in deed

Tags

2019, 8*, Arya Lalitavistara, austerity, being, birth, black, Buddha, children, consumerism, death, doing, ears, fear, grin, hate, identity, infrastructure, investment, karma, letting go, lifetimes, love, mother, nirmanakaya, nose, samadhi, shame, skeleton, society, son, thought, war, womb, world

                                I

                gave birth to you, I
                held you deep within my very womb,
                the very kernel of all the labour of all my life’s beings and I

                gave you up to being
                with all the love of whole investment
                placed in care of self in state, you cannot,

                                just
                                die

                                __O—

                … she addressed her son

                who sat unmoved
                to the whole world’s reach
                that only his bones leaned together
                dry and upright

                who sat unconsumed
                to the whole world’s glut
                that to feel his stomach
                was to grasp his spine

                who sat unloved
                to the whole world’s reflection that
                children poked grass in his ear ‘till it
                came out his nose

                who sat unknown
                to the whole world’s shame
                that he was dust-black as a
                tree stump hideously grinning

                                __O—

                and know, mother, I do not die;
                I embroiled with the world to show
                the terrible wake of uncoupling
                her greasy mechinations,

                                in deed

 

honnnnnnnned like the string from a lute, not too tight not too loose, from chapter 17 of the Arya Lalitavistara Sutra in which the Prince’s mother (who had died and gone to heaven) came to see her son after he had been practising austerities for six years and was on the point of dying; she feared he was taking his quest to extremes, but he calmly told her that (the point of the whole Sutra being called ‘Lalita’, a ‘play’) that he had to show, in human form, what the two extremes of living in life were, in order to then show the way between to two extremes to liberation

 

 

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

being & war wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
black wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
Buddha wormhole: the old man;
death wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
doing wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
identity wormhole: threshold to behold
letting go wormhole: the reach turned to love
lifetimes wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
love wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
mother wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
society & thought wormhole: my uncomfortable life
war wormhole: on facing the Have

 

Advertisement

stuck

Tags

2018, 5*, air, avenue, Batman, cape, fear, midnight, moon, running, shops, stuck, wings

                           he ran
                like an avenue of
                closed shops at
                midnight under
                the moon, he was

                stuck, he rose
                in the air, pulled
                his cape round
                his cheek like a
                wing and hung

                like a shop sign;
                ‘fight the fear’

 

 

 

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

air wormhole: BLUEFLAGS by William Carlos Williams
Batman & moon wormhole: despite that
shops wormhole: amniotic avenue

 

“I need help”

Tags

2015, 4*, career, dream, fear, letting go, passing, shame, speech, stairs, teacher, teaching

                vulnerable and stuck
                on the way to first lesson

                taking the short-cut over
                the main stairwell, narrow

                foot-ledge, I cannot
                continue, don’t look down,

                I cannot go back, “I need
                help, get a teacher” and

                I am not ashamed to
                call out loud, no one

                does, I cannot go back,
                a teacher passes, I

                cannot remember her
                name “I need help”;

                I realise there is a balcony-
                corridor behind the ledge,

                safety partition is loose,
                I can lean back into it,

                break the screen, fall
                back, no more fear

 

 

 

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

career wormhole: circuitry
dream wormhole: breathing through hypnagogia
letting go wormhole: place
passing wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
speech wormhole: Sandwich
stairs wormhole: is this it // all the time
teaching wormhole: I turn to wake up

 

the silent night of the Batman

Tags

2011, 7*, alley, attention, Batman, belief, black, blue, buildings, Christmas, city, east, fear, glass, green, guilt, ink, light, marble, marzipan, night, people, planes, purple, river, rooftops, rose, shops, silence, sky, skyline, smile, south, stars, streetlamp, thought, vista, windows, writing

                the silent night of the Batman

                even while they carried their
                gift-wrapped parcels and looked
                to each other with smiles of belief

                the shop signs hummed dark
                against the marbled frontage
                while above, quiet floors of

                clear-dark windows looked east
                looked south in the ink-black sky
                enough to write a novel in a

                single sitting, enough to hold
                a fleet of stars above the skyline
                stacking slowly; when the sky

                is ink-green the rooftop
                gathers ink-blue attention
                and leaps without step or

                swing through the glass and
                ledges of city vista, the lingering
                thought to shadow the guilt,

                the alley to streetlamp the
                fear, and over the river the rose
                cast high and wide to the stars until

                marzipan fingers reach across the
                ink-purple sky and marshmallow lights
                go out

 

 

 

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

attention 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
Batman: cape and cowl
black wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
blue wormhole: out
buildings & people wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
Christmas & stars wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
city wormhole: city streets
glass wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
green & sky & smile wormhole: looking ahead
light wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
night & writing wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
purple wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
river wormhole: glide
rooftops wormhole: low afternoon
shops wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
silence wormhole: is this it // all the time
skyline wormhole: clear as vista
thought & windows wormhole: for / the first time

 

is this it // all the time

Tags

2015, 6*, Bodhichitta, breathing, corridors, depression, emptiness, fear, groundlessness, identity, living, mist, perception, pointlessness, questioning, quiet, rope, searching, self-cherishing, silence, snake, stairs, standing, stone, sun, time, trust, walls

                is this it
                coming again out of the mist

                that in my trust I find I still
                get nowhere that I want to be –

                by the walls along the corridor
                or at the top of silent stairs

                standing on the landing – it
                is not up here after all, nowhere

                else to go …
                is

                it
                this damn mist

                so easy to overlook
                so quiet to breathe

                that I mistake the stones for a figure,
                I fear the rope for the snake, and yet

                this mist will disperse
                the sun will always eventually appear

                I need not wear my collar up
                all the time

 

 

 

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

Bodhichitta 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
breathing & quiet wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
depression wormhole: to rescue something
emptiness wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
groundlessness wormhole: place
identity & stone wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
living 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
mist wormhole: while
pointlessness wormhole: is there anything to write?
searching wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
silence wormhole: circuitry
stairs wormhole: currency of generations
sun wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
time wormhole: sweet chestnut
walls wormhole: snapshots about Totnes

 

the silent night of the Batman

Tags

1970, 7*, attention, Batman, black, blue, Christmas, city, dawn, east, fear, glass, green, guilt, ink, light, Neal Adams, night, purple, quiet, river, rooftops, rose, shadow, shops, sky, skyline, smile, sound, south, stars, streetlamp, vista, windows, writing

                the silent night of the Batman

                even while they carried their
                gift-wrapped parcels and looked
                to each other with smiles of belief

                the shop signs hummed dark
                against the marbled frontage
                while above, the quiet floors

                of stone windows looked east
                looked south in the ink-black sky
                enough to write a novel in a

                single sitting, enough to hold
                a fleet of stars above the skyline
                stacking slowly; when the sky

                is ink-green the rooftop
                gathers ink-blue attention
                and leaps without step or

                swing through the glass and
                ledges of city vista, the lingering
                thought to shadow the guilt,

                the alley divide to streetlamp
                the fear, and over the river the rose
                cast high and wide to the stars until

                marzipan fingers reach across the
                ink-purple sky and marshmallow lights
                go out

 

 

I am so pleased to say that this is the sixth time I have posted this poem, mostly always on Christmas Eve: the poem in which my hero-ego – Batman – doesn’t appear and yet everthing is done by his having been there all along; Batman doesn’t swing across the rooftops, it’s just that we sometimes find the space to change our minds; who is the Santa Claus for the 21st century – Batman (termsandconditionsapply:discussionaboutexistenceis … irrelevant); sculpted out of “The Silent Night of the Batman” in Batman #219 by Gary Friedrich and Neal Adams

 

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

attention wormhole: interim
Batman wormhole: the too big moon
black & skyline wormhole: the skyline
blue & sky & streetlight & windows & writing wormhole: passing below
Christmas wormhole: 1967
city wormhole: 1966
dawn wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
glass wormhole: time
green & quiet & sound wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance
light wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
night wormhole: “The Lady from Nowhere”
purple wormhole: 1967
river wormhole: pen and ruler
rooftops wormhole: passersby
shadow wormhole: Prajnaparamita // Maitreya
shops wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
smile wormhole: comfy
stars wormhole: Clea

 

Prajnaparamita // Maitreya

Tags

2013, 7*, acceptance, anxiety, being, claim, dust, embracing, emptiness, Enlightenment, envelope, fear, labyrinth, leaves, letting go, life, light, living, loss, Maitreya, myth, pointlessness, Prajnaparamita, shadow, smile, stage, true nature, words

                                                                                Prajnaparamita

                                                                acknowledge
                                                                accept
                                                                embrace
                                                the pointlessness all around
                                                there is nothing to claim
                                there is nothing to gain
                                there is not even anything to lose
                deep within the fear and anxiety
                                cast adrift
                                                soha

                                                                                Maitreya

                                                                enfold
                                                                enhabit
                                                                ennoble
                                                the props all around
                                in the light in the shadows
                                even the dust and the leaves
                                and smile the tentative labyrinthine myth
                deep within the words and stage sufficient
                                unto itself
                                                soha

 

the mantra: thaya tha om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi soha, is the mantra of Prajnaparamita, the Perfection of Wisdom; it can be somewhat semantically translated as ‘it’s like this: [everything is] gone, gone, completely gone, completely and perfectly gone with no loss, enlightened [dispersed, dispelled] all-right!’, where ‘gate’ means ‘gone’ – it originates from the Heart Sutra wherein Avalokitshvara has just systematically taught that nothing exists intrinsically (including the means to realise this), but not that nothing exists which is why it is possible to attain Enlightenment (‘bodhi’); Maitreya’s mantra is om maitri maitri maha maitri arya maitri soha, wherein ‘maitri’ means ‘loving kindness’; the Prajnaparamita image I found in http://meditationincheshire.org/courses-events/special-events/prajnaparamita-empowerment-saturday-14th-november-2015/; the Maitreya image I found from http://www.alanpeto.com/buddhism/back-to-the-future-buddha/; the poems are mine, trying to make sense of a thousand lives

 

 

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

anxiety wormhole: listen willya
accpetance wormhole: magnificent salad
being wormhole: I
emptiness wormhole: Doctor Strange II – … things are the same again
leaves wormhole: the too big moon
letting go wormhole: time
life & light & pointlessness wormhole: beepbeep
living wormhole: even / a second
Maitreya wormhole: quite simply
shadow wormhole: was there a moon / on the alleyway wall / confused in front of / the city skyline?
smile wormhole: passersby
words wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35

 

and that’s where I are

Tags

2016, Aleister Crowley, alley, appearance, birch, black, Bowie, breakdown, breeze, brick, building, car park, career, Carol, cars, cats, child, church, clothes, coffee shop, creativity, decision, Diane di Prima, disappearance, down, Eastbourne, emptiness, fear, form, grey, Heart Sutra, horizontal, humanity, identity, left, leg, looking, mother, muse, others, passing, pavement, plane, posture, quantum, rebellion, right, right angle, roads, school, searching, seeing, silence, silver, sitting, sound, spire, stain, stopped, streets, talking to myself, teaching, trees, up, vertical, waiting, walking, walls, William Carlos Williams, wind, writers, writing

            inner coffee shop

            so, is writing pointless,
            just rebellion from root
            just the muscling of me
            to spite the hard fear that

            I’ll turn to stone if I look
            into her face … `spite the
            knowledge that others are
            far more brave than me?

            St. Saviour & St. Peter

            so what draws me to sit,
            after all, on the roadside
            wall across from the spire
            clear for all to see the

            even bricks buttress, cap
            and flute up so high to
            eleven storeys to, maybe,
            the single point, with run-

            down stain and grimèd
line defining plane and vertical rightened quantum to the neat, surrounding parking and the passing upright
            humans both of public
            dress and private gait

                           360º

            and then the grey cat
            strolled from some-
            where left between
            silent cars to cross the

            road right – stopped –
            t’looka’leaf ‘n’ disappear
            up on wall by tree-sniff
            stop – fence? – no,

            down be-hind th’wall
            out through th’front
            windscreen ‘n’
            downastepps t’street

            to not appear where
            expected; ‘shut’, a mother
            leads a tot from front
            door to car …
                                   … still no appearance

            … … scamper with the
            wind behind as the car
            pulls away; maybe I should
            record this wh’appened all

            around breeze, strolled –
            stopped – by the wall
            back from b’hind m’left
            enters the gateway out

            by th’alleyway (with the
            bold and naked silver birch
            I hadn’t noticed);
                                          upover
            the fence [not attempted

            before] tadaaanother cat
            black treesniff checkleft
            then … left, jumptowall,
            jump to pavementstop;

            over the road frontleg
            onelick s t r o l l s car-
            shielded; black belly-slink
            low across the road; they

            walk away both from
            sight either side of the van;
            one tail up and wiggy
            one tail fluffy with spine

            these things all of great
            importance to spite the hard fact
            of my writing them,
            old Bull Williams would have

            and that’s where I are

 

there are expanses awkward to the landscape in writing sometimes: the technique is there, the shift can be made, but the will and excitement just isn’t; I have been reading Diane di Prima’s “Recollections of My Life as a Woman”, I greatly fed off her childhood but have languoured once she got into the Work; I have been reading about Aleister Crowley’s ‘Do What Thou Wilt’ awkward plane; I have a huge project ongoing writing poewieviews to David Bowie’s oeuvre – I am going to new lands but the luggage is heavy and awkward and requiring decisions which I don’t easily make; oh, and I am off work again, feeling un-plugged in to my own practice of vocation like a forlorn state-of-the-art food mixer; I spent a morning down in Eastbourne chauffeuring my wife around like the successful carer that she is; walking; sitting in a coffee shop; snagged at St. Saviour & St. Peter Church on the corner of Spencer Road and South Street, still pondering the relationship between multifarious form and the emptiness makes it dynamic; but it wasn’t until I sat back in the waiting car and watched the chess moves of two cats in the street that I stumbled across the full quote from the Heart Sutra: “form is emptiness; emptiness is form; emptiness is no other than form, form also is no other than emptiness”; but it wasn’t until I got home and shaped it all up from scribbles to column – with my ageing black AND white cat leaning against my foot – that I wondered if I still hadn’t quite got it yet (as William Carlos Williams, the great great practicer of ‘no poetry but in things’ said); and yet it has been satisfying finding not so …

 

 

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

birch wormhole: fine droplets / across the glass
black & grey wormhole: hinged – From Hell ch. V
Bowie wormhole: Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20
breakdown & writing wormhole: nothing to write
breeze wormhole: strange / tarnish
buildings & silver & streets wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky
carer wormhole: just saying, is all IV: // lost
Carol wormhole: when in Belgium do as the chocolates do
cars wormhole: stacked
cats wormhole: new garden
child wormhole: dream 260815
church wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
coffee shop wormhole: ‘from under the awning …’
creativity & school wormhole: through
Eastbourne wormhole: along
emptiness wormhole: 1966 … actually sic // of it allllll-bsssssssh – poewieview #8
identity wormhole: dear clown’s face
looking & muse & sound wormhole: don’t look / at her eyes – poewieview #18
mother & silence wormhole: early evening
others wormhole: my // shell – poewieview #19
passing & posture wormhole: really
roads wormhole: sixty four sixty five – poewieview #1
searching wormhole: opening
seeing wormhole: where the goblins leered – poewieview #14
sitting & talking to myself wormhole: tong len / the inauguration of another – timely – butter fly effect / taking and giving
teaching wormhole: the MagOO Effect Effect
trees wormhole: Shonagh – poewieview #17
waiting wormhole: Saturday – poewieview #3
walking wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
walls wormhole: Nostalgia for Samsara – poewieview #16
[William Carlos] Williams wormhole: and then just stop
wind wormhole: keep the light off

 

the silent night of the Batman

Tags

'scape, 1970, 2011, alley, attention, Batman, belief, black, blue, buildings, city, cornice, dark, east, fear, glass, green, guilt, ink, leap, light, marble, marzipan, night, purple, river, rooftops, rose, shadow, shopping, shops, silence, sky, skyline, smile, sound, south, stars, stone, streetlight, thought, vista, windows, writing, years

 

 

 

                     the silent night of the Batman

                     even while they carried their
                     gift-wrapped parcels and looked
                     to each other with smiles of belief

                     the shop signs hummed dark
                     against the marbled frontage
                     while above the quiet floors

                     of stone-framed window looked east
                     looked south all the same in ink-black sky
                     enough to write a novel in a single sitting

                     enough to hold a fleet of stars
                     above the skyline stacking slowly;
                     when the sky turns ink-green the rooftop

                     gathers ink-blue attention and leaps
                     without step or swing through the
                     glass and cornice of city vista and

                     lingering thought to shadow the guilt
                     to alley the share to streetlamp the fear
                     and river the rose cast high and wide to the stars

                     until marzipan fingers reach across the
                     ink-purple sky and marshmallow lights
                     go out

 

cf. “The Silent Night of the Batman” by Mike Friedrich, Neal Adams and Dick Giordano, published in Batman #219, February 1970

 

 

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

attention wormhole: left alone
Batman wormhole: we play / the game
black & blue & green & sky wormhole: clouds
buildings & shops wormhole: Christmas lights / around the lamp post
city & light & windows & years wormhole: 1967
glass wormhole: dream 260815
night wormhole: Hotel Room, 1931
purple & rooftops wormhole: purple and mauve
river wormhole: row boat
shadow wormhole: com- / mute
silence wormhole: de Boeddha // of light
skyline & stone wormhole: sit
sound wormhole: plop!
streetlight wormhole: portrait: / two pigeons
thought wormhole: Automat, 1927 – held
writing wormhole: when writing // stay

 

bottom of Herbert Road to the / foot of Eglinton Hill dream

Tags

2013, abandonment, childhood, dream, Eglinton Hill, eyes, fear, girl, Herbert Road, houses, identity, looking, love, muse, power, spell, thought, windows

 

 

 

                                bottom of Herbert Road to the
                                foot of Eglinton Hill dream

                                              girl of my child
                hood reached to take my wallet as I
                                contemplated houses
                                              in the window
                                              I grabbed her wrist
                                righteous to justice you’re coming with me
                                              I won’t get fooled again
                                but with no design she
                                                              looked up
                                              to me the fear that even I
                                                              would hate her and leave her
                                                              without power – the only thing she had and I
                                                                                                            I fell in love
                                                                                 with those eyes
                                                              and those shoulders –
                                              the spell cast
                                yet again

 

 

 

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

abandonment & Eglinton Hill wormhole: just words wiped across a line
childhood wormhole: relapse
dream wormhole: Dr Strange VII – the madness of Mordo
eyes & love wormhole: the dash is magnificent / the shadow grotesque
girl wormhole: tag cloud poem VIII – growth
Herbert Road wormhole: Christmas
houses wormhole: the lines are not that straight / after all
identity & looking & power wormhole: between
muse wormhole: knees
thought wormhole: under silent direction of architecture
windows wormhole: after the storm