty
                and uncomfortable to face –
                so much potential, so little use –

                seduced by the whispers of maybe
                I am arrogant, I am lazy, I am
                self-indulgent; they advance

                tempting as bright sweeties
                unchecked by doesn’t-really-
                matter and giddy spontaneity

                facing them will not be entertaining
                or glamourous or noble, it
                won’t even feel good

                but that it would magnify
                longer term benefits if I simply persisted;
                but I have such weak and

                feckless faith: the befuddled
                turtle disturbs the sea-bed slow-motion
                it is time to rise to take the breath

                when civic façade fades to window,
                but there is so much ocean,
                I cannot see which way is up

                but trust to hope and buoyancy
                that it could be
                that this time will place my neck

                in the life-yoke brightly adrift
                about the shoreless sea, to realise
                I could be a radiant being

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara IV, 20

 

from … Human Life is Extremely Hard to Find, by Geshe Sonam Rinchen; full article found: HERE

A blind turtle lives on the ocean bed and surfaces just once every hundred years. A golden yoke floats on the vast ocean, blown here and there by the wind. What are the chances of the turtle surfacing at just the right time and in just the right place to be able to put its head through the yoke? Our chances of gaining a life of freedom and fortune are just as improbable. You may think it couldn’t possibly be so difficult, but cyclic existence is like a vast and stormy ocean and we are like the turtle that spends most of its time in the depths and only surfaces very occasionally. For most of our lives we have been in bad rebirths and it happens only very rarely that we emerge from these into a good rebirth.

The yoke is made of gold and is therefore heavy, so it often sinks and is invisible. The yoke symbolizes the teachings of an enlightened one. An age of illumination is a period dur­ing which an enlightened one has taught in the world and those teachings are still extant, but there are much longer dark periods of time when the world is without such teachings.

The yoke does not remain in one place but is blown here and there by the wind. Similarly the teachings first flourish in one country and then in another. They thrive where people take an interest in practicing them and die out when they cease to be alive in people’s hearts. Sometimes the turtle comes up to the surface but in a place where there is no golden yoke. This is like taking a good rebirth but having no access to the teachings.

The turtle must actually put its head into the yoke, which signifies that the only way into the teachings is by taking refuge in the Three Jewels. Our lack of interest in the teachings and our reluctance to engage with them is due to our lack of intelligence, which is like the turtle’s blindness. No matter what good circumstances we enjoy, our life is not truly fortunate and free from obstacles if we have no interest in the Buddha’s teachings.

 

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

breathing wormhole: where did the silence go
meditation 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
practice wormhole: ‘still …’
talking to myself wormhole: next unexpected step
voices wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
windows wormhole: quiet river

 

and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call

Tags

19th century, 2016, 20th century, 8*, access, air conditioning, alley, architecture, back, balcony, bay window, being, black, blindness, blue, burgundy, carlights, chimney stacks, clouds, compromise, contemplation, cross-section, distance, down, Eastbourne, eyes, facade, Ford Cortina, foreground, front, Have, height, hierarchy, history, hope, hotel, houses, inside, life, living, outside, passing, pier, pipes, privacy, prologue, promenade, sea, seagull, seeing, sky, society, sound, streetlight, sun, time, tree, up, Victorian houses, walking, walls, waves, white, windows

                and naerrgh a mention of a seagull’s call

                prologue

                the fetch of uneventful league to
                mingle with pier piles nonchalant;

                the borderline lightbulbs strung for
                decades between promenade lamp

                and stack of height and white façade
                of black-wrought balcony for where to stay

                setting

                frontage shows the way-to-look-
                ing blind to what is seen amid

                all the detail of hierarchy, eye
                turned to what it hopes, while

                rear windows, set central in
                the shapèd drop, look inward

                to find the fit to be; in time
                the rear extension of amenity

                cut fresh cross-sections of life
                turned 90° deep with windows

                unadorned; but then
                were added storey, creating alley

                to hidden access whenever
                contemplating the corners

                that encourage right angle
                where you can serve your

                down and truncating down-
                pipe blind to abutted wall

                perambulation

                                but, I’m in luck

                eye caught by extractor flaps
                in the foreground venting downwards

                venting upwards, sun neatly off
                the downpipes to the right

                on the left long-painted white pipes
                rusting, and between, a leafing tree

                undecided which way to lean
                the background, the monolith back

                of the seafront hotel, conditioning
                air; later, passing the backs of

                houses-become-their-own-entrance,
                seagulls perched at rest

                on the chimneys, I caught
                the tail of a reg-D Cortina with

                burgundy-deep fins and round
                tripartite lights, smaller

                than I remember

                epilogue

                oh, yes and a Persian-blue
                chimney stack with off-white pots

                under sky-blue sky
                and wisps of cloud

 

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: looking ahead
architecture wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
being wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
black & blue & Have & living & passing & society & walking wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
burgundy wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
clouds wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
compromise wormhole: after all
Eastbourne wormhole: city streets
eyes & life & seeing & time wormhole: 1964
history wormhole: looking / ridiculous
hotel wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
promenade & sea wormhole: Bexhill 140215
seagull wormhole: do I
sky & white wormhole: travelling // arrival
sound & sun & windows wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – reaping
streetlight wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
Victorian houses wormhole: red / lacquer / door
walls wormhole: certainly a Captain, / but not America
waves wormhole: place

 

St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards / with the forelegs hanging down obscene / reaching some height blindly to connect / out from the long-stalk tri-separating up- / to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what / is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know- / what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and- / it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”

Tags

'scape, 2013, 8*, age, being, blindness, blue, books, breeze, Carol, contrapuntal, Derbyshire, flies, flying, grass, hill, mating, plants, seeds, shelf, speech, stone

                St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards
                with the forelegs hanging down obscene
                reaching some height blindly to connect
                out from the long-stalk tri-separating up-
                to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what
                is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know-
                what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and-
                it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”

                stones like grouped books on a shelf
                some fat enough to stand upright by themselves
                some leaning
                some fat ones leaning anyway
                with twisted spine

                various stalks of dried grasses
                reach slightly arthritic and
                inflexible in the breeze
                their seeds spent but ragged contrapuntal

                to the distant hill risen
                too old to read
                too stone-blue to talk with
                there and always there
                and only there by its lone and ever self

 

 

 

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

being & breeze wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
blue wormhole: St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton
books wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
Carol wormhole: ‘quick – she’s gone to pay …’
grass wormhole: prospect
speech wormhole: municipal garden
stone wormhole: prelude: // travel

 

the purple mist between

Tags

1964, 2016, 5*, architecture, becoming, blindness, desire, Dr Strange, gods, identity, inside, light, lunge, middle way, mist, outside, pattern, power, purple, samsara, Sanctum Sanctorum, shadow, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Strange Tales, true nature, windows

                     outside and inside are merely
                     framed by the window and

                     the shadow; where shadow
                     is architectural and ornate,

                     there is the Sanctum Sanctorum;
                     on entering one becomes

                     the patterns of past shadows
                     alternately contrasted with

                     one’s own light, most know not
                     that they have entered already –

                     dim under their own
                     machinations; others take the

                     Bigger Picture and illuminate
                     their own self hideous to

                     their godly desire: both the
                     light and the dark will blind you,

                     tripping you to all manner
                     of lunge, there are few,

                     indeed, who will settle for
                     the purple mist between

 

contrasted out from within ‘Beyond the Purple Veil’ in Strange Tales #119, April 1964; written: Stan Lee; drawn: Steve Ditko

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: Elektra
black wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
Dr Strange wormhole: Doctor Strange III – the needs of billions
identity & light & mist wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
power wormhole: lonely and free
purple wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – moment
samsara wormhole: a crack of lightning / in the dark of night
shadow wormhole: weight of high sash windows – poewieview #33
windows wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs

 

the writing’s on the wall

Tags

2012, beauty, being, blindness, breath, creativity, doing, groundlessness, hope, Howl, identity, inertia, letting go, looking, memory, pen, penance, pointlessness, powerlessness, publishing, seeing, self-doubt, sitting, superhero, talking to myself, universe, vindication, walls, waltz, writing

 

 

 

                                the writing’s on the wall

                                I can be becoming lost for weeks
                                unable to release, foiled in creativity
                                even by my breath; unable to waltz

                                or twirl about as I promise myself
                                held by the very wall that materialises
                                precisely where I thought to move

                                again; because there is something
                                closer than my retinas which I cannot see,
                I cannot see

                                because I am hanging on to a
                                last shred of dignity that makes me
                                blind that I cannot see the walls

                                at my toe before I swing my
                                foot to kick and I cannot see the walls
                                in my cranium before I blink

                                              so
                                              little
                                              beauty

                                to stumble over, stood in inertia
                                no matter how busy I become
                                no matter how much I do

                                without looking; (it’s the writing
                                (no it’s the tidal lunge for vindication,
                                 (no it’s the reminder, the reinforcement

                                  that I am powerless))) in a pointless universe
                                in which I still want to be the hero
                                brandishing the latest sheaf of sublimity

                                (even if not on the rooftops waving
                                 my genitals – see, see) so what do I do,
                                do I stop it all now and snap out of it

                                do I make myself sit for hours of
                                balming penance, do I slap my wrists
                                for wanting to publish; no, Mark,

                                              here’s a pen and
                                              here’s the line and
                                              here’s the wall to write on

 

 

 

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

beauty & being & doing wormhole: while walking
breath wormhole: miss / ad / venture – poewieview #22
creativity & walls wormhole: and that’s where I are
groundlessness wormhole: Dear Sir/Madam,
identity wormhole: 1968
letting go wormhole: tong len / the inauguration of another – timely – butter fly effect / taking and giving
looking & writing wormhole: impressionism
pointlessness wormhole: development
publishing wormhole: time proceeds
seeing wormhole: Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
sitting wormhole: well,
superhero wormhole: no point
talking to myself wormhole: dream career // groggy
vindication woormhole: thy will be done

 

gentle

Tags

2014, being, blindness, breathing, dancing, gentleness, letting go, life, perception, precision, seeing, uncertainty

 

 

 

                           I should be gentle
                           when I alight through life

                           I should see with precision
                           and then dance around it all

                           to cloud the experience
                           of doubt and uncertainty

                           and leave me blind
                           and unable to breathe

 

 

 

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

being & life wormhole: spit / spot
breathing wormhole: when writing // stay
dancing wormhole: I can say / that I do all sorts of dance
letting go wormhole: suddenly fly off again
seeing wormhole: the MagOO Effect Effect