walk from Castleton to Hope

Tags

'scape, 2013, 5*, beech, Castleton, field, hill, holiday, leaning, leaves, mauve, oak, passing, red, river, shadow, shape, time, walking

                walk from Castleton to Hope

                                magnificent
                oak grown into its own shape
                mid-field and backdropped
                completely over and rising
                                in hill

                                then later
                walking lightly beside the
                top leaves of the beech leaning
                effortlessly over the river from the
                                other bank

                                eventually
                up ahead out from under the shadow
                a perfect red and mauve –
                … no, a couple in their holiday
                                t-shirts

 

 

 

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

Castleton wormhole: St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton
field & passing wormhole: prelude: // travel
holiday & leaves 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
mauve wormhole: 1968
oak wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – A Sign of the Times
red wormhole: greedy
river wormhole: south horizon
shadow wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
time wormhole: wakeoutofadream
walking wormhole: garden

 

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

 

holiday

Tags

2015, 5*, career, Herstmonceux Castle, holiday, identity, meaning, public service, talking to myself, teaching, tide, work, writing

                holiday

                OK, pal, you’re on holiday
                you’re supposed to be a sense-r
                making write of the world

                which tends like a tide
                to declare all need made manifest
                through all manner of glossy

                pamphlet and prestige position,
                brokering career by meeting it –
                more or less, more for less –

                you’ve no time to lose at work
                made stupid by my very placement
                and awkward to the very service

                I practise; go on with you, find the sense
                sat there at the tea shop table with
                the plastic tablecloth in the wind

 

first of a four-part triptych – you’ll have to read them all to figure how that works; all set within Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex; while I was still working as a teacher and wondering when I could have the weight of my own communication; I will publish the rest sequentially but not necessarily daily

 

 

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

career wormhole: while
holiday wormhole: magnificent salad
identity & talking to myself 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
meaning wormhole: AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!
teaching wormhole: reading // unstirred
work wormhole: Open – All – Ours
writing wormhole: breathing out

 

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

 

travel

Tags

2013, being, broken, career, fracture, holiday, identity, leisure, poem, seeing, travelling, work, world

                                                travel

                I can’t get a comfortable seat
                to see the poem, even though

                I am in newplace on holiday,
                I cannot see I cannot see

                in this world of leisure and elasticity
                because of a dream that

                delivers me broken unto the world,
                then because I cannot

                tolerate the break, I fracture from sight
     to the world

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: even / a second
career wormhole: chartless …
holiday & seeing wormhole: too late:
identity wormhole: the purple mist between
travelling wormhole: gone black
work wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Safe Home
world wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?

 

too late:

Tags

2015, blue, breathing, death, emptiness, eyes, holiday, identity, lifetimes, living, mouth, nose, seeing, sky, speech, sun, Sylvia Plath

 

 

 

                      you were not morbid
                      you were not paranoid

                      you were just awkward
                      with built-in mis-match

                      of all of our lives and
                      no hope for emergence;

                      you breathed always
                      through your eyes – so much

                      more to see – but they
                      said the nose, the mouth,

                      was more usual and
                      essential to living –

                      too late: you saw the
                      sun-bleached blue of a

                      holiday before the deep-
                      high sky of emptiness

                      and panicked

 

 

 

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

blue & sky wormhole: furl-reach
breathing wormhole: while walking
death wormhole: no one – poewieview #24
emptiness & identity & living & seeing wormhole: Jericho
eyes wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
holiday wormhole: 1968
lifetimes & sun wormhole: work
mouth wormhole: early evening
speech wormhole: dry rot
Sylvia Plath wormhole: and then just stop

 

1968

Tags

1968, 2009, abandonment, being, child, childhood, curtains, divorce, doubt, façade, father, feeling, holiday, identity, illusion, lilac, living, passing, sky, sleep, stretch, sunlight, time, timelessness, town, truth, vermillion, yawn, years

 

 

 

                                                                 1968

                      child living at rate: three months per hour
                      sat under lilac viscous sky and watched
                      the vermilion slicks form and pass; the

                      Way Things Are through which I had come
                      was no longer living with us; what I had
                      felt – under my fingernails – might not be

                      true (like the facades of towns erected
                      for a holiday) now had reference, I felt
                      no feeling, all Absolutes were off, all

                      interaction doubtful.   The child slept for
                      a week, is now stretching and yawning, a
                      new day ahead shining through curtains

 

 

 

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

1968 wormhole: quite … / … yet – poewieview #12
abandonment wormhole: 1963
being & passing & living wormhole: impressionism
child wormhole: and that’s where I are
childhood & sky wormhole: 1963
curtains wormhole: Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20
divorce wormhole: sit
father wormhole: Jon
holiday wormhole: nothing to write
identity wormhole: no one – poewieview #24
lilac wormhole: I’ve only just realised / after so many decades / that the smell of neglected land is lilac buddleia
sleep wormhole: com- / mute
time wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
vermillion wormhole: 1967
years wormhole: 1964

 

nothing to write

Tags

2014, Ashdown Forest, being, between, books, Bowie, breakdown, breathing, Dionne Warwick, holiday, New York, reading, realisation, San Francisco, work, writing

                           nothing to write

                           time off between work
                                and holiday
                           between breakthrough
                                and breakdown
                           between in-breath
                                and out-breath

                           stuck between reading
                                several books
                           stuck between Bowie
                                and Warwick
                           stuck between the ruts
                                of Ashdown Forest
                                now that it is dry
                           always stuck between New York
                                and San Francisco
                           not knowing which way to turn

 

 

 

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

Ashdown Forest wormhole: I survived
being wormhole: the sounds of 1969 // [would have] seemed that way – poewieview #13
books wormhole: Grizedale College
Bowie wormhole: where the goblins leered – poewieview #14
breakdown wormhole: the MagOO Effect Effect
breathing wormhole: gentle
Dionne Warwick wormhole: 1963
holiday wormhole: ‘green plum jam on rye …’
reading wormhole: bookmark
realisation wormhole: the warp and the plumbing
work wormhole: seventy two, perhaps – poewieview #9
writing wormhole: a little bit of love / and muffle

 

‘green plum jam on rye …’

Tags

2015, bread, butter, eating, eggs, Gran Canaria, green, haiku, holiday, jam

 

 

 

                                          green plum jam on rye
                                and butter and a very occasional
                                    egg

 

 

 

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

green wormhole: sit
haiku[esque] wormhole: ‘passing overhead …’
holiday wormhole: hungry for a thread or two