sweet chestnut

Tags

2015, 6*, ageing, air, being, buttress, chestnut tree, compromise, earth, generations, grass, growth, identity, leaf, letting go, life, reaching, time, trees, trunk

                     sweet chestnut

                     I have
                     long
                     since
                shifted the earth apart
                imperceptible for grass to grow,
                now, unknowing, so new;

                     I have
                     forgotten
                what it’s like to emerge
                without design, and have
                grown buttresses for so long
                they have twisted to comprise;

                     the trunk
                     of upward
                     direction
                that I reach from
                aimlessly with diminishing wisdom
                to a top leaf shifting

                     this way
                     and that
                     between air

 

{there is some anger and sulk that I do not write anymore: not sure if I couldn’t keep up the hi-octane perception or that ‘I was only seeking attention’ explains it all; I still don’t know, but maybe I don’t need to hold such stoic upper lips about it all, arms crossed, turned away; maybe just a bit of compassion wafting this way and that …}

 

 

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

air wormhole: ‘from the cathedral window two stories / high …’
being wormhole: silence
compromise & letting go wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
grass wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
identity wormhole: a far grander / Sangha
life wormhole: looking hard enough
time wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets …’
trees wormhole: ‘and is there homage …’

 

poessay XI – piquant love

Tags

2019, 6*, arch, cause and conditionality, compromise, crane, doing, identity, intuition, knowledge, letting go, life, love, not knowing, obscuration, opportunity, others, poessay, scandal, self, shadow, sitting, thought, writing

poessay XI –

                lookitallathisabouttheplace –
                both the obscuration and the opportunity difficult
                either to see or to take:

                                I don’t know what to do –
                                inject into causality
                                project over condition (whatever

                                I’m sure that’s not the way to do) –
                                I can only know what I intuit
                                usually de-spite “I don’t know

                                but will step in line
                                if you let me join the gang”
                                best served unnoticeable

                                but not really
                                me no matter how deep the cover;
                                so back to the hunch –

                                crane reaching from the crumbling arch –
                                written up on giddy foolscap
                                (given half the chance, or notice)

                                but this is not me either
                                just a more clever ‘I don’t know’
                                than all the others who don’t know at all

                                or know by some rote too lazy
                                or compromised to know (what I
                                might know) or those who

                                say they know holding me deficient
                                that I don’t behave as they know
                                (compromised to behold), or then

                                there are those who seem to know
                                despite the prevalence and norm all about
                                from whom I absorb

                                through my very xylem
                                and then heavy-shadow them all about
                                but they don’t know either

                                just more mystically or glamorously so
                                until the scandal;
                                so don’t try to know at all

                                because any of this knowing
                                is just a whorl somewhere
                                within cascading causality

                                making sure my specious self;
                                just let the self go
                this knower, this knower so much better and deeper than anyone else who does not even know what is to be known,                

                                let it all go
                                and sit with the not-knowing,
                                watching all the fluidity with

                                                                                                piquant love

 

 

 

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

compromise wormhole: looking for the right exit
crane & doing & identity & thought & writing wormhole: travel // when I die
knowledge wormhole: Dulwich College, London, 1871
letting go wormhole: at Kreukenhof
life wormhole: psssssh
love wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
others wormhole: quietly in my quiet house
shadow wormhole: breakfast
sitting wormhole: – creak —

 

at Kreukenhof

Tags

2019, 5*, air, Amsterdam, breeze, clouds, compassion, curtains, fashion, fire, flowers, gravity, growth, Kreukenhof, letting go, photograph, retirement, river, role, samsara, sky, sound, traffic

                gravity, and river air hold the curtains
                down, breezes and distant traffic make them
                adjust against the sill stiffly, audibly

                but then, my people, I am learning
                not to resent your burning like fire
                when you play your endless roles like fashion

                and I am learning to let clouds fill the sky
                as you take every single photo
                of every single flower at Kreukenhof

 

Kreukenhof is a display garden near Amsterdam sited amid surrounding fields and fields of cultivated tulips, grown in strips of colour across a whole field; when we visited this year, we stayed on the Botel, a converted ship docked on the river Amstel in the IJ bay

 

 

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

air wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
breeze wormhole: threshold to behold
clouds wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
compassion wormhole: light of all interaction
curtains wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
letting go wormhole: mandala offering
retirement & sky wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
river wormhole: boiled spangle with soft centre
samsara wormhole: the Bodhisattva set out / for the Seat of Awakening
sound wormhole: the blessings of the Buddhas

 

mandala offering

Tags

2019, 7*, cause and effect, doing, emptiness, eyes, giving, guidance, hands, holding, identity, interdependent origination, letting go, mandala, mountain, offering, orbit, pointing, selflessness, smile, society, water, waves, world

                not in water piled high in waves
                nor cleverly pointing

                to my own finger
                let’s just leave all that aside for the moment

                mandala offering

                but all that I let within and
                all that I give without

                without aim and with only
                slight smile and eyes

                that guides the lunge
                and holds for the whole of the fall

                flat as the palm of a hand
                deep as the highest mountain

                that the world will continue to spin
                in a palimpsest mark redford way

                and all might find their nature empty and
                centered around each orbit they make

 

                                                ___ ‘m‘ ~~~

a mandala offering is a ritual way of offering the whole universe to the Buddhas, a way of giving up everything for the sake of one’s essential goal in life; ‘is the universe mine to offer?‘ – my universe is, `bought and paid for; ‘but the universe is so big, how can you ‘offer’ it?‘ – easy, the whole of the universe is inside my head; ‘is your universe worth offering to the Buddhas?‘ – it could do with a clean up, which is why I imagine it buffed up with all the Mark Redford stuff cleared away; ‘why bother?‘ – it gives me a clean sheet with which to work on; ‘isn’t that just a bit self-indulgent?‘ – nope, self-indulgence is one of the things I hope to clean out of the universe in order to offer it, I’m hoping to invite a few friends and family around once it’s cleaned up; ‘`sounds rather limited‘ – you don’t know how many mothers I’ve got; ‘do the Buddhas want your mandala?‘ – the Buddhas are my universe, it’s just that I don’t see it yet, my damn ownership keeps getting in the way, and besides, I’m under universe-arrest at the moment … some stuff I did in the past …

                                                ___ ‘m‘ ~~~

 

 

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

doing wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
emptiness wormhole: there will be ovations
eyes wormhole: my uncomfortable life
giving wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
hands & waves wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
identity & letting go & society wormhole: in deed
smile wormhole: …zzh-vvttP*–… … …
water wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
world wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877

 

in deed

Tags

2019, 8*, Arya Lalitavistara, austerity, being, birth, black, Buddha, children, consumerism, death, doing, ears, fear, grin, hate, identity, infrastructure, investment, karma, letting go, lifetimes, love, mother, nirmanakaya, nose, samadhi, shame, skeleton, society, son, thought, war, womb, world

                                I

                gave birth to you, I
                held you deep within my very womb,
                the very kernel of all the labour of all my life’s beings and I

                gave you up to being
                with all the love of whole investment
                placed in care of self in state, you cannot,

                                just
                                die

                                __O—

                … she addressed her son

                who sat unmoved
                to the whole world’s reach
                that only his bones leaned together
                dry and upright

                who sat unconsumed
                to the whole world’s glut
                that to feel his stomach
                was to grasp his spine

                who sat unloved
                to the whole world’s reflection that
                children poked grass in his ear ‘till it
                came out his nose

                who sat unknown
                to the whole world’s shame
                that he was dust-black as a
                tree stump hideously grinning

                                __O—

                and know, mother, I do not die;
                I embroiled with the world to show
                the terrible wake of uncoupling
                her greasy mechinations,

                                in deed

 

honnnnnnnned like the string from a lute, not too tight not too loose, from chapter 17 of the Arya Lalitavistara Sutra in which the Prince’s mother (who had died and gone to heaven) came to see her son after he had been practising austerities for six years and was on the point of dying; she feared he was taking his quest to extremes, but he calmly told her that (the point of the whole Sutra being called ‘Lalita’, a ‘play’) that he had to show, in human form, what the two extremes of living in life were, in order to then show the way between to two extremes to liberation

 

 

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

being & war wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
black wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
Buddha wormhole: the old man;
death wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
doing wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
identity wormhole: threshold to behold
letting go wormhole: the reach turned to love
lifetimes wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
love wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
mother wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
society & thought wormhole: my uncomfortable life
war wormhole: on facing the Have

 

the reach turned to love

Tags

2018, 20th century, 7*, breathing, childhood, Dad, doing, growth, identity, letting go, love, question, reaching, role, secret, self-confidence, society, space, speech, superhero, walls, world

                told that he was the man of the house now
                he felt he had to do something; when the

                engine was turned off, and being in the front
                seat, he said “Daddy, can’t you just come back

                home” and didn’t hear that it’s not as simple
                as that because: he’d asked the adult question,

                took responsibility (how it works…); this
                is what Dads should not do, they should

                come back because they are Dads; why
                does this have to happen to us; and ten years

                being a be-cowled and frustrated superhero
                in a world where things just happen secretly,

                he wondered (does it work); there was something
                wrong, there are somethings wrong, in the world,

                and there was definitely something wrong with
                this 20th century, I am not sure there is a Man

                of the House to be – the wall just sticks to my
                foot when I swing to kick, my lungs are already

                full when I breathe           –           and           there
                is                      no                     space; for

                fifty years I have built this world toxic to my
                sense of worth and undermined to my sense

                of identity; there is nothing fruitful with
                discontent in my heart as long as I cannot

                step outside to see that it is not just about me;
                the hurt which reaches for vindication must

                release, the reach turned to love

 

supporating out of Bodhisattvacharyavatara Chapter VI – verse 10 … (when adversity strikes), if anything can be done about it what is the point in getting upset about it; if nothing can be done about it what is the point in getting upset about it.

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: tram
breathing & speech wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
childhood wormhole: La Route, Effet d’Hiver, 1872
Dad wormhole: to rescue something
doing wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
identity & love & walls wormhole: …zzh-vvttP*–… … …
letting go wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
society & world wormhole: faulteous beings
space wormhole: horizon
superhero wormhole: glamour of saṃsāra

 

it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing

Tags

2018, 5*, allowing, being, breathing, career, doing, giving, growth, hedge, knowing, landscape, letting go, life, living, mountain, passing, regulation, retirement

                                              it’s
                        not what you do or what you say
                                if it ain’t got that swing

                                              not
                the regulation of life that lives and grows
                        but the approach of not taking it;

                                              not the
                coming out on top a mountain that never summits
                        but in the byways along the hedges passing landscapes

                                            not …
                        the giving way or giving over,
                                but the letting go,

                                    not
                        about the knowing
                                but all about the being

                                              not
                about the certificates and positions that make the career
                        but the smile of greeting

                                               it is
                in seeing that there is nothing to Have
                        that the perfections of living breathe

 

 

 

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

being & career & doing & living wormhole: between
breathing wormhole: London, 1809
giving wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
hedge wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
letting go wormhole: to let be
life wormhole: The Diligence at Louveciennes, 1870
passing wormhole: St. Erasmus in Bishop Islip’s Chapels, 1796
retirement wormhole: somehow

 

to let be

Tags

2018, 6*, allowing, being, change, echo, identity, letting go, looking, meaning, mist, Mum, prospect, purpose, putting out, retirement, rhetoric, school, shopping, space, streets, voice, wisdom

                                so I stopped working
                in an institution that couldn’t converse within its own rhetoric

                                couldn’t find a voice
                to navigate through all that drifting mist, and got lost, so I

                                no longer comb
                through shops and streets looking for echoes of a lost chord

                                that would weave
                my lives back together (couldn’t find it in all that looking),

                                all that
                                anxious putting-out
                and prospect, finding everything changed and nothing done,

                                and no monument
                that I was ever really there other than the space through

                                which the change
                happened glorious to allow, nothing to behold, everything

                                to be, a lot of
                history to let go – it was obstructive of me to try to solidify

                                there anyway,
                I should have stayed with the wisdom I inherited before

                                I was born,
                allowed the acceptance of my mother’s wisdom: to let be

 

 

 

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

being & identity & meaning wormhole: SPRING AND ALL VI by William Carlos Williams
change wormholeL The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
echo wormhole: La Route de Louveciennes, 1870
letting go wormhole: beguiled / desire
looking wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XI by William Carlos Williams
mist wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
Mum wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
retirement wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
school & streets wormhole: THE LONELY STREET by William Carlos Williams
space wormhole: space for probing thought

 

beguiled / desire

Tags

2018, 7*, ageing, death, desire, drifting, evening, hands, heart, holding onto, letting go, life, retirement, sleep, song, Ulysses

                when I tie myself to a mast
                and the evening is closing in without,

                without that song that deliciously
                extricates my beating heart I know,

                I know ‘tis time to loose those bonds
                from my numb and welt hands caught

                once again and ever by beguiled
                desire better, by far, to drift where I lie

 

 

 

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

death wormhole: moon- // washed
evening wormhole: between
hands wormhole: sufficiently away
letting go wormhole: anxiety
life wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
retirement wormhole: someone’s got to do it
sleep wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams

 

anxiety

Tags

2017, 6*, anxiety, emptiness, everything, experience, falling, identity, imputation of inherent existence, letting go, life, perception, ripple, secret, seeing, self-grasping

                there is always so much more
                to anything to everything than
                meets the sclerotic I and that

                is always precisely nothing less
                than I can never see despite the
                thousand drops that plop and

                lose their secret identities and
                ripple endlessly throughout
                the turbid panorama in which

                they should really take their
                identity could they ever let go
                what they ever grasped and

                never really grasped amid
                their tumbling and freefall
anxiety

 

 

 

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

anxiety wormhole: the sitting room
emptiness wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …
identity wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
letting go wormhole: letting them go
life wormhole: so / do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or … / Rumplestiltskin
seeing wormhole: it’s all about…;