Candaka

Tags

2019, 6*, Arya Lalitavistara, Buddha, Candaka, dharma, dream, gazing, gods, horizon, Kanthaka, meaning, renunciation, role, society, step, sword, the Four Signs, trees, yesterday

                Candaka

                out from the trees
                he emerged but was bedraggled

                he stared just under
                ahead, no longer to triumphant horizons

                his jaw hung as if forgot to locate
                no further to commend

                and his sword listed, tinny and tarnished,
                unsure to hand;

                just yesterday
                was a dream where he played the part

                of losing each part that he had played
                step by tired step

                and out of step with Kanthaka’s step;
                he had lost the Prince

 

etching, from the Arya Lalita Vistara Nama Mahayana Sutra; Chandaka was the charioteer and the groom for the Prince, Siddhartha Gautama, his chauffeur, in a way, but also a confidant, to some extent; it was Chandaka who led the Prince out of palace-life where the Prince encountered the Four Signs (four features of life which he hadn’t taken into account in his privileged life – old age, illness, death and living outside of society and social role); Kanthaka was the Prince’s magnificent horse, worthy of bearing a sovereign, the epitome of beauty, strength and transport; despite society and role obliging the Prince to remain in the palace and fulfil his dharma as king, his urge to get to the bottom of purpose and life was strong from previous lifetimes of vows … he had to leave; the gods themselves helped the Prince escape – it was only Chandaka who did not fall into a deep sleep; Kanthaka’s hooves did not strike the ground, the gates flew open by themselves – because they wanted someone to get to the bottom of purpose and life as well; both Chandaka and Kanthaka were devoted to the Prince but could not fully appreciate the gravity of the Prince’s quest, they played their roles – their dharma – but without full agency: all they could appreciate was the challenge to role and society that they had participated in, and no means to understand beyond that …

 

 

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

Buddha & renunciation wormhole: light of all interaction
dreams wormhole: “And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”
horizon wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
meaning wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
society wormhole: looking for the right exit
trees wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain

 

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A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877

Tags

1877, 2018, 7*, being, bench, book, change, distance, garden, ground, growth, meaning, Pissarro, quiet, seasons, shrub, sister, sky, speech, trees, words, world

                there are words in the book
                look, they match things

                in the world, the little sister
                was unconvinced and

                leaned on the bench
                to keep it on the ground,

                she knew the tree behind
                grew slowly in more

                than one direction,
                the tall shrubs all shushed

                in the distance, but the
                sky had already turned season

 

slyly, from the corner of A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

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

being & garden & meaning & sky & trees wormhole: threshold to behold
bench wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
change wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
quiet wormhole: horizon
speech wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
words wormhole: my uncomfortable life
world wormhole: Batman: Oddysey

 

threshold to behold

Tags

1967, 2019, 8*, abandonment, alcove, being, birds, blue, books, breeze, Dad, Eglinton Hill, evening, garden, head, identity, life, meaning, openness, place, purpose, room, shoulders, skirting board, sky, son, sound, standing, text, time, trees, Victorian houses, weight, windows

                                  threshold to behold

                having persistently interrogated every alcove
                and skirting and sash-window of every room
                he could possibly have been in

                for any lead to any whereabouts, to even a
                chalk-outline, of how to be (beyond the breath
                of standing next to him in the breezy garden) –

                they were so well-moulded, fitted at perfect
                right angle, pulleys holding the weight just right
                to open, surely they would know – nothing,

                (or were they just too arcane to decode),
                the son stood before the bookshelves – how
                was it, now – legs not really astride but anyhow,

                (dangling, even), but head and shoulders alert,
                scanning the spines, weighing what each had
                to offer to respective places and times in the

                whole of a life, ah, this is the one – plucked –
                from the top of the spine, reached down; felt
                their weight, now, opened boarded covers

                (sound of crease), open at random (must of
                decades), what does the text say when
                eavesdropped unaware, has it sense, could I inhabit

                that sense enough to see what to do, to breathe
                what to be – birds take flight into the turning deep blue
                above evening trees

 

my father left his family on my eighth birthday; I’m sure he didn’t plan in that way, but that’s the day he happened to come home late again and confess that he’d been seeing someone else – I played with my new cars behind the sofa and listened to him leave, I didn’t look up so much as stare at the shape of the room as if noticing for the first time in the Victorian house on the hill where we lived; ‘I searched for form and land, for years and years I roamed’ (a no-prize to anyone who can name where these lyrics come from) looking for the direction I needed to be ‘the man of the house, now’ as someone said to me at the time; it’s only now I have retired that I realise there is no direction to go and that there is no man about the house other than saying makes it so; I still don’t look up, but am more and more sure that I don’t have to, now; still, all that browsing, plucking and hoarding over the years …

 

 

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

abandonment & Dad & life wormhole: my uncomfortable life
being wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
birds wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
blue & trees wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
books wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
breeze wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
Eglinton Hill wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
evening & time & windows wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
garden wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
identity wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
meaning wormhole: the old man;
openness wormhole: the mantra of Maitreya
sky wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
sound wormhole: 10/28 ‘On hot days …’ by William Carlos Williams
Victorian houses wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing

 

the old man;

Tags

2019, 8*, bougainvillea, Buddha, hope, life, lute, meaning, ochre, old age, open, pink, politics, power, purpose, renunciation, samsara, society, the Four Signs, time, walking, wind, windows

                the old man;

                by the open window –
                air of civic celebration

                flowering deep pink
                bougainvillea on ochre

                wind, but despite
                all iron machination

                the Prince of all
                that hope could keep

                had seen that Make
                held long-together only

                with foresworn and
                decrepit elapse

                that bent walking
                could behold;

                and the borough might hold
                but there were

                further portents
                on the way and a

                fourth that
                warranted all wasteland –

                when the lute-string
                snapped

 

An old man was the first of the Four Signs that tipped the Prince to thinking that there was more to life than privileged indulgence – there was a seriousness in life to consider which his father had designed to keep from him; when the Prince had been born, there was a prophecy that he would either become a great king enjoying power and influence far beyond, even, what his father had achieved, or that he would leave home and become a seeker of deeper purpose and meaning in life, but the father could not keep all of life’s questions at bay for the rest of the Prince’s life … the other Signs were: illness, death and worldly renunciation; this encounter fore-shadowed the Prince leaving his home to search for that deeper meaning and purpose

 

 

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

Buddha wormhole: birth in the world
life & time & walking wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
meaning wormhole: to let be
ochre wormhole: every step I take
open & windows wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
pink wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
politics wormhole: how to teach
power & society wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
renunciation wormhole: and … // … sound
samsara wormhole: Batman: Oddysey
wind wormhole: {reading right to left}

 

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

 

SPRING AND ALL VI by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1923, 5*, being, doing, energy, Have, identity, meaning, non-doing, speech, talking to myself, William Carlos Williams, words

                VI

                No that is not it
                nothing that I have done
                nothing
                I have done

                is made up of
                nothing
                and the dipthong

                ae

                together with
                the first person
                singular
                indicative

                of the auxiliary
                verb
                to have

                everything
                I have done
                is the same

                if to do
                is capable
                of an
                infinity of
                combinations

                involving the
                moral
                physical
                and religious

                codes

                for everything
                and nothing
                are synonymous
                when

                energy in vacuo
                has the power
                of confusion

                which only to
                have done nothing
                can make
                perfect

 

from Spring and All, 1923
I’d have loved to have sculpted this into a circular poem so that the beginning line slipped off the end line at the apex of a circle and could be read round and around in circles until nothing was achieved; but it’s not my place to

 

 

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

being & Have & speech wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
doing & talking to myself wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
identity wormhole: glamour of saṃsāra
meaning wormhole: being / doing
William Carlos Williams wormhole: SPRING AND ALL I BY William Carlos Williams
words wormhole: so / do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or … / Rumplestiltskin

 

being / doing

Tags

2013, 5*, being, doing, failure, identity, ignorance, meaning, purpose, recogniton, selflessness, success, virtue

                the point is not in the
                      doing of things
                or in the not-doing of things or
                in doing things differently to my
                      greater good or shame

                it is not in the success or failure of
                      their being done
                or in the recognition or overlook
                      that I have done them

                it is not even in the virtue
                      or ignorance of what I do
                but in the being
                      while they are doing

 

 

 

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

being & doing wormhole: nothing doing is important / or worthy in itself
identity wormhole: divergent // direction
meaning wormhole: holiday
recognition wormhole: not / the Catcher

 

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

 

AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!

Tags

1960s, 2013, 6*, abdomen, attention, birth, emergence, evening, eyes, feeling, flower, heathland, history, identity, infrastructure, life, light, lime, looking, meaning, mist, possibility, posture, reading, rebirth, shade, shoulders, sitting, streets, time, womb, writing

                AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!

                decade of ever-immanent emergence
                but yet womb-like misty with heathland-lime streak

                forefeeling borne and colourful possibility
                then birthed starving and naked into too local streets

                with all their historynfrastructure; born within
                two months of the 1960s, towards the end

                I was flowering, but with a knuckle in the
                stem below the petal receptacle, made me

                always look downwards to the ground: I sit
                for hours hunched over a table writing, I sit

                for evenings correcting a tendency to
                close my eyes, I sit slouched in all manner of

                chair reading and reading; it will take decades
                of shade and whither before I raise

                my face to the startling of light and correct
                my shoulders and abdomen

 

in the immortal words of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche: “the path is the goal”

 

 

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

abdomen wormhole: trying to focus / on walking
attention & writing wormhole: magnetic field
emergence wormhole: the / bright yellow / world
evening wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I suddenly / remembered
eyes & light wormhole: languidly close the portal
history wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Safe Home
identity wormhole: travel
life wormhole: 35 years ago …
lime wormhole: weight of high sash windows – poewieview #33
looking & streets & time wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
meaning wormhole: tiling
mist wormhole: the purple mist between
posture wormhole: a crack of lightning / in the dark of night
reading wormhole: lonely and free
sitting wormhole: even / a second

 

tiling

Tags

2016, border, co-ordinate, corner, direction, identity, life, meaning, narrative, placement, square, tiles, writing

 

 

 

                           tiling

                           don’t even go looking
                           for the narrative before

                           you see the borders
                           become corners before

                           the squares are oblique
                           and before the cardinal

                           markers show the inner
                           lines inferring co-ordinate

 

 

 

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

identity wormhole: my seat // now
life wormhole: Elektra
meaning & writing wormhole: substance