DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1917, 5*, acceptance, arms, baby, bedroom, dancing, face, happiness, loneliness, mirror, mist, shoulders, singing, sleep, sun, trees, white, wife, William Carlos Williams, yellow

                                DANSE RUSSE

                If I when my wife is sleeping
                and the baby and Kathleen
                are sleeping
                and the sun is a flame-white-disc
                in silken mists
                above shining trees,–
                if I in my north room
                dance naked, grotesquely
                before my mirror
                waving my shirt round my head
                and singing softly to myself:
                “I am lonelt, lonely.
                I was born to be lonely,
                I am best so!”
                If I admire my arms, flanks, buttocks
                against the yellow drawn shades,–

                Who shall say I am not
                the happy genius of my household?

 

from Al Que Quiere, 1917

Diaghilev, Nijinsky and the Ballets Russes were in New York in 1916, inspiring the abandon of conformity and the discipline of acceptance which were so necessary to the budding 20th Century

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: without any buffet at all
bedroom wormhole: between thoughts
dancing wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
loneliness wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
mirror wormhole: … the underleaves show
mist wormhole: mauve
sleep wormhole: after all
sun wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
trees wormhole: transferring
white wormhole: ‘the Bat-Signal …’
William Carlos Williams wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams
yellow wormhole: abandoned sound mirrors

 

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Sheffield Park Gardens

Tags

2016, 9*, air, black, blue, bluebells, branches, Buddha, Carol, children, contemplation, copper beech, creation, daffodil, dandelions, discovery, duck, eyebrow, face, family, fields, flag, future, garden, gem, girls, glance, green, hair, Have, humanity, India, kalpa, lake, land, life, limbs, living, mauve, May, name, passing, petals, plants, pollen, primrose, promise, rhododendron, seeing, serendipity, settlement, shade, Sheffield Park Gardens, sitting, society, stone-chat, talking to myself, transluscency, tribe, voices, walking, water, yellow

                Sheffield Park Gardens

                we walked
                upright
                across wide fields

                in scattered groups,
                family and tribe,
                private longing

                under shaded
                brim for a land
                of silk and money

                8th May 2016, with

                only childrens’ voices
                we walked into
                the garden

                dispersing to
                our hides to make our own
                discoveries

                by happenstance
                and peripheral glance
                held cold and fresh

                before name:
                that stone-chat
                that makes the

                copper beech
                transluscent;
                the cool stretch of branch

                yet to bud
                before the haze
                of dusty pollen;

                what to make
                of the solitary dandelion –
                butter yellow life –

                amid
                fain clusters of primrose; and
                there in the shade,

                mauve-bells and
                daffodil stalks make in-
                visible a steely blue;

                bluebells
                like raised eyebrows, relaxèd
                to see a future;

adult voices pass, now, talking ways of life; young girls practise handstands and routines in the fields;                

                let’s sit by the lake awhile:
                where a duck’s
                head

                sits
                just out the shade of exotic plants
                (let’s say, from India)

                the water lapping
                anywhere (let’s say, oh,
                 two thousand

                 five hundred
                 years ago), tucked
                immaculate

                black
                letting nothing out
                but the feint

                of blue
                or green that will form a gem
                in kalpas

                of contemplation;
                across the water a willow rests
                like a flag

                (girl’s hair
                 recovers from each upswing from each
                 hand-stand);

                turning home
                Carol stooped
                to smell the rhododendron flower

                “oh, …”

                pushed her face
                into the petals with lust
                was it

                because I’d
                said the branches
                were an orgy of slippy limbs

                or was it just me
                making things up
                as we walked along?

 

I know, I know, it’s mid February, and the poem was written and set in a May; it’s not seasonally right, but this was the next in line to be printed: them’s the chops …

 

 

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

air wormhole: Batgirl –
black & blue & Carol & passing wormhole: travelling // arrival
branches & voices wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
Buddha wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
family wormhole: out
garden wormhole: slightly / uphill
green wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
hair wormhole: two profiles
Have wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
life wormhole: sweet chestnut
living wormhole: ‘still …’
mauve wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
seeing wormhole: glide
sitting wormhole: amid
society wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
talking to myself wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
walking wormhole: loss
water wormhole: without any buffet at all
yellow wormhole: greedy

 

two profiles

Tags

2016, 5*, balcony, being, chair, eyes, face, feet, hair, legs, Lewes, library, mouth, neck, passing, pen, portrait, reading, skyline, step, study

                two profiles

                reading – backdrop of cascade swept back across neck
                line from thinned mouth to pen to poise to foot on
                chair leg to foot step to ground …

                    step past un-laced shoe bounce girder-sprung
                                                            balcony,
                                                    no,
                                          forgot
                                    some
                    thing, got it now, settling down to reception

                studying – cascade over both shoulders crescent face
                with hood eyes and smirky mouth, counter-recline
                of neck to body to outstretch legs crossed at boot

                tinkling the laptop awhile with open-mouthed
                tentation hidden by the handbag, skylined by flask

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: ‘still …’
eyes & mouth wormhole: looking ahead
face wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
feet wormhole: when the rain has settled / the dust
hair wormhole: Batgirl –
Lewes wormhole: reating & wriding
library wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
passing wormhole: “I need help”
reading wormhole: for / the first time
skyline wormhole: river

 

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

 

Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes

Tags

2015, 6*, adjustment, apricot, closed, coffee, contact, dancing, David Lynch, death, Donna, eyes, face, feeling, fir, girder, happiness, home, life, looking, poetry, relationship, release, shift, story, Twin Peaks, woman, work

Animation: Korey Daunhauer

                Pilot 125 …

                circular saws twist
                and sink to their jagged work

                tattered thighs stagger
                between girders – eyes closed over constant face

                … there was
                a death but the Douglass Firs shifted

                behind counters and
                coffee and Donna just felt … happy

                as all sorts of turns
                adjusted; death is the release of looking

                that is held too long –
                always the Douglass Firs need to shift – looking

                too far ahead
                is the death of contact and relationship –

                the fan revolves
                in the empty stairwell; looking back into the lens

                for existence is everlasting
                and beautiful death; sweat on the plough is

                far bigger than cabin
                and home where only the women have poetry

                plumes rise
                like cold apricot flesh

                cascades spread
                in chapters while everyone learns to dance the Moose Horn

                … being excursion in the interludes

 

… of intial episodes of the first season of Twin Peaks: this reading will require experience of being seen

 

 

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

apricot wormhole: faintly apricot air?
coffee & death wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
dancing wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
eyes wormhole: immeasurable love
fir wormhole: fine droplets / across the glass
life wormhole: amid
looking wormhole: Bexhill 140215
poetry wormhole: over-pink cagoule
woman wormhole: the evening
work wormhole: breathing through hypnagogia

 

dear Lucy

Tags

2014, 3*, attention, face, heart, identity, letter, notice, self-indulgent, sitting, smile, therapy, walking

                dear Lucy

I would like to order some more of that mixture you made for me
could I have a bigger bottle

I think I’m noticing I walk about
with a slight smile in my heart

(although it easily turns to a grimace when I try to ‘put’ myself into the groove
and find myself not being there)

I think I slip some of those things that snag, or even when ‘snagged’ I don’t
dangle and I certainly won’t add to the soap-script

my sitting is no better, I still teeter all around ‘just’ sitting
but I think I am cusping

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let
identity wormhole: this time
sitting wormhole: tragic and archival
smile wormhole: bud
walking wormhole: and I lose sight of her into memory

 

over-pink cagoule

Tags

2013, 4*, birch, face, looking, mouth, pink, poetry, portrait, writing

                out of
the wet over-pink cagoule

                and the birch-patterned coat
                                under the tired face peering

                                back down at every chair leg
                                              with downturned-mouth concentration is there

                                                any poetry to be extracted here
                                                              or am I just looking at the wrong things

                                                                                      at the wrong time?

 

 

 

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

birch wormhole: Jon
looking wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
mouth wormhole: to allow / passage
pink wormhole: municipal garden
poetry wormhole: … swap round
writing wormhole: facing the crime section

 

handsome

Tags

2013, 4*, Carol, face, grey, hair, handsome, London, love, passing, portrait, thought, travelling, walking, writing

                                I’ve said it before
                but she doesn’t get my writing anyway

                                but after a day of travelling
                side by side and making thinking adjustments and

                                allowances for passing
                circumstance, whether she’s aware of it or lost

                                in open-eyed wondering
                her grey curls coruscate handsome around her face

                                and dark behind her neck
                                              still

 

 

 

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

Carol & London & travelling wormhole: Day Out
grey wormhole: vastly
hair wormhole: my seat // now
love wormhole: singsong chant
passing wormhole: somewhere
thought wormhole: seen but not heard
walking wormhole: reprieve
writing wormhole: the // orange rose

 

retirement

Tags

2017, 7*, air, blood, career, face, feeling, identity, managerialism, mist, movement, murder, professionalism, retirement, smile, speech, table, teaching

                           retirement

---

                                     .                                      ,                                           .

                           ,                .                                                                                     ;                                                 ,                                                                                     .                       –                 .

                ,             ,                                                       ,  “                                                                     ,                                 ”,         … there

---

                           had been a murder
                           I could feel it all around me and
                           it wasn’t just because there was

                           mist all about – suggested movement,
                           sudden stop – and there is
                           no body

                           that I can see
                           no speech balloon of blood
                           from a face’s final cry

                           but a gentle air
                           where the table is that I
                           use to pound my fists

                           and a swirly smile
                           that told me so, dispersing and
                           unattributive

 

retirement #6: here it is, the full story in all of its salacious detail; restricted strictly to those over 18 years of age – warning: graphic violence, with scenes of intent unattribularity

 

 

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

air & mist wormhole: 1968
career & teaching wormhole: holiday
identity & smile wormhole: six paramitas
managerialism wormhole: dry rot
professionalism & table wormhole: while
speech wormhole: so pleased to see you again

 

traffic lights and broad avenue

Tags

1965, 2016, 6*, avenue, body, brick, buildings, clouds, Dr Strange, evening, eyes, face, grace, implication, manifestation, morning, mouth, place, realisation, storey, streets, sun, synchronicity, traffic lights, travelling, uncaused, will

                it is always the willed renege
                that let’s the face dislocate-
                hideous in full disclosure
                when implications emerge

                that the mouth no longer
                forms, the nostrils lose
                their boundary, the eyes no
                longer level, that the body

                fulfils its natural grace to
                tend to travel where point
                is cornered without street
                to edge and dwelling stands

                familiar as brick but
                stacked in storey and cipher
                whence cones and bolts will
                manifest but unoriginate

                `till squint is healed and
                morning cloud will shred
                the evening sun between
                traffic lights and broad avenue

 

not surprised by the camber of “The Demon’s Disciple!” by Lee & Ditko in Strange Tales#128, January 1965

 

 

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

buildings wormhole: fresh destiny
clouds wormhole: did I get old?
Dr Strange wormhole: Clea
evening wormhole: the 19th century
eyes wormhole: adjustment
morning wormhole: magnificent salad
mouth wormhole: a crack of lightning / in the dark of night
realisation wormhole: just one, open, nerve,
streets wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
sun wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I suddenly / remembered
traffic lights wormhole: Christmas lights / around the lamp post
travelling wormhole: “The Lady from Nowhere”