there will be ovations

Tags

2018, 7*, acting, audience, betrayal, blood, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, breathing, brother, children, circumstance, concentration, doors, emptiness, enemy, expectation, identity, life, light, machinations, music, naked, others, realisation, role, self-grasping, self-image, silence, sky, society, sound, stage, theatre, thinking, traffic

                ah, there’s the theatre and
                inside, the stage is set,
                the audience settled, the
                lights down, thank the fates,

                I almost didn’t make it –
                the traffic at this time of day! –
                the other is here, good,
                warming up, waving that

                stick all about, making whoosh
                noises, being all athletic and
                disciplined, I’d better get ready,
                torn robe on, oh, the blood

                smear it on, quick, and
                the hanging limb, OK,
                concentrate, breathe – be
                the character – I need

                to give the performance
                they are expecting – the
                circumstance, the machinations,
                the betrayal … no, not enough,

                what if it happened to my
                children, what if it were my
                brother with the stick, oh yes,
                it’s come to this, use the silence

                of the realisation, use the
                music – slamming doors
                in the sky! – no, this is more
                than my story, this is the

                history of my nation, quick,
                I’m ready now, I’m naked,
                I’m gutted and impaled, now
                for the finishing blow – how

                glorious this will be, I have
                so much invested in this,
                there will be ovations and
                encores, so worthwhile,

                I hope he has practised
                well – knows where the
                padding is; wait, is that
                a blade, tied to, the end

 

from Bodhisattvacharyavatara, Chapter VI – verse 43-44: [43] Here is a brandished weapon, and here is my body ready and presented, both of them the causes of my eventual suffering. My attacker has laid hold of his stick (tena śastraṃ), and I both wear and brandish my body. With what should I get angry? [44] It is I who have obtained and hold on to this boil, this pressured blister of a human body – sack of suffering – which cannot even bear to be touched and, moreover, it is I who am blind-sided through my own attachment to it, so that when the pain comes and the ‘boil’ bursts, with whom should I get angry?

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: tram
breathing & society wormhole: the reach turned to love
doors wormhole: pursued
emptiness & life & others wormhole: the mantra of Maitreya
identity wormhole: I
light wormhole: travelling / back
music wormhole: and … // … sound
realisation wormhole: passing
silence wormhole: birth in the world
sky wormhole: horizon
sound wormhole: …zzh-vvttP*–… … …
thinking wormhole: ‘ouch’

 

Advertisements

glamour of saṃsāra

Tags

2018, 7*, anger, blood, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, fighting, glamour, honour, humility, identity, injury, kleshas, mind, mouth, others, patience, samsara, sincerity, step, superhero, within, world

                the self-built hero
                has levelled the world
                to win an honour

                the super hero
                has vanquished anger within
                with no harm to others;

                the super hero
                confronts the enemies
                as they arise in the mind

                step by slow step
                disregarding the struggle involved
                humble, un-beguiling, true;

                after all, when in battle,
                injury will occur – I wipe my bloodied mouth and stagger to my feet,                           
                begone, glamour of saṃsāra

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara VI, 20 – There are those who take their enemies’ blows upon their chests, (taking them on the chin). It is they who are the victors, the heroes, they who courageously disregard all suffering and pain in vanquishing the enemies such as hatred and so forth. Ordinary warriors are just killers of the dead.

 

 

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

identity & mind wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
mouth wormhole: THE LONELY STREET by William Carlos Williams
others wormhole: allowed all gain
samsara wormhole: all // are // none
superhero wormhole: to arms, then;
world wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych

 

What You Are by Roger McGough

Tags

1967, accident, advertising, apple, blood, books, buildings, canal, cat, cattle, children, city, clock, clouds, cuckoo, curtains, dawn, death, depth, derelict, dew, distance, duty, eyes, feet, fish, flesh, flowers, found, frog, glasses, God, goldfish, grass, green, hands, heartbeat, Hiroshima, humanity, innocence, ivy, kiss, leaves, library, love, Lusitania, madness, measure, midnight, mirror, moment, morning, moth, mother, murder, neurosis, peace, petals, plastic, poem, politicians, power, prayer, pride, Roger McGough, rosary, sand, seeds, silence, Spring, stage, station, subconscious, sun, sword, symbol, teacher, tears, teeth, time, torpedo, treason, trees, van Gogh, voices, walls, war, water, waves, wind, windows, winter, womb, world, World War, yellow

                What You Are

                you are the cat’s paw
                among the silence of midnight goldfish

                you are the waves
                which cover my feet like cold eiderdowns

                you are the teddybear (as good as new)
                found beside a road accident

                you are the lost day
                in the life of a child murderer

                you are the underwatertree
                around which fish swirl like leaves

                you are the green
                whose depths I cannot fathom

                you are the clean sword
                that slaughtered the first innocent

                you are the blind mirror
                before the curtains are drawn back

                you are the drop of dew on a petal
                before the clouds weep blood

                you are the sweetfresh grass that goes sour
                and rots beneath children’s feet

                you are the rubber glove
                dreading the surgeon’s brutal hand

                you are the wind caught on barbed wire
                and crying out against war

                you are the moth
                entangled in a crown of thorns

                you are the apple for teacher
                left in a damp cloakroom

                you are the smallpox injection
                glowing on the torchsinger’s arm like a swastika

                you are the litmus leaves
                quivering on the suntan trees

                you are the ivy
                which muffles my walls

                you are the first footprints in the sand
                on bankholiday morning

                you are the suitcase full of limbs
                waiting in a leftluggage office
                to be collected like an orphan

                you are a derelict canal
                where the tincans whistle no tunes

                you are the bleakness of winter before the cuckoo
                catching its feathers on a thornbush
                heralding spring

                you are the stillness of Van Gogh
                before he painted the yellow vortex of his last sun

                you are the still grandeur of the Lusitania
                before she tripped over the torpedo
                and laid a world war of american dead
                at the foot of the blarneystone

                you are the distance
                between Hiroshima and Calvary
                measured in mother’s kisses

                you are the distance
                between the accident and the telephone box
                measured in heartbeats

                you are the distance
                between power and politicians
                measured in half-masts

                you are the distance
                between advertising and neuroses
                measured in phallic symbols

                you are the distance
                between you and me
                measured in tears

                you are the moment
                before the noose clenched its fist
                and the innocent man cried: treason

                you are the moment
                before the warbooks in the public library
                turned into frogs and croaked khaki obscenities

                you are the moment
                before the buildings turned into flesh
                and windows closed their eyes

                you are the moment
                before the railwaystations burst into tears
                and the bookstalls picked their noses

                you are the moment
                before the buspeople turned into teeth
                and chewed the inspector
                for no other reason than he was doing his duty

                you are the moment
                before the flowers turned into plastic and melted
                in the heat of the burning cities

                you are the moment
                before the blindman puts on his dark glasses

                you are the moment
                before the subconscious begged to be left in peace

                you are the moment
                before the world was made flesh

                you are the moment
                before the clouds became locomotives
                and hurtled headlong into the sun

                you are the moment
                before the spotlight moving across the darkened stage
                like a crab finds the singer

                you are the moment
                before the seed nestles in the womb

                you are the moment
                before the clocks had nervous breakdowns
                and refused to keep pace with man’s madness

                you are the moment
                before the cattle were herded together like men

                you are the moment
                before God forgot His lines

                you are the moment of pride
                before the fiftieth bead

                you are the moment
                before the poem passed peacefully away at dawn
                like a monarch

 

from The Mersey Sound, 1967
when I first read this poem in 1978 I was too young to let go associations enough to get the metaphor; after a lifetime of being obligated to associations which stood idly by while I wildly floundered without ground, I can let them go with glee and relish and relish the metaphors to the portrait’s content (… still not sure about the ‘lost day of the child murderer’, however, and I’m still not sure why I’m not sure, but I’m not; but I can’t think McGough just slipped up over one couplet … (and I can’t find any discussion of this line in the pages-that-proliferate-like-spores-wafted-across-their-own-private-amphitheatres))

 

 

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

books & love wormhole: `whappn’d!
buildings wormhole: cowled
city & windows wormhole: moon- // washed
clouds & green & silence & time & wind wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
curtains wormhole: ‘the Bat-Signal …’
dawn wormhole: between
death wormhole: beguiled / desire
eyes wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Cows
feet wormhole: ‘oh my girls and muse …’
glasses wormhole: … the underleaves show
hands & water & world wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
leaves wormhole: sufficiently away
library wormhole: two profiles
mirror wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams
morning wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
mother wormhole: granny
power wormhole: I
Spring & sun wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
trees & voices & yellow wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams
walls wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
war wormhole: to arms, then;
waves wormhole: Khandro Tsering Chodron
winter wormhole: where did the silence go

 

retirement

Tags

2017, 7*, air, blood, career, face, feeling, identity, managerialism, mist, movement, murder, professionalism, retirement, smile, speech, table, teaching

                           retirement

---

                                     .                                      ,                                           .

                           ,                .                                                                                     ;                                                 ,                                                                                     .                       –                 .

                ,             ,                                                       ,  “                                                                     ,                                 ”,         … there

---

                           had been a murder
                           I could feel it all around me and
                           it wasn’t just because there was

                           mist all about – suggested movement,
                           sudden stop – and there is
                           no body

                           that I can see
                           no speech balloon of blood
                           from a face’s final cry

                           but a gentle air
                           where the table is that I
                           use to pound my fists

                           and a swirly smile
                           that told me so, dispersing and
                           unattributive

 

retirement #6: here it is, the full story in all of its salacious detail; restricted strictly to those over 18 years of age – warning: graphic violence, with scenes of intent unattribularity

 

 

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

air & mist wormhole: 1968
career & teaching wormhole: holiday
identity & smile wormhole: six paramitas
managerialism wormhole: dry rot
professionalism & table wormhole: while
speech wormhole: so pleased to see you again

 

hinged – From Hell ch. V

Tags

2015, Alan Moore, architecture, awe, birth, black, blood, chimney, dark, diptych, drawing, encounter, From Hell, generation, grey, history, ink, living, morning, pediment, pillars, privacy, sky, society, steeple, sunrise, windows

                                                              somewhere
                                              amid the pediments and private windows
                                              that make such things inevitable
                                a conception was made
                that would wash the steps and pillars with awe and blood
                                              for tens of cascading generations

                                                              all the while
                                              the stations of toilet and repose
                                              are observed with due quotidian solemnity
                                by both the Righteous and the Have Nots
                until their ineluctable encounter through askance
                                              diptych panels

                                                              nevertheless
                                              and always    hinged    conceive
                                              darkness clinging around
                                steeple and chimney like black-hatch etching
                until light feels its way through the sky again making everything a grey
                                              ink-wash

 

askance from chapter five of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell; architecture always ever is so much more than trim, being the solidified air of encounter between Disraeli’s ‘two nations’ that still breathes to this day; I’m sure Victor Hugo said something about this at length in the beginning pages of Hunchback of Notre Dame, but I can never seem to find them

a little snippet from askance From Hell, askance from chapter ten of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, gwn’n’avvalook

 

 

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

architecture & windows wormhole: openingAlan Moore wormhole: what heavy and cantilevered structure
black wormhole: ‘the hour before dinner – / the empire of dusk’ – poewieview #6
chimney wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky
grey & sky wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
history wormhole: the sounds of 1969 // [would have] seemed that way – poewieview #13
living wormhole: quite … / … yet – poewieview #12
morning wormhole: quick inventory after coffee
society wormhole: just saying, is all IV: // lost

 

The Godfather III: // AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHH …

Tags

2014, blood, cog, decades, film, Francis Ford Coppola, hair, Have, identity, loss, mother, mouth, naked, power, sound, The Godfather, tragedy, ugly

 

 

 

                                                                 The Godfather III:

                                                                           long
                                                                 silent         cry
                                   mouth open ugly naked
                                                 power gone

                   and every cog of every decade caught
                   on the same piece of rag coiled around each tooth
                   limp bloody and hair-fallen in her mother’s arms

                                                                                              … … …

                                                         … … …

                … … …

                AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHH …

 

 

 

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

film wormhole: I need to keep my eyes open / in meditation
hair wormhole: the tangles fall apart
Have wormhole: the lines are not that straight / after all
identity wormhole: dream 230315
mother wormhole: sight / seeing
mouth wormhole: sitting
power wormhole: the Conqueror
sound wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting

 

hinged

Tags

2015, 6*, Alan Moore, awe, birth, blood, buildings, dark, doing, Eddie Campbell, From Hell, generation, grey, ideas, light, others, sky, society, time, windows

                                                              somewhere
                                              amid the pediments and private windows
                                              that make such things inevitable
                                a conception was made
                that would wash the steps and pillars with awe and blood
                                              for tens of cascading generations

                                                              all the while
                                              the stations of toilet and repose
                                              are observed with due quotidian solemnity
                                by the Righteous and the Have Nots
                until their ineluctable encounter through askance
                                              diptych panels

                                                              nevertheless
                                              and always    hinged    conceive
                                              darkness clinging around
                                steeple and chimney like black-hatch etching
                until light feels its way through the sky again making everything a grey
                                              ink-wash

 

askance from chapter five of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

a little snippet from askance From Hell, askance from chapter ten of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, gwn’n’avvalook

 

 

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

Alan Moore & buildings & sky wormhole: ha ha ha
doing & time & windows wormhole: purpose
grey & light wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
others wormhole: September – silhouette of leaf // the / inside and the / outside
society wormhole: the four whores of the apocalypse

 

‘“Never,” said the Sandman; / he blinked …’

Tags

1980, 6*, abandonment, blood, blue, cars, Dad, driving, maroon, rain, sound, speech, streets, traffic lights, walnut, yellow

 

 

 

                “Never,” said the Sandman;
                                he blinked

as the overhead drizzling traffic lights changed
                yellow;

                jerking flib-flub of the windscreen wipers
                                flapped

                                in his stomach; the great wide street
                                              sspunnnn

                past; I remember the deep maroon of his car
                                flaked

                                off the bonnet when he said, “I’ll try again; I’ll try again
                                              I’ll try again …”

                                and the walnut dashboard clicked blue;
                                                              blue-ink blood

                                                              in the folds of my sweating
                                                                                 palms

 

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: letters to Mum IV – healing comes in smiling
blue & rain & streets wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
cars wormhole: no cars / no planes
Dad wormhole: letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love
maroon wormhole: celebrate
sound wormhole: 1967
speech wormhole: ‘hello old friend …’
traffic lights wormhole: waiting room
yellow wormhole: Dr Strange III – the needs of billions

 

letters to Mum III – ongoing-term // eventually

Tags

1970s, 1998, 2014, 6*, blood, cancer, childhood, death, family, giving, hospital, laugh, letter, letting go, life, living, Mum, reality, Ryokan, speech, teaching

 

 

 

Dear Mum,

                                finally
                I sit down to write –
too much draining into reserve too much exhaustion of voice controlling 30 pupils in a class; this job of constant give and demand leaves me slumped and inert, little use to anyone …

                … your illness, the hospital
                the cancer in your blood
                the ongoing-term shock

                watching you audit your life
                watching you simplify a life
                already simple, coming back
                to terms with it again and again

                now you are back in hospital
                because of a cold –
this is not something to be sorted with a little rest and a Lemsip –
                it won’t ‘be over’ at all will it but rather
                fought through better and worse
                (all the struggles of the last year
                 not in vain but in reality)

(in the 70s we saved up for the smallest things; things went wrong – we even got burgled! – (I saw you, you kept our worry to yourself) but then you ‘tut’d up a ‘this won’t do’: a good laugh all together in our house at what we had left –
                Ryokan’s moon* –

                eventually)

                love,

                Mark

 

 

*Daigu Ryokan (1758-1831): ah, the thief / left it behind – the moon / at the window

 

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

part of the ongoing life and page of … Mum
childhood & death & living wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
death & Mum wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate
giving wormhole: poessay VIII: / educational behaviourism
letting go wormhole: the precision // the gentleness // and / the letting go
life wormhole: our life
reality wormhole: poessay VII: // true revolution
speech wormhole: g’morning
teaching wormhole: the Telescope

 

Saturday

Tags

'scape, 2013, 7*, being, blood, breath, career, Carol, cathedral, clouds, conservatory, doing, dream, faces, feet, fly, kitchen, legs, love, menopause, mouth, muse, period, roof, Saturday, silence, sleep, snow, sound, space, sun, sunlight, tired, toes, wind, windows

 

 

 

                                Saturday

                                              my busy girl
lays on the settee in the conservatory feet up
                on the arm

                                              the plastic roof
cracks as it expands from the sunlight columns from
                through the clouds

                                              the occasional wind
blows the bamboo silently outside but the clouds don’t move
                like a cathedral

                                              a fly
intermittently worries around looking for a way through
                the solid space

                                              another crack
but nothing disturbs her breath in mouth open
                out for

                                              she is tired
from the lists erasing and replenishing scribbled on the
                kitchen cupboard door

                                              tired from
a menopause that delivers her fortnight-long periods
                loosing blood

                                              tired from
a dream career where you cannot pick up objects no matter
                how hard you try

                                              arms folded
across her tummy feet and legs crossed tanned
                with perky toes

                                              through
the window the sun falls like a dust of snow over
                the landscape

                                              let her sleep
anointed beautiful across her face her chest and
                her shin

 

 

 

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

being & doing wormhole: you fail
C wormhole: portrait … // … reading
career wormhole: you don’t talk to me
cathedral wormhole: flat
clouds wormhole: promenade
conservatory wormhole: as
dream wormhole: red / red / air
faces wormhole: August / Adventure
feet wormhole: poetry
kitchen wormhole: 1977
love wormhole: covert being
mouth wormhole: just
muse wormhole: thar she perched
roof & snow wormhole: from the / bedroom / window
Saturday wormhole: relief
silence wormhole: at the apex
sleep wormhole: the pleasant land / of counterpane
sound wormhole: greeyn
space wormhole: patronage
sun & wind wormhole: the sun / in a clean / industrial / sky
windows wormhole: from the / bedroom / window