‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’

Tags

2018, 8*, achievement, anger, ants, arrogance, beauty, Big Issue, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, books, buying, Carol, cat, cause and effect, chrome, comics, conception, conditioned existence, dark, doing, evening, eyes, giving, glass, Hulk, human, identity, insight, isolation, kids, life, lightning, marbles, mind, modesty, night, offering, patience, perfect human rebirth, quality, shrine, standing, strangers, talking to myself, teaching, teeth, time, tin, white

                … and yet I think I am so modest:
                      I think I have gathered such quality and beauty in life,

                      all the coloured glass and marbles I offer to the shrine,
                all the Big Issues I generously buy

                all the time given to Carol and the kids,
                      to abandoned strangers, all the vistas I gave at school,

                      all the insights from comics and books, I think I
                know what’s what; I stand colossal

                      on the paving slab, so much more and in so many ways
                than the ants that circle across it,

                so much more, even, than the cat
                      that comes and uselessly rubs about my legs, I stand

                      human to the height of all achievement; all of this
                I have already destroyed

                      a thousand times over in a thousand different ways
                with even the most slight

                      annoyance (and the thing is I am always annoyed), let alone
                the hulked, mindblanked and white-eyed

                teeth and howls; when this dent,
                      this sudden crease in what looks like flimsy tin (from

                this axe from some other side) that
                      holds the calm and flow of all the cause and conditionality,

                      everything bent sharp over a refusal, that creates me adverse
                and isolated; I won’t

                      become human again for so long I’ll need
                another, far-future,

                flash of lightning
                      in the darkest of darkest nights before I’ll

                ever get another chance
                      to even conceive what’s happening to me; let’s

                ease out all these creases, let’s
                      polish all that chrome, before evening comes again

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara, Chapter VI, beginning verses

 

 

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

beauty & books & identity wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
Carol wormhole: we held cold hands
cat wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
comics wormhole: letting them go
doing wormhole: the moon, the moon
evening & eyes & white wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
giving wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
glass & life & mind & time wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
lightning wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
night wormhole: THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams
talking to myself wormhole: blister on me thumb
teaching wormhole: how to teach

 

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early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych

Tags

2018, 8*, action, being, black, body, British Museum, civilisation, clouds, column, concepts, crane, day, fields, gap, Germany, glass, Have, horizon, horse, Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro, jar, Jon, language, life, lintel, liquid, London, looking, message, mind, mist, morning, movement, passing, pediment, plane, reading, rooftops, settled, sitting, speech, stone, sun, sunlight, tertön, text, Tibet, time, train, travelling, Uckfield-London line, vertical, world

                                                early

                the sun
                blankets flat across the fields

                a glint
                wipes along the banking plane;

                the terton,
                settled and comfy in the deepest

                mind, enough
                to reach down a text in an

                unknown
                language and read it with ease;

                60 mph
                on the lines into town, one long

                finger of
                cloud between the sun and train

                ever not
                moving; he said he saw no need

                to burden
                the world with yet more babble

                from a
                conceptual mind; even now

                looking
                sharp forward through the glass

                approaching
                London there is a ripple in the

                glass makes
                the cranes on the rooftops

                twitch

 

                -\\O___~~                                                                ~~___O//-

 

Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum

                there was
                mass of body the length of recline

                the height
                of seat and stone bath the end

                of time,
                but the keep of store and brim

                of handle (the
                maximum bulb upon impossible base)

                were lithe
                of all action scratched into blackest

                liquid
                despite all the belts of mist between

                each day;
                and those lintels planted in weight

                upon the
                lip of each column and across all, the

                heavenly
                pediment; having was being,

                transcendent
                of bound, the message leapt from

                behind,
                across the impossible gusts of gap,

                the wrap
                of robe, loose and sun-dried to the

                crease of
                agitation, there, O beast with power

                standing
                over me, will you take me from

                here

 

early: my son was moving to Germany to live with his girlfriend, he was spending the last week or so with his parents before leaving; there was a sense that this was a Major Life Move both for him (and for us watching a child move to another country … even though he is 31 years old); he wanted to do a ‘final’ trip up to London and took his old man with him, we went up early – I watched the horizontal morning sun over the fields become vertical up London’s sandstone buildings; a “terton” is someone who has developed his or her mind to be subtle-enough to find and decode Buddhist teachings hidden by Guru Padmasambhava in places or in minds so that they will be ‘discovered’ in time when the conditions – and minds – are right: I had just finished the biography of Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Lodro who was a renowned terton and teacher in Tibet who declined to publically reveal many of his found texts because, as he commented, he didn’t want to clutter up peoples’ minds with yet more babble from a “conceptual mind” (although seasoned ‘readers’ of life in Tibet at that time would have ‘understood’ this statement to mean that the prevailing karma of mind in Tibetan society at that time was not up to appreciating them – Jamyang Khyentse Chokyi Londro died in 1959, the year the Chinese seized control of Tibet and the religious infrastructure of Tibet was decimated); the Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum: we spent most of the time in the British Museum, Jon wanted to have a final look at the early Minoan and later Mycenaean Greek exhibitions … I haven’t fully worked out how these two pieces are joined as a diptych, but present them as such nevertheless

 

 

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

being & looking wormhole: blister on me thumb
black wormhole: THE LONELY STREET by William Carlos Williams
clouds & travelling wormhole: space for probing thought
crane wormhole: that
glass wormhole: SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams
Have wormhole: you
horizon wormhole: we held cold hands
Jon wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
life & sun wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
London & mind & speech & time wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
mist wormhole: BLUEFLAGS by William Carlos Williams
morning wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Pigs
passing wormhole: THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams
reading wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Cows
rooftops wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
sitting wormhole: allowed all gain
stone wormhole: only
train wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
Uckfield-London line wormhole: mother and daughter
world wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – both fawn and grey

 

SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1921, 5*, ageing, blossom, glass, green, grey, hair, leaves, plum, Spring, white, William Carlos Williams

                                SPRING

                O my grey hairs!
                You are truly white as plum blossoms.

 

 

 

                                LINES

                Leaves are greygreen,
                the glass broken, bright green.

 

from Sour Grapes, 1921
there is a beauty to ageing, there is a crack to glass; which cannot be appreciated until one has shifted at right angles to the time it takes or the import it hasn’t

 

 

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

blossom wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
glass wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye
green & leaves & Spring wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
grey wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – both fawn and grey
hair wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
white wormhole: we held cold hands
William Carlos Williams wormhole: THURSDAY by William Carlos Williams

 

behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye

Tags

2017, 6*, abdomen, avenue, being, boundary, doing, eye, frame, glass, gold, heart, hill, house, Knole Park, nude, oak, sky, sound, stone, thought, vista, walls

                there was the house on the higher land
                with vista up to avenues of higher sky
                and generations of oak rolling downhill

                the rough stone frame between thought
                and act, the lattice glass through which
                to understand where we are

                then the oak crack plank and creak
                that bridge the languid nude that
                curves all known boundary

                and the chiselled abdomen and arm
                that built between what is always there
                and at the heart the restored crushed

                gold tumbling about event that never
                happens and continues not to behind
                glass walls and wan and hooded eye

 

Knole House

 

 

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

abdomen wormhole: AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!
being wormhole: so where have I got:
doing wormhole: polystyrene / boulderscape
glass wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
gold wormhole: the too big moon
house wormhole: looking ahead
oak wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
sky & sound wormhole: chuckling
stone wormhole: is this it // all the time
thought wormhole: stuck in lower realm
walls wormhole: ‘when travelling astrally …’

 

green and / luminant / to behold

Tags

2012, 5*, balance, being, breakdown, coffee, communication, diagram, distance, ears, eyes, father, fingers, fracture, gardening, gathering, glass, green, holiday, home, listening, looking, luminous, people, school, service station, society, suit, summer, table, talking, terrace, thinking, thumb, woman, work

                                first day summer
                                holiday service station
                                100 miles away from
                                home thinking I
                                don’t fit in with the
                                way things
                                are played

                always looking
                                fractured
                                cracked
                                                from in at the side

                                green and
                                luminant
                                to behold

                                on the terrace
                                two businessmen sit
                                with ledgers coffees
                                the woman listening

                to one
                                                to the other

                                agreeing
                                the diagram
                                on the table

                                the elder sits back
                                dark suit large ear
                                plump throat tanned
                                skin upturned hand
                                emphasising gently
                                beside the diagram
                                thumb to fingers

                slightly gathering
                                like a father
                                                like a gardener

                                occasionally
                                talking with
                                still young
                                green eyes

 

 

 

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

balance wormhole: ‘still …’
breakdown & society wormhole: after all
coffee & woman & work wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
communication wormhole: Infantino KO
eyes wormhole: two profiles
father wormhole: looking ahead
glass & people wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
green & looking & thinking wormhole: Batgirl –
holiday wormhole: when the rain has settled / the dust
listening wormhole: buttercups
school wormhole: step
table wormhole: immeasurable love
talking wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?

 

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

 

Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles

Tags

2014, 3*, coffee shop, father, glass, Jon, Lewes, looking, posture, shirt, shop, son, streets

                Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles

                ‘fat            nervous            stupid            rich’

                in the side-glass entrance to the shop
                I watch down the street two men
                amble up the street – same shirt
                same posture they both turn to
                look in a shop window fat nervous
                stupid and rich

 

 

 

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

coffee shop & father & Jon & Lewes wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III
glass wormhole: 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
looking wormhole: the sitting room
posture wormhole: !
streets wormhole: I turn to wake up

 

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

 

Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything

Tags

2017, 7*, angel, circle, clock, doing, everything, glass, lifetimes, light, nothing, Salisbury Cathedral, speech, statue, stone, time

                Salisbury Cathedral

                angels fizz and jagger touch
                a single flame of tongue

                the oldest working clock
                shows no time anymore;

                so much empty stone
                so many lives lost

                only coloured light of lineage
                and majesty keeping inward –

                so much hopeful effort frozen
                in faraway stare outwards –

                curlicue ends of stone form
                perfect circles of nothing

                suspended in everything

 

 

there is nothing ventured that gain doesn’t think it so, there is everything gained by staying in the centre of the circle; read the whole sequence as it hangs unearthly in space: in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …

 

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

doing wormhole: nothing significant
glass wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
lifetimes wormhole: Open – All – Ours
light wormhole: darkness
speech & stone & time wormhole: stone

 

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