landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey

Tags

2013, birth, black, breathing, clouds, England, green, grey, hope, iron, landscape, life, London, mauve, mist, park, pipes, pregnancy, publishing, shadow, streets, Sylvia Plath, Victorian houses, walking, writing

                soon after I was born
                to the rendered sides of
                talling Victorian terrace-ends
                with networks of iron black pipe
                and random small frosted window
                                Sylvia Plath

                arrived back in England
                pregnant with newhope and
                immanent with firstbook
                to breathe the alternating
                talling shadows of street
                and the misty greenmauve landscape
                                of park

                landscape of cloud over London
                with differing depths of grey

 

 

 

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

black wormhole: St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton
breathing & writing wormhole: the goldilocks stance
clouds & green & grey wormhole: municipal garden
life wormhole: garden
London wormhole: handsome
mauve & shadow & walking wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
mist wormhole: prelude: // travel
park wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
publishing wormhole: Granada holiday …
streets wormhole: Luton // couldn’t make a poem out of it
Sylvia Plath wormhole: Sylvia
Victorian houses wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34

 

the goldilocks stance

Tags

2013, breathing, eyes, frog, openness, seeing, shoulders, sitting, writing

                                the goldilocks stance

                you sit straight with back and shoulders
                but not too straight like a mission rather
                just enough like a                          frog

                and you plant your eyes softly in front
                but not too soft that they close rather
                open enough to breathe              evenly

                then you hold your pen over lined paper
                but not too thoughtful like a prerequisite
                rather naïve enough to see          unto

 

 

 

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

breathing wormhole: breathing
eyes wormhole: brown corduroy shirt / and dark redwine tie
openness wormhole: strain
seeing & sitting & writing wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell

 

breathing

Tags

2*, 2013, attention, breathing, circular poem, living, remembering, sitting

                                    breathing
                     that I am …             let us
                   to notice                      spend an
             to remember                  hour or so
                                 remembering

 

yes this is a circular poem because you need to breathe in again after the last breath

 

 

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

attention wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
breathing & circular poem 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
living wormhole: Open – All – Ours
sitting wormhole: six paramitas

 

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

Tags

2013, 8*, being, Bodhichitta, breathing, circular poem, colour, difficulty, distraction, doing, eyes, identity, jewel, letting go, life, lost, meditation, prayer, putting out, seeing, self, singing, sitting, stone, talking to myself, tired, voices, Woodbrooke

                             difficulty comes
                        unfitting perfectly to
                          each situation

may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta …

                                                                                    t
                                                                                          i
                                                          a big fat ball                  r
                                         all I see is                       with odd       e
                                    or above it                              spicy bits       d
                                        round it                              fills up
                                        I can’t see                       my being
                                                        closes my eyes

… take birth where it has not yet done so …

                                 the fuzz and static
      drowned out by                                 and the tiny shiny
        before being                                      coloured stones
of determination                                          mixed in and
         sing a voice                                       mostly lost which
             surface and                                 sometimes
                                      work to the

                                                                        is not me
                                                                        is not the self
                                                                        standing sitting or sleeping
                                                            and always always breathing

… where it has taken birth may it not decrease …

                                                                        I can’t put out
                                                            I miss the point or miss the opportunity
                                                                        every time I venture
                                                or hold back

                                                                        I have loads to offer
                                                            but no receptacle
                                                            far better to sit
                                                improve my aim

… but may it increase infinitely

                                                                                    I get so much more
                                                                                    done by just being
                                                                                    without knowing it
                                                                                    without knowing –
                                                                                    even – about it

                                                                                    I think I’ll just
                                                                                    offer my being
                                                                                    from now on
                                                                                    and not try to
                                                                                    do anything to be

 

 

 

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

being & doing & life wormhole: ‘never look up’?
Bodhichitta & eyes & seeing wormhole: so pleased to see you again
breathing & sitting & talking to myself wormhole: breathing out
circular poem wormhole: everwhile
distraction & meditation wormhole: within
identity & stone wormhole: Open – All – Ours
letting go wormhole: comfy
voices wormhole: what wounds have you got?

breathing out

Tags

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

                I must take
                the time

                to sit with
                an empty page

                each day

                without guile
                or ambition

                completely
                and openly

                and let

                the words write
                themselves

                with compassion
                as if I were

                breathing out

 

 

 

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

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

 

writing: // in turn

Tags

2017, breathing, karma, light, love, mother sentient beings, painting, rebirth, Shantideva, sharing, sibling, sight, twilight, warp, weft, writing

                writing:

                to the extent
                that I brush

                with warp and
                with weft with

                light and with
                crepuscule with

                sight and with
                love may any

                lost sibling
                and all of my

                mothers of
                equal humour

                as we have
                shared breathe

                awhile together
                in turn

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara chapter I, verse 3; IF we are reborn, for each rebirth we would need a mother to give that birth to us and to bring us up; if we have had former rebirths without beginning, we have had infinite mothers – good, bad and indifferent; were ARE all these former mothers now …?; and what has this to do with writing (or any other creative endeavour)?

 

 

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

breathing wormhole: 1966
light & writing wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
love wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
Shantideva wormhole: passersby

 

1966

Tags

1966, 2014, 5*, breathing, Burt Bacharach, city, contemplation, death, Dionne Warwick, hills, horizon, life, mist, relief

                1966

                                up in the hills
                contemplating the cold guide rail directing-back-to-safety horizon
                                of mist over the wide wide city –
                                                I’m alright
                                                yes I’m alright

 

several stepped in-takes through I just don’t know what to do with myself by Dionne Warwick & Burt Bacharach and one languid outbreath, each time …

 

 

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

breathing & life wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance
Burt Bacharach & Dionne Warwick wormhole: 1967
city wormhole: pen and ruler
death & hills wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow
horizon wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs
mist wormhole: be

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance

Tags

1967, 2016, 8*, air, ale, breathing, countryside, earth, field, gaze, ghosts, grandfather, green, honeysuckle, Kent, life, Michael J Redford, noon, nose, quiet, sound, speech, suburbia, summer, Sunday, time

 

                on Sundays my father downed tools and was
                led by the nose – the Redford bequest –

                drawing us into the quietude of Kent,
                out from the crust of suburbia,

                plunged deepening into green
                carrying bags of sandwiches towards noon;

                when, he would gaze around awhile
                and “let’s try over there” as if he were only

                wondering, “landlord’s name is Bert,”
                he’d trail behind quietly to himself, breathing

                even ghosts in through his live and open nostrils
                (back, even, to the seventeenth century,

                 looking out over the tombstones,
                creaking & checking, drinking, ale); taught me

                to fathom honeysuckle
                on a damp summer’s air carrying far before

                the meet, to flare to the earth
                of a muck heap ‘made’ well, to bask

                and loiter by ammoniac stables
                breathing for to clear the head, to “foller yer nose”

                and find the green bean field –
                cup of sweet wine drunk with intemperance –

 

 

read the collected work as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose; this piece is, of course, written from the uncle-person singular, therefore his ‘father’ was my Grandfather, who died when I was still a baby – I knew him about as much as a ruffle on the head from on high that I can remember; I have grown familiar with him through Mick’s writings and old pictures I have acquired to try and trick time out of its progress – AND IT SUCCEEDED!

 

 

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

air & green & Sunday wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose
breathing & speech wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
field wormhole: ‘field of corn …’
ghosts wormhole: passersby
life wormhole: passing below
sound wormhole: 1967
time wormhole: time

 

ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …

Tags

2016, 8*, being, breathing, child, clothes, colour, comics, despair, Dorian Gray, emperor, exclamation, exposed, flowers, Granada, hope, identity, inspiration, light, love, mantra, model, phrase, portrait, Prajnaparamita, rain, rainbow, realisation, retirement, secret, seeing, self, self-containment, self-image, speech, step, thread, tragedy, vanity, wandering, words, world

 

 
le mot just
the piquant phrase
                                         the simple model rising magnificent
                                         from cavalcades
                                         of stoic tumbling

                                         threads through like
                                         weave which clothes me
                                         presentable to the world …

                                         but no one sees the
                                         emperor’s clothes of
                                         such fine thread it cannot
                                         be seen, no wise child
                                         to point and exclaim
                                         the hang and drape
                                         to put an end to all step –
                                         “look, mummy, that man
                                           is not an emperor!”

 

 
less than naked
I am seen right through
                                         adrift of discourse
                                         I step with stubborn countenance,
                                         all the better to
                                         stare myself into existence,

 

 
awkward and
hidden away in some attic
                                         lest I lose [what I haven’t
                                         got] self-contained in trembling
                                         vanity, secretive in hope
                                         of things to come, desparate
                                         in tragedy that my grimy
                                         portrait might be seen …

 

 
wander, wander
around the flowers, smell
                                         their colour, breathe their
                                         light and let the light rain
                                         fall in shards of rainbow,
                                         cleansing with love –

 

 

 
                      om     ga – te     ga – te
                                      pa – ra – ga – te
                                                      pa – ra – sam – ga – te
                                                                      bo – dhi     so – ha

 

retirement #3 when in Granada … visit the Alhambra, and visit the Generalife gardens … [if you have booked up to three months ahead]; on the walk up to the palaces are trees and shrubs which are plenty-watered by sprinklers, in the morning sun the sprays will often catch a rainbow at their edge; the bordered captions in the poem are comic-conjunctives, there is a beginning, middle and end being told here, folks; the mantra: thaya tha om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi soha, is the mantra of Prajnaparamita, the Perfection of Wisdom; it can be somewhat semantically translated as “it’s like this: [everything is] gone, gone, completely gone, completely and perfectly gone with no loss, enlightened [dispersed, dispelled] all-right!”; but what’s ‘gone’: “the slings and arrows of outrageous romance” … of one’s self and the whole world positioned awkward to placate its mewling little story, as stolen by Joni Mitchell, who was talking too much at the time, from ‘Willy the Shake’;

 

 

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

being wormhole: pocket
breathing wormhole: within
child & light wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy
comics wormhole: chartless …
identity wormhole: not / the Catcher
love wormhole: love and precision
rain wormhole: monument to vainglory
realisation wormhole: passing below
seeing wormhole: con / sum / mate
speech wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
words wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …
world wormhole: the skyline

 

within

Tags

2013, 5*, being, breathing, distraction, letting go, meditation, space, thought

                                                getting
                                better at meditation
                isn’t a matter of having less thoughts –
                                distracting or otherwise –
                                                or even
a matter of being seduced by them and following them deadened wherever they go
                                                or not

                                                it is
                                about the space
                to breathe within
                every fibre of their being
                                whether they are frantic
                                                or calm
                                                or not

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: not / the Catcher
breathing wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …
distraction wormhole: because
letting go wormhole: Prajnaparamita // Maitreya
meditation wormhole: out!
space wormhole: con / sum / mate
thought wormhole: passersby