the simple prayer // the tattered poem // the bitter lament

Tags

2022, 8*, action, architecture, balance, black, blindness, Boris Johnson, Bowie, cause and effect, cave, daughter, desert, Donald Trump, female, God, gods, heart, history, internet, invisible, king, land, lies, Life on Mars?, love, male, Manjushri, market, noise, notice, others, people, plateau, Plato, poem, power, prayer, proliferation, propaganda, quiet, resource, rhetorical interrogative, Russia, science, self, serendipity, slave, smile, soap, soap-opera, springs, stranger, sword, throat, time, tragedy, truth, Ukraine, value, Vladimir Putin, war, windows, wisdom

the simple prayer

may quiet springs of
value-in-other always disperse
the black and grimy history
of power-over-other
like soap



—~~~\\\ ” sp ” ///~~~—

                                                                      the tattered poem

                                                  may …

                                        over millennia
                                        between peppered millions
                                        at surprise times and sad

                                        across rolling lands
                                        and conserved desert
                                        and steppèd plateau

                                        quiet springs
                                        everywhere
                                        serendipitous

                                        hand-cupped chin, lipless
                                        smile, no-halt act, surge
                                        `tween heart and throat

                                        unnoticed invisible
                                        daughter stranger slave;
                                        the black and grime of

                                        history of power over other
                                        storeyed and high-
                                        windowed, cacophonous

                                        and market-squared
                                        rhetorically interrogative
                                        aside truth:

                    … may they disperse
                    this impossible tension
                    like soap

—~~~\\\ ” tp ” ///~~~—

the bitter lament

“may” is a petition – to a god, to God or to ‘let it be’, it doesn’t matter as long as it is beyond ‘self’ – a directing of hearts (the only armaments that don’t cost a nation), a massing of resource (as-yet untapped and unexploited), a manoeuvring of cause and effect (the only true use of science), a discernment of love like the sharpest of flaming swords; “other” is anything or anyone which is not “myself” and, like a tragic farce played out on the widest of stages, cast of a thousand-thousand “myself”-s (hurry – for one aeon only; apply for auditions here), proliferates inponentially to the power of blind-folded distinction; “history” – I don’t want to know the history that led up to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, it is a soap-opera that I have seen “ten times or more”, not sure if “I’ve wrote it ten times or more”, “it’s about to be writ again” and I’ve long since abandoned any hope that an original line is to be found anywhere in the entire web of the universe; “power” is male, but male woefully out of balance, to act, to control, to make, to command on the basis of a wobble-board, the king of the castle chanting empty rhymes, unbalanced with respect to “other” and with respect to what-is without blindfolds, a spoilt child who smirks what he wants, a Johnson who dares what he deceives, a Trump who deceives what he wants, a Putin deceived by empty rhymes, so involuted that even before they think to open their mouths have been lying for generations within centuries; “prayer”, “poem”, “lament” is “female”, which is never mentioned, it is “wisdom” (which is never used), it is the balance to male (which is never considered – ‘too impractical’), it is the reference to “other” and the reference to “what-is” (whether “what-is” is blind-folded or not), it is not the replacement of male (that would make it … male), it is the heart-surge of care empty of all self-reference which, unfortunately, has been left in a cave, somewhere, some say in chains, and entertained with flickering lights on the back-wall, for millennia …

 

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: despite all / depiction
balance wormhole: the balance necessary between
black wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
daughter wormhole: looking ahead
history & time & war wormhole: mirror
love wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets…’
others wormhole: ‘the practice &…’
power wormhole: eyes like petals
quiet wormhole: – creak –
resource wormhole: the Apple
smile wormhole: light of all interaction
windows wormhole: YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams

looking ahead

Tags

2015, 20th century, 8*, age, attention, cypress, dark, daughter, dress, duty, eyes, facade, father, field, fields, green, hair, horizon, house, jaw, land, left, lifetimes, medals, mouth, portrait, Remembrance, sienna, sky, smile, standing, war, white, youth

                                                looking ahead

                at 18 he peered frightened and gentle –
                the high forehead and round jaw of all
                his youth, but that his mouth held duty

                faintly pursed on the left, in reserve and
                to attention, although the epaulettes were
                (the wings of a choirboy) – at the strips

                and strips of field and fields of umber
                and sienna and the deepest darkest green,
                as high as the land was wide, and it was

                wide, to the white-washed house perched
                on the higher horizon flanked by European
                cypresses, at home in the fields; at three

                she looked above the horizon, hair in all
                direction to the sky, the purse to the left,
                in attention and wan smile from above

                the ruffled dress (soon to be outgrown with
                every crumple-ene); the medals were worn
                on the left side, the eyes up to the right;

                they stood together to attention, in profile
                before the wet facades of eleventh hour,
                eyes forward, eyes down, pursed and still

 

three photographs in the house of an old friend: her father when newly enrolled in the army shortly before World War II – he served in Africa; herself in her then-best dress in the very early 1960s; father and daughter standing on a wet street collecting for Remembrance Day …

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
attention & smile wormhole: dear Lucy
daughter wormhole: mother and daughter
eyes wormhole: addictive
father & lifetimes wormhole: granny
field wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
green & white wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
hair wormhole: immeasurable love
horizon wormhole: Bexhill 140215
house wormhole: slightly / uphill
mouth wormhole: over-pink cagoule
sky wormhole: low afternoon
war wormhole: memorial

 

mother and daughter

Tags

2013, 3*, Croydon, daughter, London Bridge, morning, mother, phone, portrait, rhetorical interrogative, sing song, speech, talking, train, Uckfield-London line

                sing song announcement contributing conversation
                in timbre of mother and daughter on the train from

                London Bridge to East Croydon, ‘my battery’s almost
                ran out and … I only charged it up this morninn,’ ‘what

                does that mean,’ asked rhetorical-implicitly, ‘it means,
                I can’t send any more e-mails,’ sure of the right answer

 

 

 

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

daughter wormhole: to allow / passage
morning wormhole: 1968
mother wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose
speech wormhole: prospect
talking wormhole: singsong chant
train wormhole: gone black
Uckfield-London line wormhole: Hurst Green

 

to allow / passage

Tags

1940s, 2015, 4*, daughter, father, legacy, looking, mouth, passing, pavement, portrait, profile, Salinger, smile, walking

                           the father
                           walks ahead
                with a Salinger smile from
                           the 1940s

                           to allow
                           passage
                on the narrow pavement
                           and in

                           profile his
                           daughter
                following behind wasn’t smiling
                           looked

                           up to his
                           shoulder
                had exactly the same lower tick to
                           her mouth

 

 

 

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

daughter wormhole: love and precision
father wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose
looking wormhole: … swap round
mouth wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
passing & walking wormhole: embodying
smile wormhole: the silent night of the Batman

 

love and precision

Tags

2015, 5*, Birmingham, blue, Charlotte, daughter, doing, driving, houses, love, precision, red, silhouette, sky, talking to myself, walking

                played with Dot
                hung with Dot; there’s
                a lot to be gained
                from hanging with love

                drove to Birmingham
                walked around dark
                ening redbrick houses
                until we were all silhouettes

                before a Prussian blue sky;
                do the formal stuff
                when you can, absorb
                the rest with love and precision

 

‘Dot’ is my daughter Charlotte; just over a year ago she moved up to Shropshire with her partner; we visit, and sometimes meet in Birmingham for a day

 

 

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

blue & sky wormhole: industrial estate
Charlotte wormhole: dream 230315
daughter wormhole: returning home handsome
doing wormhole: sleep now
love wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
red wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow
silhouette wormhole: was there a moon / on the alleyway wall / confused in front of / the city skyline?
talking to myself wormhole: woven-through
walking wormhole: magnificent salad

 

returning home handsome

Tags

2016, 6*, airport, attention, awareness, being, black, city, damson, daughter, feet, laughing, listening, Malaga, mother, muse, portrait, red, self-containment, shoes, table, talking, waiting, writing

                returning home handsome

                and you are city-smart
                pony tail, black jacket
                perfect haemoglobin nails
                not too long, waiting

                with your mother in her
                damson beret at the airport
                attentive at the table
                listening to her with sheer

                ankle socks – well, they’re
                practical! – such strong feet
                stood up out of comfortable
                slipper-shoes – heel arch

                ball knuckle toe pointed
                or fabulously wrinkled with
                every parenthesis – that they
                do not realise I am writing

                this poem, and don’t need to,
                with concluding laugh

 

 

 

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

attention & writing wormhole: time
awareness wormhole: and smile / like a bud
being & city & muse wormhole: “The Lady from Nowhere”
black wormhole: the 19th century
daughter wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
feet wormhole: reaching branch
listening wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
mother wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
red & table wormhole: magnificent salad
talking wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Safe Home
waiting wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – introdepthion

 

finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915

Tags

2015, advertising, afterlife, alignment, alley, angel, apartment, architecture, ash tree, Ashlar Place, balcony, baptism, bay window, beech, belief, Beresford Square, Bloomfield Road, boundary, brick, brown, building, buildings, bus, cars, change, childhood, church, compassion, crane, daughter, death, decades, Eglinton Hill, family, glass, God, gold, grass, grey, gurdwara, halo, hedge, hill, history, houses, identity, iron, jet plane, John, khanda, Lee Rigby, leylandii, life, lime, living, London, loneliness, looking, love, memory, mother, Mum, Nan, passing, photograph, pipes, Plumstead, rain, red, rooftops, sandstone, shadow, shop, sky, smile, society, sound, stone, streetlight, streets, suitcase, sun, the British Empire, time, traffic, travelling, trees, true nature, walls, wind, Woolwich, Woolwich New Road, writing

            looking for my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915¹

            these times of being cut loose are more usual than comfortable
            the buzz of contact and identity more potential than actual

            I go up to London to find bits of my true nature somewhere
            deep inside the forty four miles of time that has elapsed,

            past the same street boards advertising new plastic on trend,
            in even more colourful lime but now un-im-bleach-able;

            where grand gable and architrave stand cleanly revealed in all
            of their time from behind trimmed hedge, but window bay and

            fanned lintel remain obscured behind opportune ash (and
            where crickets rasp in raised lawn to ear level off the hill); on

            the hill² a crack in the front wall sinking century-ly downhill
            under sounds of jet somewhere in the sky hidden by dampening

            of leylandii; did I get baptised at All Saints Shooters Hill³,
            or did my brother, when the church was still young, its

            thousand panes held individual by lead, reflecting the
            cubist street, I don’t remember now – fractured memory;

            where sandstone is shaped short in modest Empire-control: in
            niche and ledge and decorative finial, during all the wind of

            cold streets, withstanding the new redbrick of decades; I
            cannot draw the line of brick at the corner of Bloomfield

            Road, true neither to hill nor sky nor shadowed underledge
            to the proud cornice (boundaries to distant-impossible crane)

            or even the sharp roofs clipped to lead-clad valley, let alone the
            ample iron downpipe … but I have learnt to write the architecture

            of odd alignment and cut-through alley; perched now against
            Ashlar Place at just the right angle between sun-wipe and shadow

            (shiny haloes in the indents on the page as I write Gurdwara
             Sahib Ramgarhia Temple⁴ in biro), the architecture of

            eternal Empire highlighted in gold with khandas blowing
            in the wind … still cannot obscure the luxury apartments in

            constant construct: -ING IS BELIEVING;⁵ buses come and
            buses go all along Woolwich New Road before the clapping

            troup of ‘Time for God’ angels and their families stood around,
            full of God’s immanent voices, in and out of sight and chant,

            (I have an old photo: a man crossing the road from Beresford
             Square⁶ with box suitcase in grey [and suggested brown] after

            apparent rain … when the retired newsagent passed by adding
            that he had run that shop opposite for thirty years, how –

            much – it – has – changed); perched, now, on the Metropolitan
            Drinking Fountain & Cattle Trough, oiled and crust stone

            from hide-breath and redundant exhaust; a mother and slinky
            daughter watch the marching bands pass from their third floor

            balcony, height of streetlight, defined before the upright
            sea of tarp covering the next block of the Royal Arsenal

            Riverside in construct (surprise!); ah, Lee Rigby,⁷ under height
            of Elliston House, these cars pass far too quick to get

            to their traffic, those beech trees opposite have grown to
            lean downhill for fifty years and more; I looked at every

            plaque, Mum, found plenty of Jeans and Margarets (and
            even Gladyss) but no Redfords, I can’t think I would have

            missed you sixteen years into other existences … I don’t
            know: I smiled at some of the plaques as I looked for you,

            I shall smile at everyone now that I haven’t found you

 

¹ this peice follows my last visit to London: walking downhill from Plumstead to Woolwich and around and back, driving to Eltham to where my mother (Jean Marguerite Redford 1933-1999, daughter of Gladys Charlotte Conlay 1906-1989) was cremated
² Eglinton Hill, early childhood home
³ All Saints Shooters Hill
⁴ Woolwich Gurdwara
⁵ woolwich new road and buildings
⁶ true nature II
⁷

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: ING IS BELIEVING
brown & love & red wormhole: when in Belgium do as the chocolates do
buildings & life & streets wormhole: gotcha
bus & sun wormhole: Christmas lights / around the lamp post
cars wormhole: portrait: / two pigeons
change & gold & Woolwich wormhole: ING IS BELIEVING
childhood & Nan wormhole: new garden
church wormhole: you can only smell the candles / when they have been snuffed out
compassion wormhole: [s]
crane wormhole: com- / mute
daughter wormhole: the retriever the daughter and the mother
death & writing wormhole: Poewieviews
Eglinton Hill & London wormhole: the breath of London
family wormhole: let’s have some ice creams
glass wormhole: ‘in clear oil air …’
grey & identity & time & trees & walls wormhole: walking through Lewes
hedge wormhole: the continental stride of trains
history & Mum wormhole: sit
lime & sky & stone wormhole: David Bowie – Iris
living wormhole: currency: / assent for statement – / ‘smakin’alivvin’
loneliness wormhole: ‘passing overhead …’
looking wormhole: Office at Night, 1940
mother wormhole: gre[wh]y / has Daddy left us?
passing wormhole: clouds
Plumstead wormhole: dream 260815
rain wormhole: “walking …”
rooftops & smile & streetlight wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
shadow wormhole: Seven A.M, 1948
society wormhole: the Growing Man
sound & wind wormhole: the open window
travelling wormhole: Compartment C, Car 193, 1938

 

the retriever the daughter and the mother

Tags

2014, 7*, combe end, daughter, dog, girl, grass, looking, mother, passing, portrait, roads, sound, walking

 

 

 

                                across the top of the road
                they arrive at the grass edge
                                              to cross
                                the retriever the daughter and the mother
                                                              camber
                                                              toe-heel
                                                              stop

                                the dog sits
                the girl looks ahead at the other side of the road
                                              unmoving
                                her mother’s hand hovers above the child’s head as she turns to check for traffic
                                                              behind
                                                              left
                                                              ahead

                                              her hand
                                gently alights on the girl’s head
                the retriever pulls ahead and unwinds the lead clak clak
                                              the camber
                                              tips the girl
                                              into a trot
                                                                                    a pause …
why not?

                                the mother
                throws out her arm and trots too with
                                              heavy hips
                                                              and leaps
                                                              when she reaches the grass verge

 

 

 

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

combe end wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
daughter & dog wormhole: tag cloud poem V – draft-ness
girl wormhole: through the window
grass wormhole: the straight line of stones marking the geometry / of death / settle all their own levels over time to make / a new rhythm
looking wormhole: ‘just popping down / to the shops’
mother wormhole: t w e n t y f i r s t c e n t u r y l i f e
passing wormhole: b / l / u / e / s / at a right-angle
roads wormhole: a splash of fresh water
sound wormhole: emerged
walking wormhole: deepening with each step

 

tag cloud poem V – draft-ness

Tags

1960s, 1970s, 2*, 2014, abandonment, America, being, Dad, dancing, Daredevil, dark, daughter, dawn, death, dedication, defeat, democracy, depression, desert, dialectic, discipline, disempowerment, distraction, divorce, dog, doing, doors, doubt, dream, dress, drips, dust, dwelling, identity, individualism, love, politics, poverty, tag cloud poem, wind, world

 

 

 

                                                                                                                Dad dancing daredevil
                                                                                                dark daughter dawn
                                                                                                                           DC death dedication

 

                                                                                 defeat democracy depression
                                                                                 desert dialectic discipline
                           disempowerment distraction divorce

 

dog doing        doors
                                                                              doubt dream dress
                                                                                              drips dust dwelling

 

 

 

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

abandonment & Dad wormhole: the sounds the difficulty and the long long strands of liquorice
being & identity & wind wormhole: the en-gentled / end of a wan / writing retreat
dancing wormhole: Do Nothing Usually / Take Everything Regularly / Consider It All Clearly / And Step Aside It Waltzingly
Daredvil wormhole: Daredevil: Born Again (1987)
daughter wormhole: t w e n t y f i r s t c e n t u r y l i f e
dawn wormhole: the library, / you know …
dedication wormhole: let
depression wormhole: really
disempowerment wormhole: I don’t think I could do it anymore
distraction wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
divorce wormhole: what to do
dog wormhole: … still waving!
doing wormhole: ‘til death do us part
doors wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
doubt wormhole: transition
dream wormhole: the edges of my reach
love & politics wormhole: just saying, is all – III
tag cloud poem wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
world wormhole: my life is not your market

 

t w e n t y f i r s t c e n t u r y l i f e

Tags

2012, 4*, being, coffee, coffee shop, daughter, doing, eyes, mother, mouth, newspaper, reading, smile, sound, talking, time, writing

 

 

 

t w e n t y f i r s t c e n t u r y l i f e

challenge ten minutes in coffee shop wait for drink to cool she works that machine a latte an Americano wipe twist shot hosh while making an involved sprinkle talk about someone place saucer grouts out to a customer button spout-in with a fore-shortened chin new milk like herself must be two twists her mum very proud sits on the bar stool upright slight smile holds the fork to her scanning the newspaper mouth neatly open brows perched what is going on in the world oh dear

 

 

 

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

being & writing wormhole: let
coffee wormhole: twice
daughter & mother wormhole: con / firm
doing & reading & time wormhole: across the room / through the patio doors / through the conservatory windows / at the bottom of the garden / the still bifurcated trunk of / the oak / before the let-grown hair and fringes / of the fir tree / blown every lifetime in a while by the winter sun // actually
eyes wormhole: you are in uniform
mouth wormhole: the library, / you know …
smile wormhole: should // be // aware
sound & talking wormhole: zazen in everyday life