make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let

Tags

2013, 7*, afternoon, attention, boundary, class, construction, defeat, defensive, dream, labour, letting go, lifetimes, living, morning, satisfaction, shift, silence, skill, speech, teaching, waking, water

                I woke saying “sit down”
                to a class who had
                been testing me like water

                moving silent against
                my every prescription
                demanded or presumed

                despite all the charm or
                cleverness I might use
                to a morning

                and then an afternoon
                of defeat and defence
                unable to use the skill

                and manoeuvre I have
                taught myself for
                lifetimes now

                all the shift and forming
                around the boundaries
                finding every fissure

                and fault just ahead
                of my every attempt
                to dam it all; what labour

                what want of satisfaction;
                let the water go
                where it will – it will

                all go there anyway – and
                make your rickety
                constructs strong with

                unbending grids
                of attention and wide-
                open grates of let

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: divergent // direction
dream wormhole: wakeoutofadream
letting go wormhole: redundant
lifetimes wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything
living wormhole: free
morning wormhole: windows // and balconies
silence & speech & water wormhole: the quiet whale
teaching wormhole: a nice grey woollen picnic blanket

 

Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything

Tags

2017, 7*, angel, circle, clock, doing, everything, glass, lifetimes, light, nothing, Salisbury Cathedral, speech, statue, stone, time

                Salisbury Cathedral

                angels fizz and jagger touch
                a single flame of tongue

                the oldest working clock
                shows no time anymore;

                so much empty stone
                so many lives lost

                only coloured light of lineage
                and majesty keeping inward –

                so much hopeful effort frozen
                in faraway stare outwards –

                curlicue ends of stone form
                perfect circles of nothing

                suspended in everything

 

 

there is nothing ventured that gain doesn’t think it so, there is everything gained by staying in the centre of the circle; read the whole sequence as it hangs unearthly in space: in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …

 

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

doing wormhole: nothing significant
glass wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
lifetimes wormhole: Open – All – Ours
light wormhole: darkness
speech & stone & time wormhole: stone

 

Open – All – Ours

Tags

2017, 8*, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, brown, buildings, clouds, dedication, echo, generation, identity, land, lifetimes, living, Mahayana, Open All Hours, pocket, punya, rain, Shantideva, sky, smile, stone, tectonic plates, true nature, work

                Open – All – Ours

                out across the vast land
                of all of my many lives

                what started as a stave-
                shack has long-since

                become a stone colossus
                wider than the sky in which

                my own clouds rain,
                with openings measureless

                to man and tectonic plates
                stacked up and arching

                in inconceivable echo;
                that’s where we all work,

                life after life, all by my-selves
                meticulously stocking up

                even anything so small,
                taking whole lifetimes

                sometimes to place a
                single smile in its right

                and proper place because
                you never know when it

                might come in handy;
                well, it’s a living; do you

                like my trusty brown
                overcoat – nice, deep

                pockets – comes with
                the job, been in my

                family now for so many
                generations now … once

                I catch up with myself

 

constructed out of Bodhicharyavatara, chapter three, verse ten, by Shantideva

 

 

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

brown wormhole: monument to vainglory
buildings wormhole: time
clouds wormhole: industrial estate
echo & sky wormhole: so pleased to see you again
identity & lifetimes wormhole: ‘never look up’?
living wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show
rain wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
smile wormhole: to allow / passage
stone wormhole: transmuted
work wormhole: neither nude nor / descending a staircase

 

‘never look up’?

Tags

2017, 7*, anxiety, being, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, death, doing, identity, karma, life, lifetimes, rebirth, self, Shantideva, skandhas, the Three Poisons, transition, true nature

                I fell from myself and
                felt the need
                to build myself up otherwise
                out of anxiety

                every single
                closed-eye assent and
                grapple made on the way down
                left me scabbed and arthritic

                hoping I’d reached the bottom
                or found a ledge
                but who was I really kidding,
                I ceased to be

                every time
                I thought to pause, I passed
                from being a who or a what to
                no more, each time,

                save the legacy I left
                in a life somewhere –
                ‘wha’, whossedhat!’ –
                and the potency I carry

                to some other sorry
                hope like the sack of thorns
                that won’t sit comfortable;
                who is it keeps teaching me

                ‘never look up’?

 

weaving from out of chapter 2, Bodhisattvacharyavatara by Shantideva

 

 

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

anxiety wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
being wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
death wormhole: 1966
doing & lifetimes wormhole: so pleased to see you again
identity wormhole: what wounds have you got?
life wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show

 

so pleased to see you again

Tags

2017, 8*, Bodhichitta, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, compassion, desire, doing, echo, eyes, faces, gravity, lifetimes, light, love, memory, mother sentient beings, others, seeing, Shantideva, sky, space, speech, true nature, vanity, will

                oh, my loves, who look at me
                with eyes that dull-echo from

                lifetimes back “don’t I love you,
                don’t you owe me?” but cannot

                remember; yes, yes you do, yes
                I do, with so much real interest;

                I will love, I will do, what needs
                to be done, and short-circuit all

                this vanity and indifference;
                enough of peripatetic desire and

                unsustainable will, I owe your
                dear sweet faces (so much to

                account, so much to invest) a
                truer nature to acknowledge,

                a current in to which to plug,
                a circuit around which to light –

                exponential to the bursting sky –
                space-walking gloriously around

                the gravity of our own true natures,
                so pleased to see you again

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara I, 17-19

 

 

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

compassion wormhole: transmuted
doing wormhole: everwhile
echo wormhole: open window
eyes & lifetimes & sky wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
faces wormhole: Sylvia
light & love wormhole: writing: // in turn
others wormhole: ‘field of corn …’
seeing wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
space wormhole: within
speech wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance

 

that comicbookshop … // … in dreams

Tags

1960s, 2015, 8*, anxiety, bay window, black, childhood, collecting, comics, doing, doors, dream, Edward Hopper, eyes, floorboards, frustration, grey, heart, high, hill, labyrinth, lemon, life, lifetimes, lino, message, moon, morning, numbers, path, pipes, Plumstead, power, reaching, searching, shadow, shops, sky, smell, society, streets, sycamore, Thames, universe, walls, windows, Woolwich, wormhole, writing

that comicbookshop …

where the sidestreets meet together off the highstreets
under slanting shadows down the rear pipework of façades and blackened window
from so much higher up than could never concern us it’s frightening,
the morning after Hopper’s Nighthawks,
is closing down

the ones I try to get to when I find myself done in town
(right after the frustration of trying to get somewhere or the anxiety of trying to
get away from somewhere that always follows me) but never arrive at;
I make my various ways there, I know the routes
like the back of my hand

the ones with warped door stuck at the top or stuck at the bottom
(will the glass pane hold), with step onto lino once lemon and grey with hope
now one with the floorboards sagging under warren of backrooms (forgotten lifetimes
wormholes everywhere) to the pulp of paper and number for finding,                
are closing down; I

should have patronised them more, I suppose;
`still haven’t found that second issue, that elusive fourth, and the stacks
just kept on sliding: lettering and universes pressing their skies and moons into my eyeball
but I couldn’t keep up with them, blinked too soon, have to get on,
things to do, places to be

it’s having a sale, clearing all stock; the sentinels stand impassive
to all find, impassive to all loss, hooded eyes on somefaraway beach;
for old times’ sake I pick some up, figures reaching stanceofopera out of panel,
maybe a sixth issue, maybe an intertextual fanzine, avoid the modern
too defined in detail, too static in marque,

and come away with stash held to heart, out
into the bustle busily in all direction, weak indication and giant message
I’ll work my way uphill by quiet sidestreet past high walls holding sycamores and
bay windows over the river home to catalogue my finds like a labyrinth and
plot their weave like a stanza

… in dreams

 

 

 

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

anxiety & searching wormhole: pocket
black & shops wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
childhood & life wormhole: alighted
comics wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
doing & dream & lifetimes wormhole: comfy
doors wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
Edward Hopper wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
eyes wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
grey & morning & Plumstead & shadow & sky & streets wormhole: faintly apricot air?
lemon wormhole: 1967
moon wormhole: the too big moon
path wormhole: Clea
power wormhole: the skyline
smell wormhole: 1967
society wormhole: this sodden land
Thames wormhole: time
walls wormhole: familiasyncopation
windows wormhole: open window
Woolwich wormhole: up on the hill
writing wormhole: writing: // in turn

 

comfy

Tags

2016, 7*, basement, cafe, career, change, comfort, communication, doing, dream, Karmapa, letting go, lifetimes, past life, realisation, service, smile, thought, time

                comfy

                how did you think
                that I would not know
                what you are doing

                said the Karmapa; of
                course: and I had been
                acting despite that he

                might, so I dropped it
                all like a past life and
                nipped down to the

                dank basement to
                sort things out pursued
                by his head-shake smile;

                carried his drinks
                in the café, carried his
                bags when he carried out

                the stacked dishes before
                I even thought of it,
                simple service with no

                career prospects, all the
                busy and long day until
                things moved on beyond

                all recognition and
                I realised I was wearing
                his slippers; how will I

                get them back to him,
                remembering his lingering
                smile before I acted

 

retirement #4: from a dream had 16th-17th December, written down 171216; the present Karmapa is the 17th recognised incarnation; the sorry tale of Mark Redford and his Teachers; the forwarding ways

 

 

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

career wormhole: monument to vainglory
change wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
communication wormhole: poessay III: jijimuge
doing wormhole: neither nude nor / descending a staircase
dream wormhole: sleep now
leting go wormhole: within
lifetimes wormhole: tired
realisation wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
smile wormhole: Prajnaparamita // Maitreya
time wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance

 

tired

Tags

'scape, 2012, 5*, ageing, childhood, city, evening, identity, lifetimes, light, Manhattan, money, people, power, roads, silhouette, sky, sound, sparrows, time, traffic, trees

                                                              tired

                                travelled
                a long time to arrive in New York, still the same person
                                roads
                still scraped and pockmarked since I wanted to come here as a teen;

                                trees
                still reach and lean in front of the sky,
                                city
                people still live and breathe the power of my money;

                                lights,
                go on in the evening and, between
                                traffic
                shoals, the sparrows bicker in the trees

 

 

 

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

childhood & evening wormhole: the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford
city wormhole: Drug Store, 1927
identity wormhole: tripping up to / London town
lifetimes wormhole: currency of generations
light & time wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Bowl of Gourds
Manhattan wormhole: 1964
money wormhole: teached / in the ass
people wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Contents
power wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
roads wormhole: always
silhouette wormhole: 1967
sky & sound & trees wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – autumn
sparrows wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012

 

currency of generations

Tags

2012, buttons, childhood, clothes, colour, cupboard, echo, Eglinton Hill, family, generation, history, identity, lifetimes, living room, marble, marshmallow, morning, Mum, muse, pastel, sound, speech, stairs, taste, tin, transparent

 

 

 

                                currency of generations

                                ‘fetch the tin of buttons’
                                a quest to the cupboard
                                by the stairwell just outside
                                the room we dressed in
                                and spent all morning
                                because it was warm
                                ‘the one with the fruits’
                                different sorts of fruit
                                pastel-coloured and
                                marshmallowy on a tin
                                ‘they’re petit-fours’
                                something to understand
                                later (the taste had been sugary
                                and pasty and although
                                it looked like fruit it stuck
                                in my throat) now has
                                buttons which are cool
                                and swirly when I run
                                my finger through them
                                and marbled-enough
                                to see history and boiled-
                                sweet transparent-enough
                                to see worlds themed in
                                colour and echo from the clothes
                                of real people from family aunts
                                and uncles in the past who
                                I never knew or can’t remember
                                the lineage from which I came
                                contained under tin-bent lid

 

 

0.62

 

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

childhood & Eglinton Hill & morning wormhole: between thoughts
echo & stairs wormhole: no one – poewieview #24
family & lifetimes & sound & speech wormhole: being in love – poewieview #26
history wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
identity wormhole: too late:
living room wormhole: fine
Mum wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
muse wormhole: and that’s where I are

 

being in love – poewieview #26

Tags

'scape, 1971, 2016, bardo, birth, blues, Bowie, clouds, desert, emptiness, family, green, grey, home, horizon, ineffable, lemon, life, lifetimes, love, mauve, mist, mountain, orange, rebirth, roots, sky, smoke, sound, speech, steel, travelling, voices, whisper

                                the wide wide landscape and the family tree
                                are just the same when found through mist;

                                blues rising from the homestead chimney
                                in the grey and green glade of, everwhere;

                                then everything stepped up over the far
                                mountains mauve of orange horizon

                                filled the sky to cross the desert in a
                                single bound; whispered sweet nothing

                                into my ear with heightened register as
                                the clouds pointed unutterably across

                                the lemon-steel sky, far too wide and grey
                                and blue to close my mouth, over;

                                I’ll have to levitate, ascend above the roots
                                of no return – tug-snapping, pull-holding snap –

                                you could see, there then, that this was not
                                about love this was all about being in love

 

just close your eyes: Lightning Frightening, 1971; Moonage Daydream, 1971

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

1971 & Bowie wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25
clouds wormhole: nothing to say
emptiness & lifetimes & sky & speech wormhole: too late:
family wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
green & grey & horizon & life wormhole: furl-reach
lemon wormhole: ‘went up to London and what did I see; …’ – poewieview #7
love wormhole: true nature
mauve wormhole: mauve
mist wormhole: fine droplets / across the glass
orange wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23
sound wormhole: fine
travelling wormhole: the sounds of 1969 // [would have] seemed that way – poewieview #13
voices wormhole: 1965