ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …

Tags

2016, 8*, being, breathing, child, clothes, colour, comics, despair, Dorian Gray, emperor, exclamation, exposed, flowers, Granada, hope, identity, inspiration, light, love, mantra, model, phrase, portrait, Prajnaparamita, rain, rainbow, realisation, retirement, secret, seeing, self, self-containment, self-image, speech, step, thread, tragedy, vanity, wandering, words, world

 

 
le mot just
the piquant phrase
                                         the simple model rising magnificent
                                         from cavalcades
                                         of stoic tumbling

                                         threads through like
                                         weave which clothes me
                                         presentable to the world …

                                         but no one sees the
                                         emperor’s clothes of
                                         such fine thread it cannot
                                         be seen, no wise child
                                         to point and exclaim
                                         the hang and drape
                                         to put an end to all step –
                                         “look, mummy, that man
                                           is not an emperor!”

 

 
less than naked
I am seen right through
                                         adrift of discourse
                                         I step with stubborn countenance,
                                         all the better to
                                         stare myself into existence,

 

 
awkward and
hidden away in some attic
                                         lest I lose [what I haven’t
                                         got] self-contained in trembling
                                         vanity, secretive in hope
                                         of things to come, desparate
                                         in tragedy that my grimy
                                         portrait might be seen …

 

 
wander, wander
around the flowers, smell
                                         their colour, breathe their
                                         light and let the light rain
                                         fall in shards of rainbow,
                                         cleansing with love –

 

 

 
                      om     ga – te     ga – te
                                      pa – ra – ga – te
                                                      pa – ra – sam – ga – te
                                                                      bo – dhi     so – ha

 

retirement #3 when in Granada … visit the Alhambra, and visit the Generalife gardens … [if you have booked up to three months ahead]; on the walk up to the palaces are trees and shrubs which are plenty-watered by sprinklers, in the morning sun the sprays will often catch a rainbow at their edge; the bordered captions in the poem are comic-conjunctives, there is a beginning, middle and end being told here, folks; 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!”; but what’s ‘gone’: “the slings and arrows of outrageous romance” … of one’s self and the whole world positioned awkward to placate its mewling little story, as stolen by Joni Mitchell, who was talking too much at the time, from ‘Willy the Shake’;

 

 

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

being wormhole: pocket
breathing wormhole: within
child & light wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy
comics wormhole: chartless …
identity wormhole: not / the Catcher
love wormhole: love and precision
rain wormhole: monument to vainglory
realisation wormhole: passing below
seeing wormhole: con / sum / mate
speech wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
words wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …
world wormhole: the skyline

 

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embodying

Tags

'scape, 2016, 6*, Alahambra, cherub, gods, Granada, passing, people, pigeons, shell, sound, stone, talking, walking, water, waterfall

                constant éclat and smack
                from spout of god or shell

                of cherub avec fraças and
                badinage of flowing passersby

                who pause in declaratory
                language among nodding

                pigeons, lap outwards to
                swell the trough, embodying

                under plinth and pillar
                of warm carved stone

 

 

 

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

passing wormhole: passing below
people & walking wormhole: this sodden land
pigeons wormhole: portrait: / two pigeons
sound wormhole: balance
stone wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
talking wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …
water wormhole: happen//ing

 

familiasyncopation

Tags

2016, 7*, apartment, baby, breeze, brother, cactus, children, cotton, family, father, Granada, laughing, meal, passing, portrait, running, sound, streets, sun, Sunday, talking, tragedy, uncle, walls

                                familiasyncopation

                                down
down in the narrow streetways of the Gran Realjo of always sunny Granada

                                                                clak
                                                vacuum clak whines
                                quickly clak scrapescrape around
                the ap – clak – ment

                light cotton cloth hangs
                                back into the room
                                                hangs
                                                relents
                                                hangs                hangs

                family
                                sits
                                                variably
                                                                for the
                                                                                meal
                father’s sentence – chairscrape –
                                ri – co – ch – e – t – s
                                                around four walls
                                                                in warm and all-inclusive statemental embrace                
                                                                                and continues – despite interruptions – all the while                

                children lament a chasing game
                                of plakplak sandals
                                with surprising tragedy
                                                in the street below an uncle

                pushing the baby
                                half on the pebbles                from time to time
                                                “a^hahahaha … herrr”
                                                                talks staccato with his brother

                light cotton cloth
                                billowing out, not quite
                                                          not quite
                                                snagging
                                on the cactus

                leans back into the room

 

the title runs together the Spanish word for family (which ends in the useful prefix ‘a’ which links) with syncopation to provide a gloriously arrhythmic portrait of a family meeting for midday dinner on a Sunday through the wide open windows of the apartiemento; I’m not even sure if all the noises I heard were from the same family, but that doesn’t matter, they were, they were;

 

 

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

breeze wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs
family wormhole: ‘field of corn …’
father wormhole: Doctor Strange III – the needs of billions
passing wormhole: industrial estate
sound wormhole: … swap round
streets & walls wormhole: passersby
sun wormhole: woven-through
Sunday wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Olly
talking wormhole: sleep now
uncle wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – from arm to nature, doing nothing

 

this aching // and spacious dichotomy

Tags

2016, 8*, air, architecture, cathedral, child, echo, emptiness, family, God, Granada, height, identity, light, location, Moses, name, nationality, song, sound, statues, teaching, tourism, windows

                oh, what have you done
                this, the way that it is

                made to location
                twenty pillars tall

                costing absolute
                tourism for the upkeep

                so many nationalities
                to come find themselves

                awed and reduced
                by the very quieted echoes

                that they themself have
                made; this the way to

                make the cross,
                child, no, this first,

                here are the names
                to find your family

                and this is the song
                in disciplined arpeggio

                there the pipes to
                sculpt the air

                all everywhere the figures
                for to know your place

                and there – thank God –
                the windows to let the

                light to see within to
                bridge this aching

                and spacious dichotomy

 

written sitting in the Cathedral in Granada – no speaking please; the second line right-angles the “I AM WHO I AM” given to Moses from the Burning Bush when Moses asked ‘who shall I say sent me?’ … unqualified existence, self-am-ing existence, made cathedral; also posted the morning when Donald Trump was elected President …

 

 

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

air wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – A Sign of the Times
cathedral wormhole: Saturday
child wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs
echo wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
emptiness wormhole: Prajnaparamita // Maitreya
family wormhole: chartless …
identity wormhole: beepbeep
light wormhole: the skyline
sound & windows wormhole: … swap round
teaching wormhole: [once a] dilemminal [always a dilemminal]

 

passersby

Tags

2016, 6*, architecture, artist, blue, buildings, façade, 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_________________________________|—–

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

 

just one, open, nerve,

Tags

2016, 6*, ageing, avidhya, Granada, identity, life, nerve, opaque, realisation, self, self-compassion, sense of self, the Three Poisons

                      I have a self
                      it is my self

                      a little capsule
                      grown in life –

                      whenever I noticed
                      every time I didn’t
                      each time I wouldn’t

                      a sliver at first
                      twisted once
                      but never looped

                      back to feed,
                      no helix to hold,
                      just one, open, nerve,

                      preserved in cartilage
                      opaque: hit it
                      you bounce, cut it

                      you slip, ignore it
                      it withers leaving
                      a baggy sheath

                      time now, quickly,
                      to make amends

                      time now
                      to connect the ends

 

 

 

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

life & realisation wormhole: moment
identity wormhole: new-found love – poewieview #36

 

and here I am

Tags

2016, 5*, alchemy, contain, Granada, karma, pot, questioning, rebirth, recipe, self, talking to myself, travelling

                and here I am again all
                shiny and buffed clean

                from wherever I came from
                before and slowly tarnishing

                from burn and deposit
                especially in the edges

                forgetting to just contain
                and allow the alchemy

                to happen with upright
                ethical gleam and wanting

                all the while to question the
                whole purpose of recipe

 

 

 

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

talking to myself wormhole: moment
travelling wormhole: travel

 

magnificent salad

Tags

2016, 5*, acceptance, Alhambra, almonds, apple, being, blue, brown, coffee, colour, custard, embracing, Granada, green, holiday, lime, morning, oil, openness, orange, peach, prunes, red, salad, table, time, walking, yellow

                magnificent salad

                you take diced red and yellow apple
                and sliced melocotone flesh
                a few dark-shredded prunes and a
                sprinkle of roasted abrezia nuts

                a lightwood table top to eat from
                in the lo-fat custard (with hint of lime
                from the pulled curtain) apartamiento
                and the blood-orange shirt discarded

                from the morning’s walk, in the burnt
                orange street of a constant 30º Granada
                of a currently perpetual 2 pm, then
                just a twist of no-tickets to the Red

                Castle all week; a cup of milky coffee
                waiting, but not before I drink the
                run-off olive oil and soy sauce from
                the green and bluely leafed plate

 

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: and smile / like a bud
being wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35
blue wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
brown & red & yellow wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
coffee wormhole: quick inventory after coffee
green & walking wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – A Sign of the Times
holiday wormhole: Granada holiday …
lime wormhole: AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!
morning & table wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Safe Home
oppenness wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
orange wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs
time wormhole: moment

 

Granada holiday …

Tags

2016, Granada, holiday, publishing, retirement, September, Spain, writing

OK maties; during the last two weeks of September I was on holiday in Granada in the south of Spain with my good pal and wife, Carol; it is the first holiday we have been able to take outside of the school holidays for 29 years, but now that I am retired we’ll holiday in all sorts of times and places; it was also noticeable because I was able to write some good stuff which I am excited about as it’s always good to have it reaffirmed that you’ve still ‘got it’ as you get older …

I’ve also stumbled into the middle of an idea which is quite intriguing me: in the tourist shops were some ‘librettas’, note books, really, with nice Granada-y covers; I bought one for myself to have as a notebook to write poems while I’m out and about, but then it occurred to me to ‘write a book’, just like that; it’s an alternative to publishing and revives the art of writing by hand: I will write out a collection of my poems – those written in Granada and those ‘affiliated’ as I find them – into the book, in my best handwriting, nicely spaced and arranged, an edition of … one, only and unique; it will take a few months (240 pages), and then I will give it to someone who wants it; and then do another if I enjoy it

… now if that’s not self-publishing, I don’t know what is

meanwhile, coming up next is a fresh poem written in Granada …

 

 

 

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

holiday wormhole: travel
publishing wormhole: bloogying
writing wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35