lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light

Tags

2013, 7*, apple tree, awareness, being, blue, breeze, Castleton, death, doing, eggs, evening, feeling, feet, flying, glass, holiday, kitchen, leaves, life, light, living, mindfulness, placement, table, warp, weft

                lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening
                skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling
                the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo
                for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light

                                it is so sweet and simple
                                what I have to do: the keep
                                of mind on what I do the
                                turning of the lens until
                                what I am and what I do
                                are so clear and resplendent
                                that I can see each thread
                                of the warp and weft of the
                                blue gingham cloth hanging
                                over the edge of the wicker
                                basket holding speckless-
                                shaped eggs four to welcome
                                us to the holiday cottage

                back to Castleton two years on, cool feet on the fresh-laid flooring
                fresh breeze through the leaves of the apple tree
                but the drop-leaf table in the kitchen
                is mine all mine

 

 

 

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

awareness wormhole: redundant
being wormhole: too much in arrival
blue wormhole: ssreet chak-chak
breeze wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
Castleton wormhole: on the raised patio reading Plath
death & life wormhole: stone
doing wormhole: prelude: // travel
evening wormhole: south horizon
feet wormhole: six paramitas
glass wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything
holiday wormhole: holiday
kitchen wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
leaves wormhole: monument to vainglory
living wormhole: wasted –
table wormhole: retirement

 

six paramitas

Tags

2017, adjustment, aspiring Bodhichitta, being, doing, eyebrow, feet, giving, identity, joy, Mahayana, morality, patience, sand, seeing, settling, shoulders, sitting, skin, smile, talking to myself, the Six Perfections, true nature, wisdom

six paramitas

give, Mark, like you are peeling and cutting off the
scaley skin that cloys around you obscuring your

pure light; be cool, Mark, shelter from the spikes and
eyes of provocation, the winning curl of enticement;

endure, Mark, and face the walls with due measure
and renewed adjustment across a noble brow; nurture,

Mark, a modest smirk: you have the time to do this
all even when busy; return, Mark, to a settled release,

hung from the point between your shoulders like a
perfect coat-hanger; be, Mark, the eye wide shut,

that sees the further shore is in the very sand you
squelch between your feet, sinking lower into pudding

 

these emerged from the section of Gems of Dharma, Jewels of Freedom by Je Gampopa introducing the Six Perfections: delving into etymology reveals facets and perspectives like walking around a display case at a museum and really having a good look at something fascinating; and then I thought, c’mon, Mark, `about time you started standing on your own two feet; so, I sat down to do so

 

 

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

being wormhole: singsong chant
doing & seeing 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
feet wormhole: sleep now
giving wormhole: my seat // now
identity & talking to myself wormhole: holiday
settling wormhole: moment
sitting wormhole: the bench
smile wormhole: Open – All – Ours

 

sleep now

Tags

1997, 2012, 7*, breathing, cotton, doing, dream, dress, embarrassment, evening, feet, girl, hands, identity, lap, legs, movement, muse, neck, portal, purpose, quiet, searching, shop, shoulders, sitting, sleep, streetlight, talking, toes, waiting, writing, yellow

I am safe in a corner shop (looking for portals on shelves in racks)
evening gathers inside ending-day-busy streetlights just          on

a girl and myself waiting to be served quiet     I am seated     waiting
the girl is fidgeting her shoe drawing her foot out slightly

to see her veined feet the root of her toes; she notices me noticing
and moves to another part of the shop adjusting         something

I am sorry; she has on a yellow dress; she comes back to the counter
stands beside me talking to the shopkeeper adjusting her tights now

plucking them up raising her dress a little, she steps and sits on my lap
without talking without referring to me still talking to the shopkeeper

clean crumpled yellow cotton neck; oh; a little bashful I put my arms
around her waist, she continues to talk engaged in her business

her hands come to rest on my hands on her legs I am embarrassed
but she is comfortable in my lap moving and leaning as she talks

thank you yellow cotton shoulder, now I know what to write
now I know what to do, now I can breathe      deeply, I think I could

sleep now

 

 

 

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

breathing & doing wormhole: I
dream & girl & muse wormhole: adjustment
evening wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
feet & writing wormhole: returning home handsome
hands wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
identity wormhole: passersby
searching wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35
sitting wormhole: time
sleep wormhole: gone black
streetlight wormhole: well,
talking wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow
waiting & yellow wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow

 

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

 

reaching branch

Tags

2016, allowing, architecture, branches, change, clouds, coffee shop, compassion, feet, identity, landscape, mind, others, passing, people, reaching, Shrewsbury, sky, walking, watching, windows, writing

                           the landscapes
                           that conceive the mind

                           shift like
                           architecture of deep-belly clouds

                           watching all
                           the occasions of feet pass

                           in the window
                           of the same coffee shops to which I return

                           allowing each
                           lace and ripple bulb and disperse over

                           reaching branch

 

 

 

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

branches wormhole: furl-reach
change wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
clouds & identity & windows wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – the soft canticle of the gourds:
coffee shop wormhole: the coffee shop opportunity
compassion wormhole: constant hummm
feet wormhole: Hurst Green
mind wormhole: ‘on second thought …’ – poewieview #27
others wormhole: and that’s where I are
passing & people wormhole: 1964
sky wormhole: tired
walking wormhole: tripping up to / London town
writing wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – introdepthion

 

Hurst Green

Tags

2013, birdsong, echo, feet, fence, girl, muse, phone, portrait, staring, station, time, Uckfield-London line

 

 

 

                                              Hurst Green

                                the girl
                who walked from her Mini with lithe
                step stood by the concrete fence grown its own lichen
                from decades standing with
                                hot veins
                                on the top
                                of her feet

                while birds pheeped and echoed in the long-
                grown copse behind turned
                                her feet
                                sideways –
                                anxious –

                as she leant on the fence to make the phone
                call and chewed the inside of her mouth staring
                at the platform
                                for minutes
                                afterwards

 

0.46

 

 

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

echo & muse wormhole: currency of generations
feet wormhole: Western Motel, 1957
girl wormhole: Shonagh – poewieview #17
time wormhole: the missing chord // the now-silent seagull
Uckfield-London line wormhole: train journey // like a branch

 

Western Motel, 1957

Tags

1957, 2015, branches, communication, Edward Hopper, feet, landscape, motel, shadow, shoulders, speech, sun, woman, years

 

 

 

                      Western Motel, 1957

                      she turned, shoulder-frozen
                      and foot-crippled, ‘what, now?’,

                      as the setting sun reached
                      the bare tree branch across

                      a mesa landscape
                                no
                                ne
                                ed
                                to
                                an
                                sw
                                er,

                      the shadows are set
                      square and boxed

 

 

 

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

branches & shadow & speech wormhole: sit
communication wormhole: Totnes
Edward Hopper & woman & years wormhole: New York Movie, 1939
feet wormhole: let’s have some ice creams
sun wormhole: the continental stride of trains

 

let’s have some ice creams

Tags

2013, children, doing, family, feet, grass, Lewes, passing, river, speech

 

 

 

                                     sitting by a river
                                     surface drifting upstream
                                     past the grasses arranged like baskets

                                     let’s have some ice creams

                                     burst-activity little feet
                                     point forward to find
                                     sandals without looking

 

first part of the triptych scenes ’round a wedding: // you can only smell the candles / when they have been snuffed out

 

 

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

doing wormhole: my life / of others
family & river wormhole: Exceat to Cuckmere Haven
feet wormhole: I love with all the history and lack of perfections at our command
passing wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
speech wormhole: lifetime

 

I love with all the history and lack of perfections at our command

Tags

2013, calves, Carol, doing, feet, grey, hair, hands, identity, life, looking, love, marriage, portrait, shoulders, sunglasses, walking, watching

 

 

 

                                              watching
                                that woman, there, striding
                                away from the bench to
                                peer down the road-works
                                to see what they’re up to
                                in her ill-fitting sandals
                                heel lift and flick-in a little
                                with slim calves and Hampshire
                                lope and shuffle
                                with arms dangling hand-lazy
                                off sad-mouth shoulders and
                                shapeless jumper (that she
                                always wears these days) and
                                that mad puffball of grey
                                kept in check only, only by
                                              sunglasses

                                              that woman
                                married-with for thirty two years
                                through accumulating betters
                                and diminishing worses
                                off to cook a meal
                                because she’s got an idea
                                while I rest from the back
                                I pulled doing nothing significant
                                on a long short walk hands held
                                              together

                I love with all the history and lack of perfections at our command

 

 

 

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

Carol wormhole: hot summer / morning
doing & identity & life wormhole: the stance of Buscema // qualitatively
feet & walking wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
grey wormhole: 1963
hair wormhole: [start where you are III] – delve
hands wormhole: “King …”
looking wormhole: Totnes
love wormhole: letters to Mum VI – Years / after you have gone. Still.

 

library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!

Tags

2014, ageing, being, birdsong, books, carpet, compassion, echo, feet, identity, Lewes, library, life, light, listening, notebook, opening, passing, people, reading, red, roof, settling, shadow, sound, striving, study, table, talking, talking to myself, travelling, walking, windows, writing

 

 

 

                library: start where you are IV

                                time to write –
                                but I’ve come
                                to the table

                                wanting to find
                                the same people
                                the same vistas –

                                foreclosed*
                                before I even open
                                the notebook

                                wanting the talk of feet reading
                                and the scent of sigh tired and the
                                stretching in common embrace

                                but instead I have the constant
                                humm of light high up in the varnished
                                rafters the intermittent beep

                                of the drinks machine and
                                the sway of heavy man with step-
                                energy walking up then down the

                                quiet research balcony
                                which I hadn’t been noticing
                                aha; I see, I hear, I, here.

                                the light doesn’t hum
                                it spreads the ubiquitous
                                plum-red carpet with

                                venn shadows from feet
                                from case; that alarm was it
                                regular between key-tap-return and bird-twit

                                has stopped
                                the heavy man went downstairs
                                and I noticed the girders and ties

                                (that such mass can move so decisive
                                 and change without wheel or haul
                                 through all the planes we have riveted

                                 and braced about our life)
                                at last I am settled and
                                my table still empty

                                              I’ve

                                been trying to get
                                from here to there,
                                where there would really

                                make here much better and
                                connect them together,
                                reduce their distance,

                                dissolve any distinction,
                                              I
                                have studied this extensively

                                in all those books, composed it, even;
                all the distance I have travelled!
                                from here to there

                                marking myself wrinkled tired
                                and echoed in my own space
                                              … actually quite nice here, if I let open some windows

 

* this piece is a sequel to [start where you are III] – delve which was quite cute; happened in the same library in the same town, but in entirely different lives

 

 

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

being & writing wormhole: hot chocolate
books & compassion & reading & settling & table & talking to myself wormhole: [start where you are III] – delve
carpet wormhole: Trinity Arts
echo wormhole: ‘in the midst of winter …’
feet & identity & sound & travelling wormhole: Totnes
life wormhole: lifetime
light & people & windows wormhole: up here
listening wormhole: purpose
passing & talking wormhole: ‘discution poli / d’orage …’
red wormhole: on the raised patio reading Plath
roof wormhole: prologue-ing
shadow wormhole: the dash is magnificent / the shadow grotesque
striving wormhole: re lax // me
study wormhole: new year’s eve 2014; train up to London to / walk the bridges across the Thames, and / listen to the voices say it is, and was, like, / but get back home before the fireworks / obliterate it all in the emptying twilight
walking wormhole: ambling around / the garden centre