‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’

Tags

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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we held cold hands

Tags

2018, 6*, acquamarine, airport, bardo, beach, buoy, Carol, clouds, cold, electric, engine, glasses, grey, hands, holiday, horizon, Lanzarote, love, Morecambe, morning, pink, planes, sea, sky, sound, streets, sunset, time, volcano, walking, waves, white

                we walked by the airport with tinted glasses
                flights coming in going out while the

                sun set behind; without tripping
                the waves lapped and swashed as they do

                but broke electric white and fetched
                electric aquamarine all along under

                the gauzy pink and far horizon
                while jet engines cracked their power and

                streets of new villas hung like morning belts
                of cloud before the still-dormant volcanoes;

                finding noway round an air port
                we about-turned to vainly chase the sun

                down; the sea, now, met the sky
                in bardos of grey and buoy, the belts

                of cloud had turned electic, the planes
                taxi’d twice their size before take off and

                we held cold hands through it all
                like first we did in Morecambe decades ago

 

see also: the Last Day of Morecambe Illuminations for the prenouement

 

 

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

beach & sea wormhole: Khandro Tsering Chodron
Carol wormhole: `whappn’d!
clouds & glasses & hands & love & morning & time & waves wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
grey & sky wormhole: THE DESOLATE FIELD by William Carlos Williams
holiday & white wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
horizon wormhole: mauve
pink wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
sound & streets wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
sunset wormhole: that
walking wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams

 

`whappn’d!

Tags

2018, 5*, being, books, cafe, cake, capitalism, Carol, clothes, living, love, marriage, sponge, stone, water

                                `whappn’d!

                over bakewell tart and
                carrot cake in the garden shop
                café: what we got now …

                we shed our clothes and
                books and find that capitalism no
                longer works; the stone

                will also exhude mineral
                when wet with water from
                the slightly squeezed sponge

 

on 25th August 1981, Carol and Mark got married in a registry office – in, signed, out within 15 minutes; 37 years later found them in their local garden shop cafe on Ashdown Forest looking at each other across the table … he had been like a stone giving little that was needed, she was like a sponge taking all that was available and still dry …

 

 

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

being & love wormhole: THE DESOLATE FIELD by William Carlos Williams
books wormhole: lost the search
capitalism wormhole: growth
Carol wormhole: … the underleaves show
living wormhole: cowled
stone wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
water wormhole: transferring

 

… the underleaves show

Tags

2017, 7*, black, brick, Carol, crank, faces, glasses, grey, hair, Ironbridge, leaves, mirror, progress, purple, railtrack, reading, steam, sunglasses, table, thrust, time, trees, Victorian, walls, wind, windows, wood

                greased and black teeth interlock
                in turn from steam built to release

                to crank the thrust trained to track
                sooner ahead and curving to distant

                future while bricks stack high to
                shape an echoey wall up to 1000 a

                day, coal-faced and sullen and bolts
                sunk into wood that will never be

                undone again all the while
                the wind blows the upper trees …

                                — O —

                bottom of the tall mirror above
                the wooden table tops the back

                of handsome hair let grey with
                sunglasses and purple glasses on

                the end of her nose reading
                something carefully before the

                five-high-four-wide-flank-of
                paned windows all along the front of the Refreshment Pavilion and

                when the wind blows high
                … the underleaves show

 

Blists Hill is a delightfully recreated Victorian industrial town near Ironbridge, Shropshire which tags itself ‘The Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution’ we revisited in May 2017

 

 

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

black & purple wormhole: polystyrene / boulderscape
Carol & hair wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
faces wormhole: sharpened apex
glasses wormhole: Batgirl –
grey wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
leaves wormhole: travelling // arrival
mirror wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
reading & wind wormhole: perspective
table wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
time wormhole: Bridgnorth
trees & windows & wood wormhole: {Ellen Terry’s house}
walls wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye

 

Sheffield Park Gardens

Tags

2016, 9*, air, black, blue, bluebells, branches, Buddha, Carol, children, contemplation, copper beech, creation, daffodil, dandelions, discovery, duck, eyebrow, face, family, fields, flag, future, garden, gem, girls, glance, green, hair, Have, humanity, India, kalpa, lake, land, life, limbs, living, mauve, May, name, passing, petals, plants, pollen, primrose, promise, rhododendron, seeing, serendipity, settlement, shade, Sheffield Park Gardens, sitting, society, stone-chat, talking to myself, transluscency, tribe, voices, walking, water, yellow

                Sheffield Park Gardens

                we walked
                upright
                across wide fields

                in scattered groups,
                family and tribe,
                private longing

                under shaded
                brim for a land
                of silk and money

                8th May 2016, with

                only childrens’ voices
                we walked into
                the garden

                dispersing to
                our hides to make our own
                discoveries

                by happenstance
                and peripheral glance
                held cold and fresh

                before name:
                that stone-chat
                that makes the

                copper beech
                transluscent;
                the cool stretch of branch

                yet to bud
                before the haze
                of dusty pollen;

                what to make
                of the solitary dandelion –
                butter yellow life –

                amid
                fain clusters of primrose; and
                there in the shade,

                mauve-bells and
                daffodil stalks make in-
                visible a steely blue;

                bluebells
                like raised eyebrows, relaxèd
                to see a future;

adult voices pass, now, talking ways of life; young girls practise handstands and routines in the fields;                

                let’s sit by the lake awhile:
                where a duck’s
                head

                sits
                just out the shade of exotic plants
                (let’s say, from India)

                the water lapping
                anywhere (let’s say, oh,
                 two thousand

                 five hundred
                 years ago), tucked
                immaculate

                black
                letting nothing out
                but the feint

                of blue
                or green that will form a gem
                in kalpas

                of contemplation;
                across the water a willow rests
                like a flag

                (girl’s hair
                 recovers from each upswing from each
                 hand-stand);

                turning home
                Carol stooped
                to smell the rhododendron flower

                “oh, …”

                pushed her face
                into the petals with lust
                was it

                because I’d
                said the branches
                were an orgy of slippy limbs

                or was it just me
                making things up
                as we walked along?

 

I know, I know, it’s mid February, and the poem was written and set in a May; it’s not seasonally right, but this was the next in line to be printed: them’s the chops …

 

 

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

air wormhole: Batgirl –
black & blue & Carol & passing wormhole: travelling // arrival
branches & voices wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
Buddha wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
family wormhole: out
garden wormhole: slightly / uphill
green wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
hair wormhole: two profiles
Have wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
life wormhole: sweet chestnut
living wormhole: ‘still …’
mauve wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
seeing wormhole: glide
sitting wormhole: amid
society wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
talking to myself wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
walking wormhole: loss
water wormhole: without any buffet at all
yellow wormhole: greedy

 

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

 

Christmas 2015

Tags

2015, 4*, Carol, Christmas, clouds, film, glance, living, sky, The Tree of Life, thought, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, true nature, view, vow, worry, writing

                Christmas 2015

                paced a day with Carol like a spread of cards
                walked under cloudy skies, watched the thoughts
                behind the glances of ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’;

                stopped worrying enough to write: I renew
                the vow to mix all that I live with its true nature;
                watched the view of glances in ‘The Tree of Life’

 

 

 

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

Carol wormhole: out
Christmas & thought wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
clouds wormhole: city streets
film wormhole: just
living & writing wormhole: before any writing
sky wormhole: river

 

out

Tags

2015, 3*, Ashdown Forest, blue, Carol, children, family, father, gorse, home, kitchen, pine, shoes, walking

                                in
                from a different walk
                down an alley of gorse by the blue pine on the forest

                                through
                the front door step
                out of shoes hang coat need wee need to eat feel spacey

                                while
                Carol tells the adult kids
                I’ve come over all queer sniggers in the kitchen

                                there
                where I left them
                opened awkward toes bent up and bits of dried mud

                                the
                father’s shoes of
                thirty year’s family as if they had always never been out

 

 

 

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

Ashdown Forest wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
blue & walking wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
Carol wormhole: at table 21 in the garden centre thinking to / replicate Hughes’ exercise for Plath about / the Yew Tree
family wormhole: all the sandstone / reflections in the / marble-blue troughs
father wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
kitchen wormhole: good going into / that gentle night
pine wormhole: Cocktails in 1951

 

at table 21 in the garden centre thinking to / replicate Hughes’ exercise for Plath about / the Yew Tree

Tags

2014, breeze, Carol, colour, garden centre, humour, identity, language, poem, speech, Sylvia Plath, table, Ted Hughes, words, writing

                at table 21 in the garden centre thinking to
                replicate Hughes’ exercise for Plath about
                the Yew Tree

                                if I was to say to you
                                “write a poem NOW”
                                what would you lock
                                on to?

                                ‘are you talking to ME
                                …; I only use words
                                for lists complaints
                                reports; what’s the
                                use of poems; I can
                                see colours and hear
                                breezes but I don’t
                                connect them with
                                words’

 

 

 

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

breeze wormhole: ‘someone …’
Carol wormhole: twilight / and parasols down / within minutes
identity wormhole: cape and cowl
speech & Sylvia Plath & writing wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
table 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
words wormhole: reating & wriding

 

twilight / and parasols down / within minutes

Tags

2014, 4*, beach, book, Carol, Gran Canaria, hands, head, horizon, knees, leg, lime, parasols, portrait, red, skin, strawberry, twilight, yogurt

                              twilight
                and parasols down
                   within minutes

                Carol lays on the lime mat
                head to the horizon one hand

                scurfing the other holding
                the book open leg out

                straight one knee up perfectly
                skin-red like fraise yogurt

 

 

 

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

beach wormhole: the evening
Carol wormhole: I turn to wake up
hands wormhole: woman / has worked in the gym / got a build
horizon wormhole: Infantino / district of Gotham
lime wormhole: 1968
red wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
twilight wormhole: writing: // in turn