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

 

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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

 

the Growing Man

Tags

1969, 2015, Avengers, defining, eyes, institution, notice, perspective, quantum, Roy Thomas, Sal Buscema, society, square

 

 

 

                                   the Growing Man

                                   always amid the
                                   square and receding tiling
                                   the little figure
                                   is never noticed

                                   until he acts
                                   quantum to right angle
                                   where he is found
                                   growing perspective

                                   so that no matter
                                   what you throw at him
                                   he will include it all ill-
                                   defined until it steps

                                   with glazed eyes through
                                   three-storey intstitution
                                   oblivious to the falling
                                   masonry all around

 

 

 

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

eyes wormhole: Soir Bleu, 1914
society wormhole: the Conqueror

 

– sigh! –

Tags

2014, attention, awareness, balance, being, Bodhichitta, confession, conscientiousness, dark, dharma, doing, effort, emptiness, faces, giving, identity, India, institution, jewel, joke, living, meditation, Nalanda, paramitas, patience, posture, practice, realisation, Shantideva, sitting, sky, society, speech, step, talking, voices, vow, wisdom, words

 

 

 

                                – sigh! –

they built the throne high
                homage to the words which reach to the sky
                                homage to the words which dissolve into sky
                                              due and proper

                they built it too high
                                              with no steps
                                              with no steps!
                                                              the worst sort of idolatry
                                              all homage and no practice
                                all industry and no yield
                all protocol and no truth
                realisation stuck in amber
                                              the way of all institutions with walls

                                they seek to expose indolence
                as earnestly as if it were true practice
                                              for the sake of the Teaching
                                they would renounce even eating sleeping and defecating
                                              for the sake of all beings
                                the Teaching cannot be besmirched

                                              wide sky everywhere
                but it is so dark …

                                              the throne is not high
                                I am not low
                                              I shall sit on the throne
                                I shall sit on the floor
                                              shall I give them a talk
                                or shall I talk
                                              I shall talk

                of jewels in refuse
                     and refuse in hiding
                          of vows to pause
                               and pause to keep finding
                                    of finding to step
                                         and stepping with poise
                                              of poise to balance
                                                   and balance to sit
                                                        of the sky the sky the sky
                                                             of the sky and everything

                look at their faces –
                                some of them got my jokes
                                              (a few of them saw them coming)
                most looked around the place to see where my voice was coming from –
                                all of them are so perfect
                                              but variously blind

                                              anyway
                                I’m off to the South now … oh!
                                                              I never left!

 

if you’ve made it all the way down here it might make fuller sense if read before or after this, or this, or this; or it might not, or it might both alternately, or it might neither permanently; either way, or not, I am happy to have propagated the name of Shantideva

 

 

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

attention wormhole: sunny morning
awareness wormhole: no biggie:
balance & voices wormhole: should is good when / too used to cruise
being & doing & emptiness & realisation wormhole: that
Bodhichitta 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
faces wormhole: tag cloud poem VII – form new freedom:
giving wormhole: the utter beauty of giving when receiving
identity & living & sky & speech & talking wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
meditation wormhole: posture
posture wormhole: smiling
practice wormhole: poessay IX – … just saying, is all II
Shantideva wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
sitting wormhole: there are patient listeners
society & words wormhole: Dr Strange III – the needs of billions

 

clouds

Tags

'scape, 2013, 8*, Ashdown Forest, black, blue, branches, breath, breeze, buildings, burgundy, cars, clouds, cream, dark, earth, future, gods, grass, green, grey, Have, history, horizon, humanity, institution, leaves, life, lifetimes, light, living, monuments, open, passing, red, silence, silhouette, sky, society, talking, time, trees, wind, windows, words

            clouds

            in the 23rd century
will we live in neighbourhoods in the air
clustered around structures huge and bulbous like a
            frozen mushroom cloud

            and will we populate
in tribes and drift in loose affiliation
orchestrated across the vast and barren
            sky or

            will the nations
drift as décor and dissipate as culture
as the wind gets up and reveals glimpses of
            blue sky behind

            will the trees
stand rooted shuffling and shrugging
to provide perspective and direction
            of green silhouette

            and will the tiny
clusters of red berry just fall
or cling to the branch-squalls
            for later in life?

            in the 23rd century
will we forget our distant history far and
bluish on the horizon with hints of cream edgings
            to suggest event

            while distinct-coloured
burgundies and greys and blacks and even blues
once made their one-tracked progress passing on
            to somewhere?

            in the 23rd century
will we look at the grasses and thistles all across each other
under the great and wide and ever-present breeze and remember fondly
            the meeting halls where we talked

            will the old monuments
that talk silent of root and branch long and broad across the lands
have lost their leaves by now and wave to the sky, their windows
            see-through and open?

            in the 23rd century
will we live in all the words we wrote and sent to the skies
and remember only the ridges and valleys of the
            slow-turning earth and

            will our discourse
be shared to saturation and have no need of reach
or distance or hopeful-expression but drift along always
            in magnificent cluster?

            in the 23rd century
will we wonder lonely – in our silence – if light
has sound and dark has colour if far has breath
            and close has taste

            and will we listen
to the dappled pebble and graze the newgreen grassandbracken
and feel that we have done this all before but cannot
quite remember when we gaze upwards to where
            the gods must live?

 

 

 

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

Ashdown Forest & clouds wormhole: wraggle of architecture
black wormhole: new garden
blue & grass & passing wormhole: all the while / the flagpole rope / occasionally flaps / the breeze
branches wormhole: more importantly
breath wormhole: Saturday
breeze & horizon & living & sky wormhole: swifts test the chasm of sky
buildings wormhole: tired – diptych
burgundy & windows wormhole: the strange mauve relief of / this burgundy-gritty encounter
cars wormhole: we // walk
green & life wormhole: jagged panel
Have wormhole: waiting
history wormhole: how ironic
leaves wormhole: the sun / in a clean / industrial / sky
lifetimes wormhole: 32 years
light wormhole: thar she perched
open wormhole: the pleasant land / of counterpane
red wormhole: to share
silence & wind wormhole: (Little by Little)
silhouette wormhole: 1977
society & talking wormhole: the early morning of the sixties
time wormhole: some steps
trees wormhole: how hard / to meditate
valley wormhole: Peeks at Castleton
words wormhole: thar she perched