‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’

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2018, 8*, achievement, anger, ants, arrogance, beauty, Big Issue, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, books, buying, Carol, cat, cause and effect, chrome, comics, conception, conditioned existence, dark, doing, evening, eyes, giving, glass, Hulk, human, identity, insight, isolation, kids, life, lightning, marbles, mind, modesty, night, offering, patience, perfect human rebirth, quality, shrine, standing, strangers, talking to myself, teaching, teeth, time, tin, white

                … and yet I think I am so modest:
                      I think I have gathered such quality and beauty in life,

                      all the coloured glass and marbles I offer to the shrine,
                all the Big Issues I generously buy

                all the time given to Carol and the kids,
                      to abandoned strangers, all the vistas I gave at school,

                      all the insights from comics and books, I think I
                know what’s what; I stand colossal

                      on the paving slab, so much more and in so many ways
                than the ants that circle across it,

                so much more, even, than the cat
                      that comes and uselessly rubs about my legs, I stand

                      human to the height of all achievement; all of this
                I have already destroyed

                      a thousand times over in a thousand different ways
                with even the most slight

                      annoyance (and the thing is I am always annoyed), let alone
                the hulked, mindblanked and white-eyed

                teeth and howls; when this dent,
                      this sudden crease in what looks like flimsy tin (from

                this axe from some other side) that
                      holds the calm and flow of all the cause and conditionality,

                      everything bent sharp over a refusal, that creates me adverse
                and isolated; I won’t

                      become human again for so long I’ll need
                another, far-future,

                flash of lightning
                      in the darkest of darkest nights before I’ll

                ever get another chance
                      to even conceive what’s happening to me; let’s

                ease out all these creases, let’s
                      polish all that chrome, before evening comes again

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara, Chapter VI, beginning verses

 

 

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

beauty & books & identity wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
Carol wormhole: we held cold hands
cat wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
comics wormhole: letting them go
doing wormhole: the moon, the moon
evening & eyes & white wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
giving wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
glass & life & mind & time wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
lightning wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
night wormhole: THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams
talking to myself wormhole: blister on me thumb
teaching wormhole: how to teach

 

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2014, 4*, buying, coffee shop, conformity, finding, Have, hidden, life, looking, purposelessness, sitting, society, town, writing

                I’ve seen those looking
                for what they don’t have
                around town and flaunting
                whatever they have got    desperately

                I’ve seen those hiding
                all that they have
                in town in conformity
                and brightly-coloured trousers

                and I have sat
                in the coffee shop writing about them both and
                neither three of us have found
                what we’re looking for

 

 

 

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

coffee shop wormhole: immeasurable love
Have wormhole: clear as vista
life wormhole: cape and cowl
looking wormhole: is there anything to write?
sitting wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
society wormhole: circuitry
writing wormhole: at table 21 in the garden centre thinking to / replicate Hughes’ exercise for Plath about / the Yew Tree

 

written relief to / creeping anaesthesia / through palimpsest / and crankled page

Tags

2013, 6*, being, buying, centre, consumerism, driving, Have, identity, living, page, passing, progress, self, texture, travelling, writing

                written relief to
                creeping anaesthesia
                through palimpsest
                and crankled page

                driving soaks you into
                the process of passing
                inexorable to progress
                oblivious to a      centre

                here comes a service station
                let me choose a centre to buy
                inevitable to consume and then
                obliged to define myself     through

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: 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”
Have wormhole: 20th century
identity wormhole: wakeoutofadream
living 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
passing wormhole: municipal garden
texture wormhole: darkness
travelling wormhole: too much in arrival
writing wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey

 

I could step / more open

Tags

2014, 6*, balcony, being, blossom, blue, branches, budding, buildings, buying, child, choice, Eastbourne, education, faces, green, happenstance, Have, identity, journey, language, letting go, life, looking, nonsense, notebook, openness, pavement, promenade, red, roads, sandwich, seagull, seeing, sky, space, statue, sun, syllable, thinking, time, traffic, travelling, trees, voices, waiting, writing

 

 

 

                                it’s all just nonsense
                the things to buy the things to wear
                                the schools to teach
                                the roads to drive
                the born to life the choices to make
                                the faces to set
                                against the sun

                                but two things:
                there is a tree with deep-wine blossom
                next to the red-brick apartments with balconies
                and the sky hangs indifferent and only
                changes when you think about it afterwards

                                I could step
                                more open
                                through all of this
                noticing the space and treasuring the happenstance
                and not caring about the gain or the journey
                                until I think
                                about it afterwards

                                              -o~~~-

                                                              OK …
                                              … sandwich
                                pausing to get out my notebook
                a seagull alighted on the promenade lamp
                                and waited
                                flew off

                                              -~~~o-

                the statue of an Elder
                cast in rolls and folds of overcoat
                stares disconsolately roadward
                and blooms green over the years
                ignoring the traffic passing and indicating
                and all the while beside and behind
                the pollarded tree out of the pavement
                branches all the same length now
                                              budding

                                              -|o____

                by the cobalt-blue railing
                on the lower promenade
                passes a child-voice reciting
                high – slightly complaining –
                cascading downwards with
                each syllable in a language
                which I cannot understand

                                              —o|||

                                                                                 but
                                                              you don’t look to see
                                              otherwise too many thoughts crowd your eyes
                                rather you let enter to observe
                so that the disparate can be made

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: this is not my poem / although I found it nevertheless
blossom wormhole: Manhattan 2012
blue & Have & sky wormhole: Maidstone
branches wormhole: ‘“ruddy crows!” / said my Dad …’
buildings wormhole: introducing / the stranger
child & faces & green & identity & life & red & seagull & thinking & time wormhole: Tulips by Sylvia Plath – How Far To Step Before You Raise The Other Foot
letting go wormhole: letters to Mum III – ongoing-term // eventually
looking & seeing & sun wormhole: !
looking wormhole: open window
promenade wormhole: 1963
roads wormhole: the Buddha head in an antique shop
space wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
travelling wormhole: sniff
trees wormhole: no hat
voices wormhole: connections
waiting wormhole: that’s me / in the corner that’s me in the spot light / losing my religion*
writing wormhole: the precision // the gentleness // and / the letting go