‘… 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

 

letting them go

Tags

2017, 6*, attention, awareness, b/w, blues, branches, chords, comics, doors, guitar, identity, improvisation, laziness, letting go, life, living, morning, mouth, notice, passing, perspective, retirement, sound, talking to myself, twilight, world, writing

                I used to be lazy and cast wide
                with absently open mouth
                greedy to capture every
                snippet of notice to write:

                finding the secret doorway
                in the b/w reprint vista
                that will be the perspective
                with which I will return, noticed

                finding the lingering trill
                and the shifted-chord refrain
                across the neck of my guitar
                inexorable in-tangent flight

                finding new twilight between
                turning bare branches in which
                to pace the following
                mornings in strange new worlds;

                but it was a laziness difficult
                to maintain, this finding of access
                through letting them go …
                into awareness – much more alive

 

 

 

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

attention & identity wormhole: to arms, then;
awareness wormhole: loss
branches wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay
comics & mouth wormhole: 1964
doors & life & retirement wormhole: lost the search
guitar wormhole: animus rises – powieview #37
letting go wormhole: chuckling
living wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
morning wormhole: abandoned sound mirrors
passing & sound wormhole: cross-section
talking to myself & writing wormhole: oh, alright then
twilight wormhole: without any buffet at all
world wormhole: ‘when travelling astrally …’

 

1964

Tags

1964, 2016, 8*, afternoon, apricot, breeze, childhood, circle, city, comics, culture, docks, eyes, faces, groundlessness, growth, horses, humanity, Journey Into Mystery, life, mouth, Saturday, seeing, skyline, story, Thor, time, vision

                1964

                I found that
                there were circles
                in life turning

                wide and oiled
                around invisible axes above
                darkening city-lines

                the faces of ages
                at the circumference, caverns
                in their mouth

                and vision
                in their eyes that is lost
                in their own story

                which I cannot
                fathom; Saturday afternoons
                fashion

                an apricot balm
                that wingèd horses
                can scarce be seen

                and humankind
                is blinded in its
                multiplying culture:

                the tied piles
                at the docks are creaking
                the eyes, turn,

                down;
                in all the starry cosmos of time
                there is no floor

 

Journey Into Mystery #104, May 1964; Stan Lee, Jack Kirby; I submitted this to a local poetry competition – not even an honorary mention

 

 

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

1964 wormhole: 1964
afternoon wormhole: low afternoon
apricot wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
breeze wormhole: sweet chestnut
childhood wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
city wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
comics wormhole: Batgirl –
eyes & faces & mouth wormhole: I am not yet ready
groundlessness wormhole: travelling // arrival
life & seeing wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
Saturday wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
skyline wormhole: two profiles
Thor wormhole: pen and ruler
time wormhole: certainly a Captain, / but not America

 

Batgirl –

Tags

1967, 2018, 7*, air, Batgirl, Batman, Batmobile, cape, co-ordinate, comics, cowl, floating, flow, glasses, grass, green, hair, Infantino, leaves, looking, power, running, silhouette, site, sound, thinking, walls

                Batgirl –

                peering over her glasses
                through the fourth wall

                all of a sudden there was
                long grass in silhouette

                over which to run
                and there were foregrounds

                of leaf behind which
                to proceed and she thought,

                I could keep my looks
                under cowl and let

                the quiet and angry hair
                take siting and co-ordinates,

                let the cape field the
                flow of air while

                Batmobiles rev loudly
                and float adrift the green

                and current stalks –
                aimless to behold

 

 

 

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

air & sound wormhole: when the rain has settled / the dust
Batman wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
flow wormhole: concordance
glasses wormhole: city streets
green wormhole: without any buffet at all
hair wormhole: looking ahead
Infantino wormhole: Infantino KO
leaves wormhole: leaves
looking wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
power wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
silhouette wormhole: river
thinking wormhole: sweet chestnut
walls wormhole: is this it // all the time

 

Infantino KO

Tags

2014, 5*, action, cape, comics, communication, distance, drawing, Infantino, movement, posture, reaching, sound

                Infantino                KO

                braced wide-astride
                across the field of act to

                converge all the distances
                of breadth flicked up

                wards through torso
                switched-electric and

                relayed from stanchioned
                fist and elbow drawn

                to lean-reach syncretic
                to circuit to co-ordinate

                symmetric to suggestion
                of cape                SOK!

 

 

 

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

comics wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
communication wormhole: circuitry
Infantino wormhole: Infantino / district of Gotham
posture wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
sound wormhole: Cocktails in 1951

 

that comicbookshop … // … in dreams

Tags

1960s, 2015, 8*, anxiety, bay window, black, childhood, collecting, comics, doing, doors, dream, Edward Hopper, eyes, floorboards, frustration, grey, heart, high, hill, labyrinth, lemon, life, lifetimes, lino, message, moon, morning, numbers, path, pipes, Plumstead, power, reaching, searching, shadow, shops, sky, smell, society, streets, sycamore, Thames, universe, walls, windows, Woolwich, wormhole, writing

that comicbookshop …

where the sidestreets meet together off the highstreets
under slanting shadows down the rear pipework of façades and blackened window
from so much higher up than could never concern us it’s frightening,
the morning after Hopper’s Nighthawks,
is closing down

the ones I try to get to when I find myself done in town
(right after the frustration of trying to get somewhere or the anxiety of trying to
get away from somewhere that always follows me) but never arrive at;
I make my various ways there, I know the routes
like the back of my hand

the ones with warped door stuck at the top or stuck at the bottom
(will the glass pane hold), with step onto lino once lemon and grey with hope
now one with the floorboards sagging under warren of backrooms (forgotten lifetimes
wormholes everywhere) to the pulp of paper and number for finding,                
are closing down; I

should have patronised them more, I suppose;
`still haven’t found that second issue, that elusive fourth, and the stacks
just kept on sliding: lettering and universes pressing their skies and moons into my eyeball
but I couldn’t keep up with them, blinked too soon, have to get on,
things to do, places to be

it’s having a sale, clearing all stock; the sentinels stand impassive
to all find, impassive to all loss, hooded eyes on somefaraway beach;
for old times’ sake I pick some up, figures reaching stanceofopera out of panel,
maybe a sixth issue, maybe an intertextual fanzine, avoid the modern
too defined in detail, too static in marque,

and come away with stash held to heart, out
into the bustle busily in all direction, weak indication and giant message
I’ll work my way uphill by quiet sidestreet past high walls holding sycamores and
bay windows over the river home to catalogue my finds like a labyrinth and
plot their weave like a stanza

… in dreams

 

 

 

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

anxiety & searching wormhole: pocket
black & shops wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
childhood & life wormhole: alighted
comics wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
doing & dream & lifetimes wormhole: comfy
doors wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
Edward Hopper wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
eyes wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
grey & morning & Plumstead & shadow & sky & streets wormhole: faintly apricot air?
lemon wormhole: 1967
moon wormhole: the too big moon
path wormhole: Clea
power wormhole: the skyline
smell wormhole: 1967
society wormhole: this sodden land
Thames wormhole: time
walls wormhole: familiasyncopation
windows wormhole: open window
Woolwich wormhole: up on the hill
writing wormhole: writing: // in turn

 

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

 

chartless …

Tags

1967, 2007, 5*, abandonment, business, career, children, comics, cult, Dad, family, groundlessness, isolation, land, life, lifestyle, music, people, poetry, private, relationship, religion, sea, searching, trauma

                                                                chartless …

                                … since 1967
                                no moorings no ports
                                my search for land
                                through comics poetry music religion
                                reclusive

                                … my own Dad
                                moored in music and
                                an ideal partner outside
                                his family his job his own business
                                reclusive

                                … people landlocked
                                from trauma have
                                houses and lifestyle
                                and children and soap and opera
                                all private

                                                … all susceptible to cults
                                and all of life is a
                fluid cult …

 

 

 

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

abandonment & Dad & family wormhole: what life went on
career wormhole: dry rot
comics wormhole: Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
groundlessness & searching wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
life wormhole: passing skies
music wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25
people wormhole: even / a second
poetry wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – autumn
sea wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs

 

Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street

Tags

2012, avoidance, change, comics, conventional reality, Dr Strange, Edward Hopper, ellipsis, encounter, eyes, Gene Colan, hands, humanity, life, living, moment, quotidian, reality, seeing, skyline, step, Steve Englehart, streets, time, trees, walking

 

 

 

                                                              I

                                the always-aslant encounter
                                                              of humans and street
                                              making their lives
                                                              in the grounds they see
                                making their lives in the grounds they are given
                                                                                 constant encounter
                                              as variable as the daily

                                                                                 for those who see
                                elliptical to the happenstance –
                                                              the skyline to the treeline
                                                                                 the glide to the cobble
                                              the palm to the point
                                                              the both-step-aside to avoid each other’s path
                                                              and collide –
                                                                                 Hopper saw it
                and Colan saw it and Strange had already
                                                              stepped into it
                                                                                 stepped through it stepped out again

                                              moment

                                                                                 but now
                                his pupils are that much more round
                                              the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
                                                                                 the face in the orb implied
                                that everything had changed and that
                                                              things
                would never be the same again

 

I am psyched that the first trailer for the Doctor Strange film has just been released; I think this is going to see me lose my 56 year old jaded-cool; I am more excited about this than I was for the Batman movies, even though Batman is my character (oh, sorry, didn’t you know?), (in fact, I envisage Batman, ideally, as more akin to Doctor Strange, the character should be more mystical than he is generally presented); I am glad to see the trailer dealing with kaleidoscope-reality, this has a lot to go for it from the start; Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One is a genuinely creative piece of casting but I hope she is not as ‘explainey’ and active as this trailer suggests (or even as dynamic as she was Gabriel in ‘Constantine’, a female sage should have more devastating effect but with less of the door-slamming); (and talking of door-slamming: I was disappointed that the trailer starts of with the ubiquitous iron door slam portending dire catastrophe for gawp-eyed Humanity, I was hoping Doctor Strange, at least, would approach tale-telling differently, but I suppose superhero movies have hit their formula now, no one’s going to play with it with that much money going in … mind you, Stark’s humour, and the first Avenger’s humour were interesting innovations, I might hope for something innovative in Strange, not humour, so much, as power through deft and understatement, rather than grunt); the round loft-window gave me The Smile at the end; Cumberbatch has a Good Walk as he broaches realities, he has the right eyes to see-through fingers for the part as well; I once hoped that David Lynch might write and direct Doctor Strange … that would have been interestingly different and so right … it was not well-received (have a look in the comments section of https://longboxgraveyard.com/2012/11/28/76-superhero-greenlight-doctor-strange/) … actually, dab’n’abbit, here is my tender, but I’ll settle with what this film seems to promise:

Dr Strange operates in worlds which are ‘mystical’ in the sense that they function within natural laws and forces which are alternate to our own – they are worlds which we just don’t get and it would be better for us that we didn’t know about them so we can continue functioning ourselves.   And yet Stephen Strange is of and from this world – he is all too human but has mastered the Mystic Arts.   He therefore lives between the two worlds – the physical/political and the occult worlds – or rather he lives amid, at the same time.   He is ‘strange’ because he bridges these two worlds, and this is the central pull of the character for me.   In comics the ‘occult’ world was depicted fantastically (the floating-island footsteps of Ditko, the swirls of Colan) because it was a visual medium meant for younger audiences (growing up); but the occult world doesn’t so much ‘look’ strange (like a childishly re-arranged physical world), in fact it isn’t even a different world it is the same world ‘seen’ (and ‘heard’ and ‘felt’ and acted in) differently.   What was equally attractive about Dr Strange (and under-used in the comics) was the depiction of the character in ordinary, recognisable surroundings but knowing he was actually operating in a world out of the space-time continuum.   I would conceive that Strange’s ‘battles’ took place while he was strolling through a park, while walking on the street, in the blink of an Eye (herm).   I once heard David Lynch talk about how he achieves perspectives in his work by ‘filming through the eye of a duck’ meaning that he doesn’t just film ‘lineally’ he films simultaneously/alternately – he shoots a scene/whole films which physically depict one narrative but which affectively show an alternate landscape in which they play out.   What better ‘mise-en-scene’ist than David Lynch to depict the life of a character who has ‘mastered’ the arts of living bridged across two worlds-in-one?   No need of CGI, no need of costumes, not even much need of action!   I know, I know, not the ingredients for your standard superhero blockbuster money-maker.   But they have been done and will continue to be done under their own momentum.   Dr Strange has always been a peripheral character because he is so … strange.   Perhaps this would be time to make a different take on the comics-to-film translation formula …

Anyhoo, I wrote a series of poems tracking Doctor Strange through a key set of issues written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Gene Colan; (Dr Strange #6-13 (Feb 1975-April 1976)); these issues are some of the best comics I have ever read; they were also seminal in shaping me to become the significantly un-noticeable writer I have become to this day; I posted them in 2012 and then re-posted them again in 2014 because I thought the film was immanent – it wasn’t; but, dammitall, I like these babies so I’m going to post them again, spread out until November 4th …

 

 

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

change wormhole: top table
comics wormhole: Poewieviews
Dr Strange & Gene Colan wormhole: Dr Strange VII – the madness of Mordo
Edward Hopper wormhole: New York, New Haven and Hartford, 1931
eyes wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
hands wormhole: really
life & reality & streets & time & walking wormhole: 1964
living wormhole: dash
seeing wormhole: rhymed
skyline wormhole: miss / ad / venture – poewieview #22
trees wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23

 

Poewieviews

Tags

1947, 2016, Bowie, comics, death, depression, muse, music, painting, Shantideva, writing

 

I’ve not been writing much during the last four months – the urge has dimished, I’ve been seeping in to studying Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara, I am going through yet another spreadthin depression [which I’m not all that sure ever really goes away and I’m quite seriously considering is a screaming clue to me from the universe of how to get out, if only I would listen]; and then David Bowie released Blackstar; and then David Bowie died.   Now I don’t know where we are (probably sic).

Then I received ‘Rebel Rebel’ through the post (and if you haven’t encountered ‘Pushing Ahead of the Dame‘ on good ole WordPress yet you are missing some real good writing here) and re-listened to ‘Blackstar’ again and again … I think it’s all coming back.

I’ve been writing ‘poeviews‘ of pieces of music and painting and comics which tweak my keening for quite some while now.   Bowie was one of those muse (again, definitely this time, sic).   My muses has been deserting me recently, now one of it has died in order to show me that muse never die, that depression is not overcome but to become en-light-ened.

I have a new project: I will challenge myself to write a poeview of each of Bowie’s pieces of music (I’m not sure, 400-600, I don’t care, I might write more than one for some), both the liked and the discomfortabled, both the ‘got’ and the ‘puzzlers’, both the 50+ years and the 80s; and Tin Machine.   Even at his crappest it was still David Bowie being, there was still some gleam and sparkle in there somewhere.   And I will do it chronologically following Chris O’Leary’s book and blog and I will publish them as they settle (which might not happen so chronologically).

Let’s see what happens: David Bowie 1947-2016.