breakfast

Tags

2019, 7*, blindness, blogging, branches, breakfast, breathing, canopy, coffee, dark, echo, energy, eyes, flash, gooseberry, ground, growth, jam, leaves, life, light, living, monkey, path, reaching, reading, samsara, seeing, shadow, sound, sunlight, toast, trees, walking, way, wind, woodland

                breakfast

                these shadows on a long walk
                through the woodland with only occasional sun

                all there, underneath the undergrowth
                cannot see the ground, the stems that grow from it

                branches reach, leaves envelope everywhere
                from nowhere; weave

                and grow round and entwine each other;
                if I lift the leaves to see my way forward –

                searching for light, searching for life
                to grow, to continue – and if I break the smaller branches to

                make way
                I will scratch my arms, sap will sting my skin, my

                eyes, I cannot see, I cannot see;
                and I won’t see; some trees

                are quicker and older (than me)
                they hold the path and reach wide,

                and creepers make them fat
                and vines hang like curtains of water;

                the canopy above, maximised
                to greatest energy, sent back down through rough wires;

                only when the wind leans
                or a monkey leaps, is there a flash of light, gone by the

                time I’ve looked back down to the path
                blinded, to see where I am

                there must be so much light somewhere
                out there, if only I weren’t stumbling around and bleeding

                … really; I come downstairs
                and breathe coffee and spiced home – made gooseberry jam on home – made toast                           

                while reading my posts … yes,
                a thousand hacks and sap in the dark

                where I cannot see
                and cannot know where I am

                a thousand ‘choks’ deferred
                the undergrowth too dense to echo

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara chapter VI, verse 12: How can I attain happiness when the causes for happiness are obtained only through great effort and very rarely, and when the seeds­ of pain and sorrow are so prevalent, relentless and multifarious that they are realised easily and without any effort? And yet it is only from suffering that the thought and longing for escape and liberation from the suffering of conditioned existence will come about … therefore, O my deepest mind, hold yourself strong, patient, steadfast!

 

 

^{————w}(O)_{rmholes________________________________|—–}

branches & breathing wormhole: blue sky high
coffee wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
echo & path & walking wormhole: the Bodhisattva set out / for the Seat of Awakening
eyes & life wormhole: eyes like petals
leaves & living wormhole: everything is caused by something, which / something is caused by something else, nothing / stands alone where all pass as phantoms
light & trees wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
reading wormhole: {reading right to left}
samsara & sound wormhole: at Kreukenhof
seeing wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
shadow wormhole: alabaster balustrade
wind wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley

 

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beneath

Tags

2019, 5*, books, change, Channel Tunnel, dark, growth, guidance, life, opening, pink, retirement, skin, time, train, travelling

                a smooth and railed
                in-noticeable decline to the tunnel under the channel

                and sudden dark,
                lighted for miles;

                the books and persons
                I selectively collected for a

                lifetime
                are crusting away painlessly

                revealing pink
                and sensitive skin beneath

 

 

 

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

books wormhole: threshold to behold
change wormhole: c’mon – keep up
life wormhole: slight sneer
pink & retirement wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
time wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
train wormhole: 10/30 by William Carlos Williams
travelling wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley

 

the Bodhisattva set out / for the Seat of Awakening

Tags

2019, 7*, Arya Lalitavistara, Bodhisattva, Buddha, calm, dark, demon, earth, echo, elephant, food, ground, happiness, light, lion, lotus, mindfulness, mountain, omniscient, past life, path, plateau, power, river, samsara, spontaneity, stars, step, three poisons, Tree of Awakening, view, walking, wheel

                so he bathed in the Nairañjanā,
                he ate the food, his strength

                returned, and he began the walk
                toward the Great Tree; he walked

                with easy gait, grounded
                as a mountain, each step gained

                and graceful with no fight, dream
                or idea; the placement pad of a lion,

                the calliper-swing of an elephant,
                a stride that touched not the earth

                but left perfect wheels
                upon the ground, a step that echoed

                across the plateau, a step that
                levelled mountain paths, each step

                that lead to happy lands,
                each step sprung from past lotuses

                of love and stable intention,
                that rendered demons powerless

                that calmed all view, that evanesced
                the darkness and stopped the

                endless endless rounds; his
                walk outshone the distant stars,

                his walk becalmed the rulers;
                the walk spontaneous, the walk

                omniscient, the walk mindful
                of every ancient step, with such a gait

                the Bodhisattva set out
                for the Seat of Awakening

 

from the Arya Lalita Vistara Nama Mahayana Sutra – the life story of the Buddha – originally using the words from the translation by the Dharmachakra Translation 84000 Committee which is freely available online here (for which thank you, thank you) and then other words once my gaze had settled into the image; the ‘Nairañjanā’ is the river by which the Buddha practised his austerities, the ‘food’ was that given to him by Sujata

 

 

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

Buddha wormhole: Sujātā
echo wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
light wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
path wormhole: alabaster balustrade
power wormhole: in turgid reflection
river wormhole: Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896
stars wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
walking wormhole: Valentine’s Day 2019

 

intent

Tags

1967, 2018, 5*, avenue, Batman, buildings, cape, contemplation, cowl, dark, night, passing, skyline, tree, white

                past avenues of uprise
                one can only prowl intent

                but oblivious, there may be
                clean white skylines under

                the darkest nights but
                contemplation under cowl

                or tree foreshortens
                the sweep of the deepest cape

 

Detective Comics #370, Dec 1967, writing John Broome, art Sheldon Moldoff

 

 

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

Batman wormhole: pediment to behold
buildings & passing wormhole: travelling / back
night wormhole: Fishermen at Sea, 1796
skyline wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
white wormhole: pursued

 

{reading right to left}

Tags

1871, 2018, 9*, autumn, blue, brown, chimney stacks, chimneys, confusion, Crystal Palace, damp, dark, decline, draft, drifting, fire, flag, flagpole, garden, gas, high, London, passing, people, Pissarro, progress, reading, sand, shrub, sky, smoke, society, streetlamp, streets, Sydenham, the British Empire, wind

The Crystal Palace, London, 1871

                deep eaves in Sydenham the
                chimney stacks raised high

                to draw the draft – splendid
                in counter – front-garden shrubbery

                left tangled to riot and dampened
                from autumn, seems stuck in

                foreboding brown conflagration;
                the clean stroke of streetlamp

                under sandened sky will not
                be sullied by slimey gas until

                after dark – controlled, controlled blue –
                but, we read in the right direction:

                look, the flag from some
                turgic land of the Empire swaves

                away from its pole – the dirty
                heavens cry – the dwarfed

                chimneys, here, their smoke of
                coke and belch drift

                in the same direction conjuring
                transparent edifice where mens’

                seriousness loom in smudged
                silhouette, foreboding to behold,

                and others scuttle about the
                bright, wide street coming

                and crossing in all direction –
                pushchairs and carriages to hold

 

The Crystal Palace, London, 1871 by Camille Pissaro

 

 

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

autumn wormhole: La Route de Louveciennes, 1870
blue & society & streets wormhole: on facing the Have
brown & wind wormhole: SPRING AND ALL I by William Carlos Williams
garden wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
London & sky wormhole: London, 1809
passing wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XI by William Carlos Williams
people wormhole: only
reading wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych

 

‘… 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

 

TREES by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1917, black, dark, grey, hill, identity, melody, music, night, north, poplars, scale, sky, stars, trees, vague, voices, weave, William Carlos Williams, wind, yellow

                                TREES

                Crooked, black tree
                on your little grey-black hillock,
                ridiculously raised one step toward
                the infinite summits of the night:
                even you the few grey stars
                draw upward into a vague melody
                of harsh threads.

                Bent as you are from straining
                against the bitter horizontals of
                a north wind,–there below you
                how easily the long yellow notes
                of poplars flow upward in a descending
                scale, each note secure in its own
                posture–singularly woven.

                All voices are blent willingly
                against the heaving contra-bass
                of the dark but you alone
                warp yourself passionately to one side
                in your eagerness.

 

from Al Que Quiere! 1917

a lot of these poems were some of the first poems I read with intent and an open, clean mind that had no precursor of what to see or find; and their reading imprinted deep, even when I didn’t read that well or attentively or learnedly; and, much later, when I attempted to re-ignite my writing, the language emerged like tramlines, there to follow, but fresh, utterly fresh; and utterly mine – which would never have been but for reading WCW

 

 

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

black wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams
grey & sky & voices & wind wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
identity wormhole: moon- // washed
music wormhole: animus rises – powieview #37
night wormhole: ‘the Bat-Signal …’
stars wormhole: EL HOMBRE by William Carlos Williams
trees wormhole: presence
William Carlos Williams wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
yellow wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams

 

thought

Tags

1966, 2017, 4*, archetypes, Batman, dark, eyes, identity, mask, no-self, thought, world

                                thought

                the mask over the eyes
                is made from the darkness
                into which it blends

 

Batman #183, ‘Batman’s Baffling Turnabout!’; written: Gardner Fox; artist: Sheldon Moldoff, August 1966

 

 

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

Batman & thought wormhole: sufficiently away
eyes wormhole: I
identity wormhole: EL HOMBRE by William Carlos Williams
world wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …

 

with all love released

Tags

2016, 8*, air, anatta, birdcall, blue, breathing, Buddha, change, civilisation, dark, earth, echo, finding, glow, groundlessness, impermanence, inspiration, karma, letting go, looking, lost, love, purple, red, shadow, shelf, time

                I still look for you on the
                shelves and by the way

                head tilted to one side
                feeling in the shadows

                under foliage between
                stems for something lost

                shining darkly red
                pushing up through

                purple earth – fold of
                blue shadow – I knew

                you’d be here somewhere
                without remembering

                where I’d let you go,
                mutated through cycle

                as wax will wane; and
                I know when I find you

                I’ll notice the glow
                where it shouldn’t be

                obvious when discovered –
                I knew it! – but now

                my daylight groping is
                done; I have found no

                ground to stand on
                I must let you go again,

                my friends, and face
                the only task … alone

                I could track back
                through centuries of

                millennia and tectonic
                inch and breathe the

                same air, amid forming
                civilisations, the only

                air replenishable, as
                the man who strolled

                through parklands and
                birdcall, all possible

                echoes collapsed, and
                I could breathe that

                same heir both in and
                out with diminishing

                return dispersing the
                hanging proliferation of

                ténèbres hautes and
                redoubtable as they may

                seem, as known as I
                am not, with all love released

 

 

 

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

air & Buddha wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
blue & time wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
breathing & letting go wormhole: travelling // arrival
change wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – reaping
echo wormhole: looking / ridiculous
groundlessness wormhole: 1964
looking wormhole: between
love wormhole: cinnamon / milkshake
purple wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
red wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
shadow wormhole: low afternoon

 

and // do your ears burn red?

Tags

2015, 5*, blond, clothes, dark, ears, eating, face, girl, hands, hotel, identity, kitchen, life, night, passing, red, sweat, Sylvia Plath, talking, time, twilight, water, writing

                and do your ears burn red, or do you,
                washing dishes, with those same clothes
                rotting under your armpits, still talk
                about visigoths to your pathetic self

                and divine nothing?   I put you in a book,
                because a girl with blond hair told me
                about you one night eating grapes in the
                twilight kitchen, the planes of her face

                growing darker; two years ago, with those
                same clothes, stood in the doorway of the
                old hotel watching a girl named Ann, with
                wet hair walk beside Lake George; acrid,

                now, with the stench of dried sweat and
                your long black hair, your hands puffed
                and creased from the hot water; tell me,
                do your ears burn red?

 

bevelled up into bas-relief out of entry 120. of The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-1962

 

 

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

girl wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
hands wormhole: place
hotel wormhole: constant hummm
identity & life 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
kitchen wormhole: out
night wormhole: humm
passing wormhole: passing
red wormhole: Bexhill 140215
Sylvia Plath wormhole: at table 21 in the garden centre thinking to / replicate Hughes’ exercise for Plath about / the Yew Tree
talking wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
time wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
twilight wormhole: good going into / that gentle night
water wormhole: all the sandstone / reflections in the / marble-blue troughs
writing wormhole: found