long / road

Tags

1977, 6*, Abbeywood, cars, distance, horizontal, road, sound, sunlight, telegraph poles, telephone lines, vertical

                                        long
                                        road

        the bright sunlight splash-splsshd
        across the street perched

        on telegraph poles
        across telephone wires as

            cars
            ebbed
            away

 

the warp and weft of ebb from the days when some cars were painted ochre and road-traffic was already acquiring its own saturation of speed all amidst the hatching of verticals and horizontals, a heady mixture for a gazing teenager wondering not only what it was he has to do but also within which direction

 

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

cars wormhole: ‘in my car I pass…’
sound wormhole: Journey

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travel // when I die

Tags

2019, 7*, accountability, afterlife, afternoon, architecture, bardo, being, black, brick, brown, buildings, capitalism, century, clouds, crane, data, death, decades, dedication, depth, doing, echo, fields, floating, green, ground, Have, height, horizontal, identity, industry, interdependent origination, iteration, length, lintel, London, magenta, mind, notice, orange, passing, perspective, pillars, presence, purple, rain, rainbow, red, reference, ripple, rooftops, russian vine, samsara, sandstone, sapphire, self-cherishing, self-grasping, silence, sill, sky, sound, speech, Thames, thought, tide, time, train, travelling, trees, Uckfield-London line, utility, walls, white, world, writing

                                                                                travel

                                                                                noticing
                                                                at all is a product of
                                                                shifted perspective
                                                                related to behold;

                                                                when I’ve nothing to write
                                                                I’ve lost any perspective,
                                                                cornered by both these walls
                                                                I’ve walked along

                when I die
                this mind will no longer whorl about this pinchèd self
                in a world of diminished return and profusion of iteration

                                                                cranes atop
                                                                pulling them further up and up
                                                                from the ground on which they
                                                                balance on receding point;

                                                                communities of them
                                                                each taller than the last and the next
                                                                all along the wharfs
                                                                of endless account

                it will be expansive
                high and up in industrial and sandstone sky
                it will fathom all the deep of brown kelp in shifting purple

                                                                kilometres long
                                                                courses of brick
                                                                grimed black and utility-studded
                                                                updown onoff foothold and wire

                                                                ripple along nicely
                                                                across right-angled centuries
                                                                and occasional shot bolts
                                                                of deepest russian vine

                with no sound
                save diminishing echoes of a pleading late self
                having nothing left to refer to and nothing left to here, and

                                                                believe it or not
                                                                a rainbow exponential
                                                                to the white arch of Wembley
                                                                we’ll chase for miles

                                                                orange shimmering to
                                                                magenta through staccato tides
                                                                out and over flat roofs
                                                                on and into the fields

                all data wiped –
                suds off my hands from my shoulders –
                and did I back enough up for some grander vector to reach?

                                                                where trees grow from ground
                                                                shaping over decades
                                                                green-flamed cupolas
                                                                clamped to the sky

                                                                and from perspective passing
                                                                of open field
                                                                turn – creak –
                                                                the whole world

                I may well
                have built pillars of cleverness and thought:
                plinthed, fluted, capitaled and giddyingly architraved …

                                                                and there
                                                                Lancashire red brick
                                                                with high and whitey
                                                                sills stale and lintel

                                                                before washed-out
                                                                sapphire-afternoon of steely sky
                                                                and horizontal fingers of
                                                                scud-rain

                … but they’d just
                floated there upright in space ‘neither use nor ornament’
                straining on the string in my baby-fat hands, I’ve

                                never really
                                made stuff happen
                                and didn’t have to try

                                more than let more and more
                                of stuff happening anyway
                                happen through me

 

train trip; East Sussex to London to Lancaster to Ulverston, Cumbria; where we lived for three years and started a family; stay at Swarthmore Hall; visited Conishead Priory where we lived for 18 months after marriage and graduation; notes and observations on the journey, sense of bridging 32 years of lifetime(s); notes > (maybe) two poems, but two which could nevertheless not be separate, although distinct, like train tracks; three years retired, still processing if I achieved anything in this capitalist and samsaric world …; London centuries old, still processing …; architecture as the stage-scenary of endeavour; the ‘here’ in the 9th stanza is definitely (sic); this is, positive

 

 

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

afternoon & sky wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
architecture & thought wormhole: “And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”
being wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
black & sky wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
brown & green & walls wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
buildings & crane & rain & red & speech wormhole: riders of the night
capitalism wormhole: `whappn’d!
clouds wormhole: at Kreukenhof
death & identity wormhole: psssssh
doing wormhole: writening
echo & mind & passing & sound & time wormhole: – creak —
Have wormhole: on facing the Have
London wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – An Old Piano
orange wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
purple wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
rooftops wormhole: Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896
samsara & trees wormhole: breakfast
silence wormhole: window
Thames wormhole: London, 1809
train & travelling wormhole: beneath
Uckfield-London line wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
white wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
world wormhole: none and all
writing wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later

 

despite that

Tags

1966, 2018, 6*, apartment, Batman, Batmobile, between, city, clouds, driving, falling, hats, horizontal, kerb, light, melodrama, moon, night, passing, realisation, silence, silhouette, society, speech, stairs, streets, thinking, vertical

                                despite that

                between the rear fins and
                raised front screen shield

                the case began to settle,
                and the horizontal clouds

                parted to allow the
                Vertical City silhouettes;

                ‘gee, that’s swell,’ said a
                bystander to a witness,

                ‘they have a reason to
                 drive somewhere’, vrrrmm;

                that bowler hats were off
                to work as the moon

                climbed the downpipe
                and, giantly sat over the

                steering wheel the blow
                of resolution struck, the

                apartment lights hung
                unstraight and some fell

                off silently, but really,
                and down the street –

                fin to kerb, kerb to
                bonnet – they were

                getting nowhere fast
                up the staircase

 

 

 

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

Batman & society wormhole: moon- // washed
city wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
clouds wormhole: coterminalism – there is nothing happens by itself, / 070118
light & streets wormhole: BLUEFLAGS by William Carlos Williams
moon wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
night & passing & silence & speech wormhole: only
realisation wormhole: you
silhouette wormhole: that
thinking wormhole: how to teach

 

pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria

Tags

'scape, 2016, 5*, burgundy, butter, communication, gladiolus, green, horizontal, lilac, morning, National Trust, olive, pine tree, purple, Standen, story, time, velvet, white, wisteria

                           pine

            crafted
bourough of uprise through decades
of averted event

                           gladioli

            what are the stories:
chilled petals of lilac from velveted purple
            morning buttercurls from
medicine burgundy?

                           wisteria

            networks
of unconnecting junction
necessary for combed and horizontal trail of olive and green flurry from which to hang the            
            requisite white and tinted
lilac

 

while strolling through the garden one day … at the National Trust house of Standen; I know this is a bit more summery than present-posting, but I just found the piece in a notebook and forgotten I’d written it, so, there …

 

 

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

burgundy wormhole: clouds
communication wormhole: comfy
green & white wormhole: occa / s / i // o / n / a // l // l // y
lilac wormhole: 1968
morning wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
olive wormhole: 1967
purple wormhole: south horizon
time wormhole: darkness

 

monument to vainglory

Tags

2016, 8*, abandonment, autumn, branches, breakdown, brown, career, direction, element, freedom, getting ground, ground, horizontal, identity, institution, leaves, planet, rain, reaching, retirement, teaching, wind, work, yellow

                     where am I
                     cast free here

                     where the wind resolves
                     horizontal and

                     implacable between
                     the necessary institution

                     passageways;
                     I held on

                     long as I could
                     way after I’d turned

                     glorious yellow
                     wet, brown and pasted

                     to the bifurcating
                     branch, tensile to every gust;

                     because
                     I was tired of any

                     direction at all;
                     to the ground with me,

                     then,
                     stability and whimsical reach were

                     never my natural element,
                     open out to minute

                     breakdown
                     deep

                     into a revolving planet and
                     leave (ha!) myself

                     mulched to branch
                     monument to vainglory

 

retirement #1: a significant passage in life which doesn’t have a particular rite, religious or otherwise; I have retired since the beginning of this academic year – I had a flurry of written response when I holidayed in Granada, but since then, nothing; I have not been writing much, I have been cast adrift (the end of my career was what was left after my ability to keep going in to teach at school, eventually dissolved … fizzled) …

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: beepbeep
autumn wormhole: 1964
branches wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow
breakdown wormhole: dry rot
brown wormhole: magnificent salad
career & teaching wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …
identity & work wormhole: matter
leaves wormhole: Prajnaparamita // Maitreya
rain wormhole: balance
retirement wormhole: Granada holiday …
wind wormhole: 1964
yellow wormhole: … swap round

 

and that’s where I are

Tags

2016, Aleister Crowley, alley, appearance, birch, black, Bowie, breakdown, breeze, brick, building, car park, career, Carol, cars, cats, child, church, clothes, coffee shop, creativity, decision, Diane di Prima, disappearance, down, Eastbourne, emptiness, fear, form, grey, Heart Sutra, horizontal, humanity, identity, left, leg, looking, mother, muse, others, passing, pavement, plane, posture, quantum, rebellion, right, right angle, roads, school, searching, seeing, silence, silver, sitting, sound, spire, stain, stopped, streets, talking to myself, teaching, trees, up, vertical, waiting, walking, walls, William Carlos Williams, wind, writers, writing

            inner coffee shop

            so, is writing pointless,
            just rebellion from root
            just the muscling of me
            to spite the hard fear that

            I’ll turn to stone if I look
            into her face … `spite the
            knowledge that others are
            far more brave than me?

            St. Saviour & St. Peter

            so what draws me to sit,
            after all, on the roadside
            wall across from the spire
            clear for all to see the

            even bricks buttress, cap
            and flute up so high to
            eleven storeys to, maybe,
            the single point, with run-

            down stain and grimèd
line defining plane and vertical rightened quantum to the neat, surrounding parking and the passing upright
            humans both of public
            dress and private gait

                           360º

            and then the grey cat
            strolled from some-
            where left between
            silent cars to cross the

            road right – stopped –
            t’looka’leaf ‘n’ disappear
            up on wall by tree-sniff
            stop – fence? – no,

            down be-hind th’wall
            out through th’front
            windscreen ‘n’
            downastepps t’street

            to not appear where
            expected; ‘shut’, a mother
            leads a tot from front
            door to car …
                                   … still no appearance

            … … scamper with the
            wind behind as the car
            pulls away; maybe I should
            record this wh’appened all

            around breeze, strolled –
            stopped – by the wall
            back from b’hind m’left
            enters the gateway out

            by th’alleyway (with the
            bold and naked silver birch
            I hadn’t noticed);
                                          upover
            the fence [not attempted

            before] tadaaanother cat
            black treesniff checkleft
            then … left, jumptowall,
            jump to pavementstop;

            over the road frontleg
            onelick s t r o l l s car-
            shielded; black belly-slink
            low across the road; they

            walk away both from
            sight either side of the van;
            one tail up and wiggy
            one tail fluffy with spine

            these things all of great
            importance to spite the hard fact
            of my writing them,
            old Bull Williams would have

            and that’s where I are

 

there are expanses awkward to the landscape in writing sometimes: the technique is there, the shift can be made, but the will and excitement just isn’t; I have been reading Diane di Prima’s “Recollections of My Life as a Woman”, I greatly fed off her childhood but have languoured once she got into the Work; I have been reading about Aleister Crowley’s ‘Do What Thou Wilt’ awkward plane; I have a huge project ongoing writing poewieviews to David Bowie’s oeuvre – I am going to new lands but the luggage is heavy and awkward and requiring decisions which I don’t easily make; oh, and I am off work again, feeling un-plugged in to my own practice of vocation like a forlorn state-of-the-art food mixer; I spent a morning down in Eastbourne chauffeuring my wife around like the successful carer that she is; walking; sitting in a coffee shop; snagged at St. Saviour & St. Peter Church on the corner of Spencer Road and South Street, still pondering the relationship between multifarious form and the emptiness makes it dynamic; but it wasn’t until I sat back in the waiting car and watched the chess moves of two cats in the street that I stumbled across the full quote from the Heart Sutra: “form is emptiness; emptiness is form; emptiness is no other than form, form also is no other than emptiness”; but it wasn’t until I got home and shaped it all up from scribbles to column – with my ageing black AND white cat leaning against my foot – that I wondered if I still hadn’t quite got it yet (as William Carlos Williams, the great great practicer of ‘no poetry but in things’ said); and yet it has been satisfying finding not so …

 

 

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

birch wormhole: fine droplets / across the glass
black & grey wormhole: hinged – From Hell ch. V
Bowie wormhole: Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20
breakdown & writing wormhole: nothing to write
breeze wormhole: strange / tarnish
buildings & silver & streets wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky
carer wormhole: just saying, is all IV: // lost
Carol wormhole: when in Belgium do as the chocolates do
cars wormhole: stacked
cats wormhole: new garden
child wormhole: dream 260815
church wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
coffee shop wormhole: ‘from under the awning …’
creativity & school wormhole: through
Eastbourne wormhole: along
emptiness wormhole: 1966 … actually sic // of it allllll-bsssssssh – poewieview #8
identity wormhole: dear clown’s face
looking & muse & sound wormhole: don’t look / at her eyes – poewieview #18
mother & silence wormhole: early evening
others wormhole: my // shell – poewieview #19
passing & posture wormhole: really
roads wormhole: sixty four sixty five – poewieview #1
searching wormhole: opening
seeing wormhole: where the goblins leered – poewieview #14
sitting & talking to myself wormhole: tong len / the inauguration of another – timely – butter fly effect / taking and giving
teaching wormhole: the MagOO Effect Effect
trees wormhole: Shonagh – poewieview #17
waiting wormhole: Saturday – poewieview #3
walking wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
walls wormhole: Nostalgia for Samsara – poewieview #16
[William Carlos] Williams wormhole: and then just stop
wind wormhole: keep the light off

 

quick inventory after coffee

Tags

'scape, 2013, attention, bowl, chair, coffee, computer, cups, horizontal, legs, morning, phone, spoon, time, timelessness, up, white, wires, wood, work

 

 

 

                                quick inventory after coffee

                                rear legs of the wooden chair
                                splay gently outwards to form
                                the back held apart by three

                                curved braces before the edge
                                of the desk on which rests a
                                worn wooden tray slightly

                                overhanging; beyond the slats –
                                brief shadow – and plywood
                                edges stand two cups handle

                                facing 4:30, handle facing 8:00
                                horizontal and a white bowl,
                                spoon handle leaning upwards

                                at 9:00 there are wires from the
                                computer and phones but
                                that’ll be enough for now …

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: strange / tarnish
coffee wormhole: com- / mute
morning & white wormhole: stacked
time & wood wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky
work wormhole: nothing to write

 

the warp and the plumbing

Tags

2013, business, comics, horizontal, Infantino, life, realisation, sound, speech, vertical, warp, work

 

 

 

                                              Carmine Infantino just took the job:

                                              he had already warped through negative space of horizontal
                                              he’d plumbed the vertical of realisation to the depth

                                there was a take-over
                                it’s not right but ‘we
                                were getting killed’

                “Jack¹, who’s in charge?”   “You are!”   ‘POW!’
                … POW!?   ‘How do you like that one between the eyes!’

                                ‘life takes hold …
                                takes you where
                                you don’t expect
                                to go’

                                              so the warp and the plumbing
                                              came in very useful in the end

 

¹ Jack Liebowitz, Publisher of DC Comics in the mid 1960s, gave Infantino the job of Art Director of the whole line of comics, then Editorial Director and eventually Publisher; in time he returned to his artwork once the management shifted gear to business …

 

 

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

comics wormhole: sit
[Carmine] Infantino wormhole: Detective Comics #345
life wormhole: Hotel Room, 1931
realisation wormhole: Chop Suey, 1929
sound wormhole: … the discipline of shamatha / the waft of vipashyana
speech wormhole: currency: / assent for statement – / ‘smakin’alivvin’
work wormhole: working / for a living

 

sooner or later

Tags

2014, acceptance, air, being, emergence, grass, grey, horizon, horizontal, patience, settling, sitting, submergence, sun, time, water, wind

 

 

 

                                              if I settle
                                I can look slightly upward
                                at the grasses and canes
                                              that grow from the water straight up
                                most then bend to the right folded
                                              at a certain height
                                              to point
                                a rough right angle away somewhat horizontal
                                              some bend to the left both on the right and
                                                              on the left
                                                              in the air
                                                              in the wind
                                              sometimes
                                              there is a swell
                                occasionally a squall a ball
                                                              of air that
                                              fulminates
                                and if I’m quick
                I can avoid the spume and spatter by submerging
                                              just a little more
                                and watch the amniotic greys swirl
                                                              in all their relief because
                                                              I
                                              know
                                the sun will emerge
                                                              sooner or later

 

 

 

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

acceptance & being & time wormhole: offer the victory and accept the defeat
air wormhole: ‘passing overhead …’
emergence wormhole: 1963
grey wormhole: gre[wh]y / has Daddy left us?
horizon wormhole: New York Movie, 1939
settling wormhole: exactly equal
sitting wormhole: sit
sun wormhole: Western Motel, 1957
water wormhole: I do
wind wormhole: the continental stride of trains

 

Morning in a City, 1944

Tags

'scape, 1944, 2015, being, ceiling, city, Edward Hopper, green, horizontal, morning, naked, portrait, room, sleep, sunlight, waking, windows, years

 

 

 

                                   Morning in a City, 1944

                                   in the height of a room
                                   with no ceiling, it’s alright,

                                   it’s alright to stand naked
                                   before the window and be

                                   the first to let the tilt of
                                   sunlight through lucent

                                   green form every ligament
                                   poise and fold up from some

                                   groggy horizontal; the blinds
                                   across the way are half-

                                   pulled and unconcerned
                                   staring vaguely downward

 

 

 

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

being & Edward Hopper & years wormhole: Railway Crossing, c. 1922-23
city wormhole: up here
green & sleep wormhole: gre[wh]y / has Daddy left us?
morning wormhole: dream 230315
windows wormhole: dream 260815