passersby

Tags

2016, 6*, architecture, artist, blue, buildings, facade, finials, ghosts, Granada, identity, others, passing, rooftops, self, Shantideva, sky, smile, streets, superhero, thought, walls, wandering

                “acting like an apparition
                  with no sense of self”; not

                martyring myself an apparition
                because no one recognised my

                self; let me wander the streets
                and plazas parrying every foil

                in my head, swinging up
                facades and leaping rooftops

                with closed-lipped smile
                to greet the passersby; the

                artist sits with his back
                to the wall to finish

                the finials opposite with just
                touches of blue sky

 

the quote is from Stephen Batchelor’s translation of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara (V, 57) which I was reciting as my holiday reading; the ideal and the model, the should and the example; how to be amongst other (and amongst others), it is not the finials, so much, as the sky before which they reach …

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: the purple mist between
blue & passing & thought & walls wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
buildings & streets wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
ghosts wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
identity wormhole: I
others wormhole: Clea
rooftops wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
Shantideva wormhole: inbreath
sky wormhole: be
smile wormhole: new-found love – poewieview #36
superhero wormhole: zero

 

the policies came to nothing

Tags

2012, 5*, apartment, beauty, bittersweet, blue, buildings, business, cars, childhood, death, dizzy, emptiness, facade, gigantitude, height, looking, Manhattan, Mum, pink, reaching, roof, society, view, windows

 

 

 

                                          oh

                                   bittersweet beauty
                                   apartment window

                                   at any stage up the
                                   building façade                dizzy

                                   looking further up
                                   the top receding from

                                   view or yet dwarfed
                                   by another block kept

                                   in place by gigantitude
                                   everything kept in place

                                   by gigantitude; when
                                   young I had an image

                                   of a building so many
                                   floors high pinnacling

                                   to a turret roof and
                                   tiny cars going about

                                   their business, on the
                                   pink cover the blue

                                   cover of insurance
                                   policies my Mum kept,

                                   my mother dead now,
                                the policies came to nothing

 

 

 

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

beauty wormhole: 1967
blue & buildings & windows wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Bowl of Gourds
cars wormhole: fine
childhood & Manhattan wormhole: tired
death wormhole: The Boats of Vallesneria by Michael J. Redford – Autumn Thoughts
emptiness wormhole: the coffee shop opportunity
looking wormhole: tripping up to / London town
Mum wormhole: currency of generations
pink wormhole: Drug Store, 1927
roof wormhole: always
society wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark

 

Le Pont Royal, 1909

Tags

'scape, 1909, 2015, architecture, bridge, buildings, Edward Hopper, facade, morning, Paris, sunlight, trees, veins, walking

                                Le Pont Royal, 1909

                                the thing is: the morning sun
                                which meets the facades face

                                on and sculpts them – fine-
                                hewn – into their architecture

                                and makes the bare trees into
                                manly veins, is not brought

                                by the bridge despite all its
                                pedestrian traffic to work

 

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: hinged – From Hell ch. V
bridge & sunlight wormhole: 1965
buildings wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25
Edward Hopper wormhole: Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
morning wormhole: fine
Paris wormhole: Le Pont des Arts, 1907
trees wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
walking wormhole: while walking

 

1968

Tags

1968, 2009, abandonment, being, child, childhood, curtains, divorce, doubt, facade, father, feeling, holiday, identity, illusion, lilac, living, passing, sky, sleep, stretch, sunlight, time, timelessness, town, truth, vermillion, yawn, years

 

 

 

                                                                 1968

                      child living at rate: three months per hour
                      sat under lilac viscous sky and watched
                      the vermilion slicks form and pass; the

                      Way Things Are through which I had come
                      was no longer living with us; what I had
                      felt – under my fingernails – might not be

                      true (like the facades of towns erected
                      for a holiday) now had reference, I felt
                      no feeling, all Absolutes were off, all

                      interaction doubtful.   The child slept for
                      a week, is now stretching and yawning, a
                      new day ahead shining through curtains

 

 

 

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

1968 wormhole: quite … / … yet – poewieview #12
abandonment wormhole: 1963
being & passing & living wormhole: impressionism
child wormhole: and that’s where I are
childhood & sky wormhole: 1963
curtains wormhole: Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20
divorce wormhole: sit
father wormhole: Jon
holiday wormhole: nothing to write
identity wormhole: no one – poewieview #24
lilac wormhole: I’ve only just realised / after so many decades / that the smell of neglected land is lilac buddleia
sleep wormhole: com- / mute
time wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
vermillion wormhole: 1967
years wormhole: 1964

 

bavardage

Tags

2016, buildings, career, city, columns, dream, Europe, eyes, facade, green, lime, passing, talking

 

 

 

                                   as we talked
                                   standing about
                                   like columns

                                   a building moved
                                   in the corner
                                   of my eye; I broke

                                   the circle to see it
                                   move independent
                                   of the learnèd city,

                                   but they wouldn’t
                                   believe me if I told them,
                                   so I said nothing

                                   while they
                                   continued their bavardage
                                   as it drew down

                                   central avenue, a lime-
                                   green building on a
                                   trailer pulled by

                                   I know not what but
                                   the crowds of common élan
                                   the facades turned

                                   their mutual angles
                                   slowly as it passed,
                                   I knew I needn’t have

                                   told them, they
                                   hadn’t noticed it
                                   anyway

 

 

 

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

buildings wormhole: tabla
career wormhole: Teaching career: much like Monet’s ‘Impression: soleil levant’ or, in the long run, de Chirico’s ‘The Red Tower’
city & passing wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23
dream & lime wormhole: 1964
eyes wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
green wormhole: don’t look / at her eyes – poewieview #18
talking wormhole: early evening

 

New York, New Haven and Hartford, 1931

Tags

'scape, 1931, 2015, chimney, decades, Edward Hopper, facade, house, lawn, morning, New York, railtrack, sky, sun, trees

 

 

 

                      New York, New Haven and Hartford, 1931

                      morning sun appears in fat fingers along the
                      railway track, along the lawn getting somewhere:

                      it fringes the finials of the trees and brush
                      phlanged in all directions but splats façade-

                      on and aspectedly against the sited house for
                      decades reaching 3D chimneys high to the sky

 

 

 

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

chimney wormhole: … the discipline of shamatha / the waft of vipashyana
Edward Hopper wormhole: Seven A.M, 1948
house wormhole: sit
morning & sky wormhole: library windows
sun wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
trees wormhole: train journey // like a branch