sweet chestnut

Tags

2015, 6*, ageing, air, being, buttress, chestnut tree, compromise, earth, generations, grass, growth, identity, leaf, letting go, life, reaching, time, trees, trunk

                     sweet chestnut

                     I have
                     long
                     since
                shifted the earth apart
                imperceptible for grass to grow,
                now, unknowing, so new;

                     I have
                     forgotten
                what it’s like to emerge
                without design, and have
                grown buttresses for so long
                they have twisted to comprise;

                     the trunk
                     of upward
                     direction
                that I reach from
                aimlessly with diminishing wisdom
                to a top leaf shifting

                     this way
                     and that
                     between air

 

{there is some anger and sulk that I do not write anymore: not sure if I couldn’t keep up the hi-octane perception or that ‘I was only seeking attention’ explains it all; I still don’t know, but maybe I don’t need to hold such stoic upper lips about it all, arms crossed, turned away; maybe just a bit of compassion wafting this way and that …}

 

 

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

air wormhole: ‘from the cathedral window two stories / high …’
being wormhole: silence
compromise & letting go wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
grass wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
identity wormhole: a far grander / Sangha
life wormhole: looking hard enough
time wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets …’
trees wormhole: ‘and is there homage …’

 

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poessay XI – piquant love

Tags

2019, 6*, arch, cause and conditionality, compromise, crane, doing, identity, intuition, knowledge, letting go, life, love, not knowing, obscuration, opportunity, others, poessay, scandal, self, shadow, sitting, thought, writing

poessay XI –

                lookitallathisabouttheplace –
                both the obscuration and the opportunity difficult
                either to see or to take:

                                I don’t know what to do –
                                inject into causality
                                project over condition (whatever

                                I’m sure that’s not the way to do) –
                                I can only know what I intuit
                                usually de-spite “I don’t know

                                but will step in line
                                if you let me join the gang”
                                best served unnoticeable

                                but not really
                                me no matter how deep the cover;
                                so back to the hunch –

                                crane reaching from the crumbling arch –
                                written up on giddy foolscap
                                (given half the chance, or notice)

                                but this is not me either
                                just a more clever ‘I don’t know’
                                than all the others who don’t know at all

                                or know by some rote too lazy
                                or compromised to know (what I
                                might know) or those who

                                say they know holding me deficient
                                that I don’t behave as they know
                                (compromised to behold), or then

                                there are those who seem to know
                                despite the prevalence and norm all about
                                from whom I absorb

                                through my very xylem
                                and then heavy-shadow them all about
                                but they don’t know either

                                just more mystically or glamorously so
                                until the scandal;
                                so don’t try to know at all

                                because any of this knowing
                                is just a whorl somewhere
                                within cascading causality

                                making sure my specious self;
                                just let the self go
                this knower, this knower so much better and deeper than anyone else who does not even know what is to be known,                

                                let it all go
                                and sit with the not-knowing,
                                watching all the fluidity with

                                                                                                piquant love

 

 

 

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

compromise wormhole: looking for the right exit
crane & doing & identity & thought & writing wormhole: travel // when I die
knowledge wormhole: Dulwich College, London, 1871
letting go wormhole: at Kreukenhof
life wormhole: psssssh
love wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
others wormhole: quietly in my quiet house
shadow wormhole: breakfast
sitting wormhole: – creak —

 

looking for the right exit

Tags

2019, 6*, ampitheatre, arch, Chester, compromise, driving, gothic, history, identity, living, mosaic, role, Roman, roundabout, ruin, schoolchildren, settlement, sleep, society, storey, time, traffic lights

                there
                                may
                                                have
                                                                been

                bygone gothic arches
                pointing two three storeys up
                on the traffic-lighted roundabout

                and milling schoolchildren with
                Roman shields marching patchwork
                from the rebuilt amphitheatre, I know

                but that single vice in perpetuity
                above and beyond the call of living
                from which to sleep heavy,

                snug and secure under
                single tattered rank, and ever
                metres deep in tread across

                meticulous tesserae – mosaic
                to the measure of all settlement –
                was far too much to emerge from with any certainty,

                                looking for the right exit

 

back from a visit to the midlands; visited Chester for the first time – it’s an old town, back to when it all begannn annnd connnntinnnues…

 

 

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

compromise wormhole: my uncomfortable life
history wormhole: pursued
identity wormhole: writening
living wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
sleep wormhole: beguiled / desire
socoeity wormhole: boiled spangle with soft centre
time wormhole: then
traffic lights wormhole: travelling / back

 

my uncomfortable life

Tags

2019, 6*, abandonment, activity, anger, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, breakdown, broken, career, closed, compromise, contentment, context, Dad, disappointment, expectation, experience, eyes, feeling sorry for myself, frustration, greed, hope, injustice, laziness, life, management, no voice, people, politicians, powerlessness, Principal, requirement, resentment, self-cherishing, self-confidence, self-doubt, self-esteem, slogans, society, spin, teaching, thought, Tony Blair, turmoil, waiting, words, work

                I did not know contentment
                at work, what was required,
                what I thought, I never wholly
                got my teaching … sorted

                turmoil, and even when not
                outwardly angry, I was
                closed off and unapproachable,
                carrying anger and resentment

                like a thorny bush tied
                to my back since Dad left
                and people were ‘phony’ and
                society was stupid and words

                were insincere and all activity
                was a compromise and my equals cheated
                and laziness was always greedy
                and hope was rude and the politicians

                were tricksters and Tony Bliar
                and managers slogan-shifted like there was no tomorrow
                and the Principals
                wouldn’t know what to do with good practice if it writhed around suggestively on their desk in front of them and made them delicious promises of future dangerous liaison                      

                and by default I am
                at least disappointed, usually frustrated
                and often impotent-angry with them
                when they invariably reference me

                (and they always reference me)
                or when I am actually wronged,
                and then I’ll blow, beyond all immediate context
                because I have already been smouldering,

                waiting for the wrong to happen,
                expecting the wrong to happen,
                experiencing the wrong happening
                even before it has manifested;

                and I am right, it is wrong
                and compromised and greedy and unprincipled
                what they have done, even
                when they haven’t

                given expression to it, in fact
                especially when they haven’t
                given full expression to it
                and are sloganising and spinning

                that what is happening
                is entirely something else;
                and the powerlessness of
                not being able to have a voice

                no appeal to a universal
                right and wrong … built me up
                with no recourse and, I get broken;
                look at my tired eyes – my uncomfortable life

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara VI, 3: A mind which walks with, which harbours, which is in the grip of, which is poisoned with anger and hate can neither establish nor enjoy any state of calm or peace, any sense of well-being or equipoise, any contentment, any resolution, neither can it feel any joy or delight, any sense of kindliness or love, nor can it sleep or rest, when the shard of aversion and hate is stuck and buried deep in one’s heart; but … I have retired now, I, am coming through

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: south horizon
breakdown wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
career wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
compromise wormhole: raised brow
Dad wormhole: the reach turned to love
eyes wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
life & society wormhole: the old man;
management wormhole: how to teach
people wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
teaching wormhole: and … // … sound
thought wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
waiting wormhole: all // are // none
words wormhole: SPRING AND ALL VI by William Carlos Williams
work wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873

 

raised brow

Tags

1969, 2018, 5*, arms, Batman, boulders, buildings, city, compromise, disappearance, eyebrow, face, phone, plan, quiet, society, step, watching

                raised brow

                he crossed his arms, watched
                the hulking step of guile and suit

                approach carefully over wet boulders,
                [the set of plan secure

                 from the phone booth
                 quiet amid all the high-rise of possibility]

                watched immobile until his face
                disappeared

 

Detective Comics #392, October 1969, Frank Robbins, Bob Brown: almost two years after my father left I was beginning to find my nerve

 

 

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

Batman wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
buildings & city wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
compromise wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
quiet wormhole: LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM by William Carlos Williams
society wormhole: Victorian pipework

 

PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1917, 6*, age, blue, breathing, colour, compromise, fence, furniture, green, growing, houses, identity, looking, love, measure, poverty, progress, rooftops, society, streets, time, walking, weather, William Carlos Williams, yard

                                PASTORAL

                When I was younger
                it was plain to me
                I must make something of myself.
                Older now
                I walk back streets
                admiring the houses
                of the very poor:
                roof out of line with sides
                the yeards cluttered
                with old chicken wire, ashes,
                furniture gone wrong;
                the fences and outhouses
                built of barrel-staves
                and parts of boxes, all,
                if I am fortunate,
                smeared a bluish green
                that properly weathered
                pleases me best
                of all colors.

                            No one
                will believe this
                of vast import to the nation.

 

from Al Que Quiere!, 1917

and he’s right, of course: the ‘import’ of the nation can only progress when it doesn’t have to concern itself with the right and wrong of wealth distribution – but you can’t have progress without competition, otherwise we all just stay where we are; but honouring competition as inviolable is honouring that which is our basest common denominator, surely inequality is less than we could achieve – to try to rise above the process of evolution, the survival of the fittest, is, rather, to surrender to hubris and daydream which doesn’t put bread on the table; but – however; eventually – man up … but to look, and take in, with love and, without scheme, all behind the, dappling cacophany, with which we, mark our height, where we can breathe, without implication, or compromise, free as a glance, single as an ethic, and twice as, selfless

 

 

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

blue wormhole: transferring
breathing wormhole: the turtle and the yoke
compromise wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
green & identity & time & walking wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
looking wormhole: perspective
love wormhole: all // are // none
rooftops wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …
society & streets wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
William Carlos Williams wormhole: and that’s where I are

 

and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call

Tags

19th century, 2016, 20th century, 8*, access, air conditioning, alley, architecture, back, balcony, bay window, being, black, blindness, blue, burgundy, carlights, chimney stacks, clouds, compromise, contemplation, cross-section, distance, down, Eastbourne, eyes, facade, Ford Cortina, foreground, front, Have, height, hierarchy, history, hope, hotel, houses, inside, life, living, outside, passing, pier, pipes, privacy, prologue, promenade, sea, seagull, seeing, sky, society, sound, streetlight, sun, time, tree, up, Victorian houses, walking, walls, waves, white, windows

                and naerrgh a mention of a seagull’s call

                prologue

                the fetch of uneventful league to
                mingle with pier piles nonchalant;

                the borderline lightbulbs strung for
                decades between promenade lamp

                and stack of height and white façade
                of black-wrought balcony for where to stay

                setting

                frontage shows the way-to-look-
                ing blind to what is seen amid

                all the detail of hierarchy, eye
                turned to what it hopes, while

                rear windows, set central in
                the shapèd drop, look inward

                to find the fit to be; in time
                the rear extension of amenity

                cut fresh cross-sections of life
                turned 90° deep with windows

                unadorned; but then
                were added storey, creating alley

                to hidden access whenever
                contemplating the corners

                that encourage right angle
                where you can serve your

                down and truncating down-
                pipe blind to abutted wall

                perambulation

                                but, I’m in luck

                eye caught by extractor flaps
                in the foreground venting downwards

                venting upwards, sun neatly off
                the downpipes to the right

                on the left long-painted white pipes
                rusting, and between, a leafing tree

                undecided which way to lean
                the background, the monolith back

                of the seafront hotel, conditioning
                air; later, passing the backs of

                houses-become-their-own-entrance,
                seagulls perched at rest

                on the chimneys, I caught
                the tail of a reg-D Cortina with

                burgundy-deep fins and round
                tripartite lights, smaller

                than I remember

                epilogue

                oh, yes and a Persian-blue
                chimney stack with off-white pots

                under sky-blue sky
                and wisps of cloud

 

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: looking ahead
architecture wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
being wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
black & blue & Have & living & passing & society & walking wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
burgundy wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
clouds wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
compromise wormhole: after all
Eastbourne wormhole: city streets
eyes & life & seeing & time wormhole: 1964
history wormhole: looking / ridiculous
hotel wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
promenade & sea wormhole: Bexhill 140215
seagull wormhole: do I
sky & white wormhole: travelling // arrival
sound & sun & windows wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – reaping
streetlight wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
Victorian houses wormhole: red / lacquer / door
walls wormhole: certainly a Captain, / but not America
waves wormhole: place

 

after all

Tags

2016, 4*, Alan Moore, anarchy, breakdown, career, compromise, extreme, gender, innocence, Katie, regret, retirement, sadness, sleep, society, teaching, V for Vendetta, victim, wind

                Katie tugged at the eaves, alright,
                so I roused just deeply sad

                at the end of my wasted career,
                too naïve to win, so I read

                the beginning of Evey and V’s
                encounter and knew it could

                never have been done
                after all

 

storm Katie hit the southern UK in March of 2016; naming storms makes it personal; I was also starting what turned out to be my last protracted burn-out from work; Evey and V are the main protagonists in Alan Moore’s ‘V for Vendetta’ – V is the play-through of Anarchy created by the state against which it wages vendetta, his very presence provokes the state, let alone what he says or does; Evey is the play-with of innocence nurtured by the state to fulfil her gender to which she serves as victim, her very presence is exploitative; Evey and V could never co-exist if they stay as they are: if they stay as they are, they are extreme, if they change, they are compromised; by the end of August I was retired and filled with thoughts of what could have been of those 29 years

 

 

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

Alan Moore wormhole: darkness
breakdown wormhole: I turn to wake up
career & teaching wormhole: “I need help”
compromise wormhole: sweet chestnut
retirement wormhole: dream I // dream II
sleep wormhole: good going into / that gentle night
society wormhole: found
wind wormhole: clear as vista

 

sweet chestnut

Tags

2015, 4*, ageing, aimless, breeze, buttress, chestnut tree, compromise, earth, emergence, grass, growth, leaf, life, reaching, thinking, time, tree, trunk, vertical, wisdom

                      sweet chestnut

                      I have
                      long
                      since
                shifted the earth apart
                imperceptible for grass, now,
                to grow unknowing, so new;

                      I have
                      forgotten
                what it’s like to emerge
                without design, and have
                grown buttresses for so long
                they have twisted to comprise;

                      the trunk
                      of upward
                      direction
                that I reach from aimlessly
                with diminishing wisdom
                to a top leaf shifting between

                      the air

 

 

 

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

breeze wormhole: humm
compromise wormhole: just saying, is all VII: // `spolitical
emergence wormhole: AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!
life wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
thinking wormhole: looking back over the tack / and jibe of my life I / notice there is / a fetch // after all … / but certainly not / where I had planned / or where I thought / I’d been
time wormhole: for / the first time

 

just saying, is all VII: // `spolitical

Tags

2013, 4*, accountability, career, compromise, expertise, just saying, listening, managerialism, message, politics, principle, production, public service, responsibility, work

                just saying, is all VII:

                the drive to de-power the worker
                in public service; you cannot
                call-the-shots-because-you-are-an-expert
                … because you are the worker

                if you are calling the shots you must be
                a manager of some thing so that
                you can then be held accountable
                for the shots you call – kept on message.

                If You Are not a Manager you Cannot
                Call the Shots. Even if you are a genius;
                ‘take a responsibility, then we’ll listen
                to you’, I wouldn’t on the principle they

                wouldn’t listen to, they didn’t listen on the
                principle that I had no voice without responsibility
                compromise; de-experting workers
                is inexorable to production, in fact

`spolitical

 

 

 

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

career wormhole: wakeoutofadream
compromise wormhole: gone black
listening wormhole: within
managerialism wormhole: seen but not heard
politics wormhole: this sodden land
work wormhole: weight