reading // unstirred

Tags

2011, 6*, dissolving, growth, homoeopathy, letting go, reading, study, teaching, university, words, world

reading

haven’t got the energy to study anymore
university and teaching knocked that out of me
feels unwholesome now
over-eating
over-chewing

                far better now
                to read without trace without
                wholesale shopping and let the worlds*
                flavour my mind homoeopathically the way
                I would always have preferred but that now
                I can just let dissolve like cordial in water

                                                                                 unstirred

 

* sic

 

 

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

letting go 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
reading wormhole: Granada and other poems … continued
study wormhole: ashramas
teaching wormhole: while
university wormhole: Grizedale College
words & world wormhole: south horizon

 

hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?

Tags

1992, black, blue, brown, cave, cliff, clothes, coat, doors, echo, eyes, falling, green, grey, groundlessness, growth, home, house, identity, Joe, kitchen, light, mauve, mist, mother, path, pink, planet, pointlessness, quotidian, red, school, searching, silence, sky, sound, story, streets, tea, time, voices, waves, world, wormhole, yellow

every day David would come home from school, and his mum would ask him how it went and he would say it was fine although he always wondered to himself what it would be like if he had a day at school which was worthwhile, and whether he would notice it if it happened; then he would have a cup of tea which his mum made him and he would do a hundred other similar things until he went to bed that night; and he wondered why it was that he had been doing this for years without any change when he noticed that the path leading to his front door didn’t in fact lead to his front door anymore but ownwards like a cliff-path, under the house and curling away into what seemed like a great underground cavern which was so big that it was like a world and the celing was so high that it seemed like a sky, although you could see it; his house was just there on a ledge on the side of a huge cliff, the street where he lived just wasn’t there, anymore; “do you want a cup of tea, luvvey?” sang his Mum from the kitchen window; “in a minute, Mum, I’m a little, busy, at the moment, I’m looking for the town where I used to live”; “OK, dear, but don’t stay out too long”; “Aaaaaaaargh!!!” said David, for quite a few minutes when he missed his footing on a pebble and fell over the edge of the path and down, a surprisingly long way without bumping into the side of the cliff at all, when he started realising that it was pointless – and a little silly really – him saying “Aaaaargh” when there was no one in possible sight anywhere around in this huge cave, what was the point, in saying anything?, so he stopped, but, as he looked below him, he could see, gradually, more clearly, a great blueness coming into sight as he fell, as if clearing through mist, with green patches, here and there, and yellow and grey streaks, and some more waves if you really looked; and David began thinking how pointless it was to describe the sea as “blue” when if you really looked you could see all sorts of colours in it, and he set himself the challenge of trying to find, really different colours that you wouldn’t expect to find in the sea, and after a while – as he fell and fell for ages as if he had jumped from an aeroplane – he saw a pink which quickly turned into a bit of red then mauve then blue and then the sleeve of the old man shifted as he took the pot off the fire to serve up the tea and the colours of his coat changed again in the half-light so that David couldn’t tell if it was black or brown or blue, anyway he was looking forward to his tea because it smelt richer and thicker than he had noticed it before but the man wasn’t offering him any and poured himself a cup only, besides David noticed that the man was growing larger but that the room wasn’t getting cramped by him; the man was now, probably, fifty feet tall and the sounds of his moving coat and his supping of the tea were starting to sound echoey; oh, no, it was David! he seemed to be shrinking, faster and faster, his clothes had long since ceased to be on him but around him and then he was lost in a huge valley between his shirt collar and the shoulder of his shirt and then there was a small hole at his feet which grew quickly so that he clung to one side of it to stop himself falling in but the edge of the hole became thicker and flatter so that it was smooth and there was nothing more to hold onto, so he wasn’t holding anymore, and he expected himself to be falling, but everything around him just seemed to be going away from him in all directions into blackness, when from out from nothing something seemed to come towards him, huge, with great speed, that he expected it to make a great rushing sound but it didn’t, it was totally silent, it was a planet, a planet so big that it make his legs wobble, coming straight for him, getting larger and larger so that it filled everywhere around him but it never seemed to hit, so he closed his eyes; after a while he told himself that he may as well see the End so he opened his eyes and the planet was gone, there were just dancing lights zipping round and round him so quickly that if he looked back along where they came from they would whip round so quick that he would see them a hundred times every inch he moved his eyes and eventually they went so fast he could just see bands of light surrounding him; as he travelled toward the centre, and the front door opened, the sun, which was low and had caught in the glass in the door and sent a dazzling piece of light straight into his eye, whizzed halfway around the horizon and disappeared behind some trees and the houses opposite and his Mum’s face, “hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?”

 

written for my eldest child when he was young

 

 

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

black & mother wormhole: Doctor Strange III – the needs of billions
blue & eyes & sky wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – gull circling out at sea
brown & echo & red & yellow wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs
doors wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
green & mist & sound & voices wormhole: 1967
grey & kitchen wormhole: weight of high sash windows – poewieview #33
groundlessness & pointlessness wormhole: Jericho
house wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
identity & world wormhole: lonely and free
light wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
mauve & pink wormhole: my seat // now
path wormhole: 50 mph
school wormhole: Teaching career: much like Monet’s ‘Impression: soleil levant’ or, in the long run, de Chirico’s ‘The Red Tower’
searching wormhole: substance
silence & streets wormhole: Life on Mars? – poewieview #31
time wormhole: even / a second
waves wormhole: inbreath

 

Doctor Strange III – the needs of billions

Tags

2012, 5*, black, canyon, Clea, Dormammu, Dr Strange, father, generation, growth, Have, humanity, life, mother, nuclear, power, reaching, society, son, Steely Dan, unstable, veins, walls, words, world, yellow

 

 

 

                                a colossus
strides effortless across canyons and generation
                fed by the needs of billions
                                engorged enough to consume itself nucleic
                                it speaks with flaming head
                                              unstable
                                too much
                                              too much that it will disperse itself even as it reaches,
                the needs of billions
                                              flooded through a world of veins like
                                                                        pumped
                                                                        yellow
                                                                        fat
                                the mother is bound the father is blind
                                              and only all the words of worlds
                                                                        will speak
                                              while Strange and Devotion
                                                                        expand through dimensions
                                grown alarmingly through the stages of their lives
                                              quickly for to get there

                                                                        wanting
                                                                        it      all
                                                                        the son
                                              sits ‘by the blackened wall
                                                                        he does it all, he thinks he’s died        
                                                                                            and gone to heaven’*

 

* from The Royal Scam, The Royal Scam, 1976, Steely Dan

have you seen the second trailer for the coming Doctor Strange movie – you see: it’s coming, expanding through the dimensions –

 

 

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

black wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
Dr Strange & Have & power & society & world wormhole: Doctor Strange II – … things are the same again
father & mother wormhole: Elektra
life wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
walls & yellow wormhole: what life went on
words wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Olly

 

Elektra

Tags

1986, 2015, architecture, being, Bill Sienkiewicz, blue, breeze, creation, Elektra, fall, father, Frank Miller, green, grey, grin, growth, guru, identity, infrastructure, inheritance, institution, life, mother, shame, skin, slate, smile, sound, thought, woman, world

 

 

 

                                                                                    Elektra

                                spidery fronds shidder in the
                                green breeze; the father is shot

                                impotent on his own boat the
                                mother is shot to birth; this is

                                important; looking strangely
                                like my creator I inherit the

                                shame of the father’s life, I
                                inherit the life of my mother;

                                responsible to neither, formed
                                by both; I have inherited

                                nothing, grown to reconcile
                                in a hundred different ways

                we

                                are institutionalised to the
                                very skin of our being by

                                the grin of care that keeps
                                us innocent and pure; that

                                paternal smile that gives no
                                light or warmth, rictus-like

                                everywhere in the infrastructure
                                and architecture (you took care

                                out from me, poppa,
                                and I never really spoke again)

                                stuck in the slate-grey
                                world of green and sickly

                                blue; I learn that I need to grow
                                and I find someone who

                                beats the father and the
                                mother from me with a stick –

                                it hurts, but it finally breaks me
                                when I learn to just
                                                         fall
                                                         by
                                                         my
                                                         self
                                                         with
                                                         no
                                                         safe
                                                         ty, no
                                                         iden
                                                         tity

 

from the 1st issue of Elektra: Assassin, 1986, by Frank Miller & Bill Sienkiewicz

 

 

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

being wormhole: substance
blue & grey wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
breeze & green & mother & sound & thought wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
father wormhole: 1968
identity wormhole: ashramas
life wormhole: the figure “46” / in frosted glass
smile wormhole: between thoughts
woman wormhole: Hotel Room, 1931
world wormhole: the / bright yellow / world

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – the soft canticle of the gourds:

Tags

'scape, 1783, 1967, 2016, 8*, balloon, beginning, Bois de Boulnogne, breathing, circle, clouds, colour, creativity, dark, death, distance, earth, end, Eternity, eyes, fate, glass, gourds, green, growth, heart, humanity, identity, letter, life, light, line, machine, Mars, meadow, Milky Way, name, now, numbers, oak, orange, pattern, questioning, shape, silence, solar system, song, space, speech, speed, stars, table, the Boats of Vallisneria, thought, time, toad, uncle, universe, windows, wood, yellow

 

 

 

a bowl of gourds on the dark-wood table
before the window before the paddock to the
piggery, unadorned, and cultivated through
chance and heel, forgotten beside the trellis;

a bowl of colour and varied shape: Bishop’s
Mitre, Red Turk’s Cap; one looks like the
old orange toad who lives behind the
water butt and likes to be called Bebe;

but the Montgolfiere balloon of yellow
and green took me up through slated
cloud in 1783 from the Bois de Boulogne,
so came the silence on the way to the stars

such a time away at ions of eyes per hour,
rivulets in tributary down the inside of the
flask by letter and equation far beyond my
jiggery and pokery, round ticket through

time …   I breathed in back from the mass
so distant that its light would never return,
back in through milky way and system,
faster than any quantum of backward light,

back past giants and Mars, back into
Earth’s sweet atmosphere and the waiting
bowl brimming with the circles and undulate
trajectory of every plot surmised beyond

my paned windows; where meadow fescue
curves like blackened oak and manual
labour, abhorrent of vacuum and straightened
line (those harbingers of discontinuance):

they almost screamed at me, “This is now,
this is NOW;” mind confined by time grades
eternity by linear thought which always
misses the soft canticle of the gourds:

                                                                      “So man, upon his world so great
                                                                      Has always wanted to create
                                                                      Machines which, started once will never
                                                                      Cease but carry on for ever.

                                                                      Yet all the time O foolish man,
                                                                      You’re merely part of that great plan,
                                                                      A tiny part, hast thou not seen
                                                                      This wondrous universe machine?

                                                                      This motion so perpetual
                                                                      Is the universe and all
                                                                      That lies beyond in time and space,
                                                                      E’en down to us, the human race.

                                                                      There’ll be no end, there was no start,
                                                                      There is no shape therefore no heart.
                                                                      And to create it doth aspire
                                                                      To use the debris of its ire.

                                                                      Poor mortal look deep in your heart
                                                                      And realise that you’re just a part
                                                                      Of that which knows no boundaries,
                                                                      Heeds not your trivial quandaries.

                                                                      Servants of the cosmos vow
                                                                      To play your part and take your bow,
                                                                      Or servants you will always be –
                                                                      Until you die, ‘tis then you’re free.”

 

read the collected work as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to : The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Bowl of Gourds

 

 

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

breathing wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Contents
clouds & creativity & green & life & oak & orange & silence & space & stars & thought & uncle & yellow wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Bowl of Gourds
death & windows wormhole: the policies came to nothing
eyes wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – autumn
glass wormhole: Drug Store, 1927
identity & light & time wormhole: tired
speech wormhole: constant hummm
wood wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – introdepthion

Tags

1967, 2016, contact, currents, dark, diagram, floating, growth, identity, kiss, knowledge, life, light, London, movement, opening, pattern, perspective, petals, roots, soil, stanza, surface, swimming, the Boats of Vallisneria, uncle, vallisneria, waiting, war, water, waves, work, writing

 

 

 

                                introdepthion

                                filigree roots dissimulate the soil
                                at the bottom of shallow waters
                                (like a diagram – no contact, with
                                 sheath of border); a stalk will grow

                                through water, sure twists towards
                                the light; on the surface petals will
                                open wide without shame and wait
                                for the floret to rise from the bract

                                then release just three boats for to
                                float the potent cargo where the
                                movement of water will hazard the
                                inexorable kiss; but there is no

                                morphology or physiology of
                                vallisneria, only certain quest from
                                darkness to light, and the surface-
                                knowledge retrieved back; I am

                                a Londoner born through war to
                                work the land to look for pattern in
                                life to make, trusting it is there to
                                swim through, but lost in currents

                                to and `fro with only adventitious
                                and god-like perspective when I
                                contemplate in four-line stanza …
                                sometimes

 

read the collected work as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to : The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Introduction

 

 

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

1967 & life & uncle & work wormhole: The Boats of Vallesneria by Michael J. Redford – Autumn Thoughts
identity & knowledge & light & London & water & writing wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Introduction
waiting wormhole: and that’s where I are
war wormhole: the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford
waves wormhole: Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20

 

furl-reach

Tags

'scape, 2014, blue, branches, green, grey, growth, horizon, leaf, life, reaching, sky, slate, tree, wind

 

 

 

                      slate-blue grey sky
                           horizontal
                      behind new-green branch
                           furl-reach

                           windswept

 

 

 

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

blue & grey wormhole: nothing to say
branches wormhole: the ancient tree
green & horizon wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
life wormhole: diligence
sky & wind wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25

 

diligence

Tags

2013, being, discernment, doing, earth, flower, garden, gardening, growth, habit, life, practice, talking to myself, writing

 

 

 

                      can so easily lose the habit
                      of writing anything at all, even
                      of no significance; easy to

                      develop a discerning nose for
                      the finer things of life, that I would
                      end up with dry hard earth to show

                      for all my obsessive weeding rather
                      than the diligence of practice which
                      grows fit to flower when it will

 

 

 

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

being & life & practice wormhole: Jericho
doing & writing wormhole: the both passive and transitive / non-presumptive pre-conceptualist attenuation of being
garden wormhole: work
talking to myself wormhole: the writing’s on the wall

 

dry rot

Tags

2012, anger, breakdown, broken, care, career, creation, culture, decision, disregard, giving, growth, illness, management, managerialism, resentment, speech, survival, teaching, thought, work

 

 

 

                                dry rot

                                still

                resentment sets in
                                I go to work anyway
                but the resentment is always there
                                I create resources I mark books
                                I teach lessons
                but the resentment is always there
                                I do my fucking duty
                                I do an extra parent’s evening
                but the resentment is always there
                                some manager asks how I am
                                I tell them I survive
                                              (but I don’t tell them
                                               I don’t thrive –
                                               `not quick enough)
                but the resentment is always there

                I offered my thought
                               my creation
                               my care
                because I nurtured growth
                              I cultured way
                              I wanted to give

                                AND YOU PAUSED
                IN YOUR BUSY-NESS AND PRESSURE
                JUST LONG ENOUGH TO GET ON
                                WITH YOUR BUSINESS AND PRESSURE TO COMPENSATE THE OH, SO, ANXIETY OF
                                MAKING THOSE TOUGH DECISIONS FOR THE SAKE OF PROGRESS (PROFIT?)
                                TO OVERLOOK

                                what I continue to think
                                what is still on the table
                                              unopened
                                but which has lost the will
                                              to project anymore

                                              you

                                              make

                                              me

                                              sick

                you made me sick
                                you created a sick teacher
                even while I attend each day
                                for the sake of absence management
                even while I create and mark
                                for the sake of growth
                even while I sit through a meeting
                                which dribbles on about ‘good to outstanding’ until it is running down your neck
                still the resentment is always there
                                sticky invisible and malignant

 

I know: we’ve heard it all before; just indulge this little toddler for a little while longer, will you; it has only slightly altered since I wrote it a good four years ago, like being in a boat on the sea, buffeted and brûlée’d, looking for where the sky becomes screen and the prow rips through it (c’mon, film buffs, what am I talking about?)

 

 

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

breakdown & management wormhole: Dear Sir/Madam,
career wormhole: need
giving wormhole: tong len / the inauguration of another – timely – butter fly effect / taking and giving
managerialism wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
speech wormhole: fine
teaching wormhole: aghh – we’ve been infected / it’s spreading through the system / we’re losing our files … / it’s taken out the processor … / I, I can’t open with this program anymore … / it’s scanning me – / I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program / from it …
thought wormhole: the both passive and transitive / non-presumptive pre-conceptualist attenuation of being
work wormhole: work

 

1963

Tags

1963, 2014, childhood, emergence, grey, growth, knowledge, name, notice, park, passing, reaching, sky, trees, winter, years

 

 

 

                                                                                 1963

                                     hand in hand
                      with noticing the tree
                           in winter
                           against the sky
                           for the first time
                      and knowing it was called tree for the
                           first time
                           came the shifting greys
                           into which
                      it reached which I didn’t notice yet
                           but would
                           inevitably
                           have to

 

 

 

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

childhood wormhole: up on the hill
emergence & sky wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23
grey wormhole: Jon
knowledge wormhole: up here
park wormhole: Saturday – poewieview #3
passing wormhole: bavardage
trees wormhole: Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
winter wormhole: com- / mute
years wormhole: 1964