taking birth

Tags

2022, 7*, being, birth, Bodhichitta, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, clouds, compassion, identity, ignorance, jewel, knowledge, landscape, lifetimes, light, lightning, lost, mind, mirror, mist, mother sentient beings, opening, perspective, self-cherishing, self-grasping, shadow, Shantideva, sky, sun, young

                taking birth

        there is
        the mind which cracks within the belly
        of darkest clouds

        throws relief to the landscape
        and populace of the
        whole of sky

        if I could but turn
        just 90˚ from my thin and lonely
        trajectory

        and open
        so much more to just this tempered niche
        of knowledge

        that I could both mirror and shadow
        every fluorescence even before and awhile
        it contrasted

        I’d be young
        that I have long lost and mist
        while evolving this sclerotic eye

        and then
        there’d be sun,
        all my endless malapropriations burnished

        and faceted to a tiny étincelant Indra-jewel
        glinting all direction
        within every perspective respective

…responsive over reactive; effulgent over productive;
avenue’d over viewed; abundant over possessed; dispelled over horded;
homeopathic over pathologic; being over mirror; caught over fallen;
the hand that scratches the foot; not-finished-yet over finished…

 

 

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

being & identity & mirror wormhole: mirror
clouds wormhole: Journey
compassion wormhole: ‘the practice…’
lifetimes wormhole: in deed
light & shadow wormhole: silence
lightning wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets …’
mind wormhole: travel // when I die
mist wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
Shantideva wormhole: where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …
sky & sun wormhole: ‘in my car I pass…’

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mirror

Tags

2022, 6*, being, British Museum, enslavement, Greece, Have, history, identity, inner-self, mirror, outside, samsara, society, time, tragedy, war, woman

                                mirror

                        we lift
                whole armies of chariot, arm and thigh –
        scalloped handle either side –
                        to nichèd or columned view
                                asymmetrical
                                        grotesquery

                and for
        thousands of years now
                we see through eyes
                        polished and weighty above our heads
the extent of all our
                inwardly estate

 

I was struck by a caption by a mirror from the ancient Greek section of the British Museum which explained that rich women were not able to own any land, but that they could display their wealth in their own domestic environment and self-presentation

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

being & identity wormhole: ‘the practice …’
Have & samsara wormhole: travel // when I die
history wormhole: ‘from the cathedral window two stories / high …’
mirror wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
society wormhole: Candaka
time wormhole: ‘‘in my car I pass…’
war wormhole: riders of the night
woman wormhole: YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams

The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1928, 6*, arms, Atlantic City, beauty, being, black, blue, candle, cheek, city, colour, communication, daisies, dress, ears, eyes, fingers, glass, green, grey, hair, hands, hips, knuckles, lips, looking, matches, mirror, mouth, movement, open, orange, others, portrait, poverty, red, reflection, ring, ruby, sea, seagull, silence, skin, sound, speech, temptation, thinking, walking, waves, white, William Carlos Williams, windows, woman, wrists, writing

                            1. THE WAITRESS

                No wit (and none needed) but
    the silence of her ways, grey eyes in
    a depth of black lashes–
    The eyes look and the look falls.

    There is no way, no way. So close
    one may feel the warmth of the cheek and yet there is
    no way.

    The benefits of poverty are a roughened skin
    of the hands, the broken
    knuckles, the stained wrists.

                Serious. Not as the others.
    All the rest are liars, all but you.
                                        Wait on us.
    Wait on us, the hair held back practically
    by a net, close behind the ears, at the sides of
    the head. But the eyes–
                            but the mouth, lightly (quickly)
    touched with rouge.

    The black dress makes the hair dark, strangely
    enough, and the white dress makes it light.
    There is a mole under the jaw, low under
    thr right ear–

                And what arms!

                                        The glassruby ring
    on the fourth finger of the left hand.

                                        –and the movements
under the scant dress as the weight of the tray
    makes the hips shift forward slightly in lifting
    and beginning to walk–

    The Nominating Committee presents the following
    resolutions, etc. etc. etc. All those
    in favor signify by saying, Aye. Contrariminded,
    No.
      Carried.
                And aye, and aye, and aye!

    And the way the bell-hop runs downstairs:
          ta tuck a
                ta tuck a
                      ta tuck a
                            ta tuck a
                                  ta tuck a
    and the gulls in the open window screaming over the slow
    break of the cold waves–

                O unlit candle with the soft white
    plume, Sunbeam Finest Safety Matches all together in
    a little box–

                And the reflections of both in
    the mirror and the reflection of the hand, writing
    writing–
                Speak to me of her!-

                –and nobody else and nothing else
    in the whole city, not an electric sign of shifting
    colors, fourfoot daisies and acanthus fronds going from
    red to orange, green to blue–forty feet across–

                                        Wait on us, wait
    on us with your momentary beauty to be enjoyed by
    none of us. Neither by you, certainly,
                                                nor by me.

 

with love from Poems, 1928

 

 

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

beauty & speech wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
being wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
black wormhole: Impression of Winter: Carriage on a Country Road, 1872
blue & grey & writing wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
city & William Carlos Williams wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
communication wormhole: agreed termination without prejudice
eyes wormhole: between
glass & red wormhole: travelling / back
green & woman wormhole: on facing the Have
hair wormhole: SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams
hands wormhole: THE LONELY STREET by William Carlos Williams
looking wormhole: waiting to be heard
mirror wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
mouth wormhole: glamour of saṃsāra
open wormhole: animus rises – powieview #37
orange & others & walking wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
reflection wormhole: I
sea & seagull & waves wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
silence & sound wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873
thinking wormhole: there will be ovations
white wormhole: alabaster balustrade
windows wormhole: birth in the world

 

What You Are by Roger McGough

Tags

1967, accident, advertising, apple, blood, books, buildings, canal, cat, cattle, children, city, clock, clouds, cuckoo, curtains, dawn, death, depth, derelict, dew, distance, duty, eyes, feet, fish, flesh, flowers, found, frog, glasses, God, goldfish, grass, green, hands, heartbeat, Hiroshima, humanity, innocence, ivy, kiss, leaves, library, love, Lusitania, madness, measure, midnight, mirror, moment, morning, moth, mother, murder, neurosis, peace, petals, plastic, poem, politicians, power, prayer, pride, Roger McGough, rosary, sand, seeds, silence, Spring, stage, station, subconscious, sun, sword, symbol, teacher, tears, teeth, time, torpedo, treason, trees, van Gogh, voices, walls, war, water, waves, wind, windows, winter, womb, world, World War, yellow

                What You Are

                you are the cat’s paw
                among the silence of midnight goldfish

                you are the waves
                which cover my feet like cold eiderdowns

                you are the teddybear (as good as new)
                found beside a road accident

                you are the lost day
                in the life of a child murderer

                you are the underwatertree
                around which fish swirl like leaves

                you are the green
                whose depths I cannot fathom

                you are the clean sword
                that slaughtered the first innocent

                you are the blind mirror
                before the curtains are drawn back

                you are the drop of dew on a petal
                before the clouds weep blood

                you are the sweetfresh grass that goes sour
                and rots beneath children’s feet

                you are the rubber glove
                dreading the surgeon’s brutal hand

                you are the wind caught on barbed wire
                and crying out against war

                you are the moth
                entangled in a crown of thorns

                you are the apple for teacher
                left in a damp cloakroom

                you are the smallpox injection
                glowing on the torchsinger’s arm like a swastika

                you are the litmus leaves
                quivering on the suntan trees

                you are the ivy
                which muffles my walls

                you are the first footprints in the sand
                on bankholiday morning

                you are the suitcase full of limbs
                waiting in a leftluggage office
                to be collected like an orphan

                you are a derelict canal
                where the tincans whistle no tunes

                you are the bleakness of winter before the cuckoo
                catching its feathers on a thornbush
                heralding spring

                you are the stillness of Van Gogh
                before he painted the yellow vortex of his last sun

                you are the still grandeur of the Lusitania
                before she tripped over the torpedo
                and laid a world war of american dead
                at the foot of the blarneystone

                you are the distance
                between Hiroshima and Calvary
                measured in mother’s kisses

                you are the distance
                between the accident and the telephone box
                measured in heartbeats

                you are the distance
                between power and politicians
                measured in half-masts

                you are the distance
                between advertising and neuroses
                measured in phallic symbols

                you are the distance
                between you and me
                measured in tears

                you are the moment
                before the noose clenched its fist
                and the innocent man cried: treason

                you are the moment
                before the warbooks in the public library
                turned into frogs and croaked khaki obscenities

                you are the moment
                before the buildings turned into flesh
                and windows closed their eyes

                you are the moment
                before the railwaystations burst into tears
                and the bookstalls picked their noses

                you are the moment
                before the buspeople turned into teeth
                and chewed the inspector
                for no other reason than he was doing his duty

                you are the moment
                before the flowers turned into plastic and melted
                in the heat of the burning cities

                you are the moment
                before the blindman puts on his dark glasses

                you are the moment
                before the subconscious begged to be left in peace

                you are the moment
                before the world was made flesh

                you are the moment
                before the clouds became locomotives
                and hurtled headlong into the sun

                you are the moment
                before the spotlight moving across the darkened stage
                like a crab finds the singer

                you are the moment
                before the seed nestles in the womb

                you are the moment
                before the clocks had nervous breakdowns
                and refused to keep pace with man’s madness

                you are the moment
                before the cattle were herded together like men

                you are the moment
                before God forgot His lines

                you are the moment of pride
                before the fiftieth bead

                you are the moment
                before the poem passed peacefully away at dawn
                like a monarch

 

from The Mersey Sound, 1967
when I first read this poem in 1978 I was too young to let go associations enough to get the metaphor; after a lifetime of being obligated to associations which stood idly by while I wildly floundered without ground, I can let them go with glee and relish and relish the metaphors to the portrait’s content (… still not sure about the ‘lost day of the child murderer’, however, and I’m still not sure why I’m not sure, but I’m not; but I can’t think McGough just slipped up over one couplet … (and I can’t find any discussion of this line in the pages-that-proliferate-like-spores-wafted-across-their-own-private-amphitheatres))

 

 

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

books & love wormhole: `whappn’d!
buildings wormhole: cowled
city & windows wormhole: moon- // washed
clouds & green & silence & time & wind wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
curtains wormhole: ‘the Bat-Signal …’
dawn wormhole: between
death wormhole: beguiled / desire
eyes wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Cows
feet wormhole: ‘oh my girls and muse …’
glasses wormhole: … the underleaves show
hands & water & world wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
leaves wormhole: sufficiently away
library wormhole: two profiles
mirror wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams
morning wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
mother wormhole: granny
power wormhole: I
Spring & sun wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
trees & voices & yellow wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams
walls wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
war wormhole: to arms, then;
waves wormhole: Khandro Tsering Chodron
winter wormhole: where did the silence go

 

DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1917, 5*, acceptance, arms, baby, bedroom, dancing, face, happiness, loneliness, mirror, mist, shoulders, singing, sleep, sun, trees, white, wife, William Carlos Williams, yellow

                                DANSE RUSSE

                If I when my wife is sleeping
                and the baby and Kathleen
                are sleeping
                and the sun is a flame-white-disc
                in silken mists
                above shining trees,–
                if I in my north room
                dance naked, grotesquely
                before my mirror
                waving my shirt round my head
                and singing softly to myself:
                “I am lonelt, lonely.
                I was born to be lonely,
                I am best so!”
                If I admire my arms, flanks, buttocks
                against the yellow drawn shades,–

                Who shall say I am not
                the happy genius of my household?

 

from Al Que Quiere, 1917

Diaghilev, Nijinsky and the Ballets Russes were in New York in 1916, inspiring the abandon of conformity and the discipline of acceptance which were so necessary to the budding 20th Century

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: without any buffet at all
bedroom wormhole: between thoughts
dancing wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
loneliness wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
mirror wormhole: … the underleaves show
mist wormhole: mauve
sleep wormhole: after all
sun wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
trees wormhole: transferring
white wormhole: ‘the Bat-Signal …’
William Carlos Williams wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams
yellow wormhole: abandoned sound mirrors

 

… the underleaves show

Tags

2017, 7*, black, brick, Carol, crank, faces, glasses, grey, hair, Ironbridge, leaves, mirror, progress, purple, railtrack, reading, steam, sunglasses, table, thrust, time, trees, Victorian, walls, wind, windows, wood

                greased and black teeth interlock
                in turn from steam built to release

                to crank the thrust trained to track
                sooner ahead and curving to distant

                future while bricks stack high to
                shape an echoey wall up to 1000 a

                day, coal-faced and sullen and bolts
                sunk into wood that will never be

                undone again all the while
                the wind blows the upper trees …

                                — O —

                bottom of the tall mirror above
                the wooden table tops the back

                of handsome hair let grey with
                sunglasses and purple glasses on

                the end of her nose reading
                something carefully before the

                five-high-four-wide-flank-of
                paned windows all along the front of the Refreshment Pavilion and

                when the wind blows high
                … the underleaves show

 

Blists Hill is a delightfully recreated Victorian industrial town near Ironbridge, Shropshire which tags itself ‘The Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution’ we revisited in May 2017

 

 

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

black & purple wormhole: polystyrene / boulderscape
Carol & hair wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
faces wormhole: sharpened apex
glasses wormhole: Batgirl –
grey wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
leaves wormhole: travelling // arrival
mirror wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
reading & wind wormhole: perspective
table wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
time wormhole: Bridgnorth
trees & windows & wood wormhole: {Ellen Terry’s house}
walls wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye

 

Coleton Fishacre

Tags

2*, 2015, afterlife, architecture, being, Have, mirror, silver, speech

                Coleton Fishacre

                “When every blessed thing you hold
                  is made of silver … you long for
                  simple pewter”

                silver degenerating
                like an acid scar
                in the bulbous mirror

                “If a man can’t forge
                  his own will whose will
                  can he forge”, apocryphal

                architecturalisation of
                the will to being (molded
                in reproduction)

 

 

 

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

architecture & Have wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
being wormhole: amid
mirror wormhole: in verse / question / m a r k ?
silver wormhole: between
speech wormhole: at table 21 in the garden centre thinking to / replicate Hughes’ exercise for Plath about / the Yew Tree

 

in verse / question / m a r k ?

Tags

2012, 4*, being, doing, identity, life, mauve, mirror, offer, olive, samsara, settling, slogans, society, voices, world

 

 

 

                                                                                    in  verse
                                                                                    question
                                                                                    m a r k ?

when I try to make my play I am wronged even while I am preparing while the
whole world shuffles and shifts slightly uncomfortable (although bravely
facing up to the gloopy mauve-olive snot of ‘we’re all in this
together’) while easing my offer carefully to one
side I am rendered ‘by the way’ and always
find myself on the other side of ‘how
things are’ ‘just one of those things’
‘how things are done’ ‘things have
changed’ I will never play my make
I have tried to make it play for all my
wilful life strung along by ‘maybe this time’
but only gathering ‘it’s not what we need’ to my
identity face it, boy, I will never be needed and I’ll never
find the party I should be where I am and not try to make the play
where each attempt mirrors me back fractured.   I should dwell apart whole …

 

 

 

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

being & settling wormhole: tired
doing wormhole: practising
identity wormhole: and
life wormhole: update
mauve wormhole: Infantino world
mirror & olive wormhole: … still waving!
samsara wormhole: Have what, now?
society wormhole: Child of Illusion
voices wormhole: only
world wormhole: across the room / through the patio doors / through the conservatory windows / at the bottom of the garden / the still bifurcated trunk of / the oak / before the let-grown hair and fringes / of the fir tree / blown every lifetime in a while by the winter sun // actually

 

… still waving!

Tags

2007, 2014, 8*, afternoon, bedroom, brown, cars, cigar, Dad, death, dog, doing, family, field, fingers, green, hedge, Herbert Road, house, kitchen, letter, life, lifetimes, mirror, muse, olive, painting, rain, Ramsden Heath, red, roof, seeing, shadow, silence, smile, streets, time, trees, uncle, walking, wind, windows, wood, yellow

a salute to my Uncle Mick (1935 – 2007) who lived with great gust through the trees and great dark-wood texture for most of his life in Ramsden Heath, Essex, quietly, with a smile

 

 

 

                                          Dear Dad

                           it was good to see you on such a sad day
            Mick would have been satisfied that we had come together as family again
                           whether he was there or not

                           I wandered in his house a little to say goodbye
                                          and to see if there was anything I wanted to take
                                          to remember him I didn’t take anything
            I might have taken endless bits
                                          awkwardly
                           or I had to realise that all my time with him
                                          had happened thirty years ago already passed that I cannot hold onto
            I have to say goodbye to him
                                          with gratitude
                                          to recognise what he gave to my life
                                                              and to the world
                           a more complete tribute
            than trying to hold onto all the bits and pieces

                                                              all those people who attended the ceremony
                                          all pulled together by eye and staple
                           the perfect meet of frame and circumstance*

                                          Mick taught me to see
                           the colour of oil in a lamp
                                                              the deep colour of port through a green bottle
                                          the deepest green of holly and laurel
                           the shadows under border shrubs

                                                              I learnt to smell hedgerows
                                          while walking too fast past them
                                          I listened to the ancientness
                           of horse and leather and dogs
            I creaked the chairs and drew the wood and linen of pubs closed
                                                              to the rain-slatter of the afternoon

                           I envied his example – the lesson – the nobility of action
                           translucent gallantry and service to anyone who was around –
            it was not too much to go out into the kitchen and make everyone a round of sandwiches when every one couldn’t be bothered –
                                          quiet and strong

                           I remember
            Ringo** lifted up to head height so that he could see himself in the mirror
                                          (he didn’t notice, but looked at the floor)
                           I remember the canary-yellow sports car parked in the field
                                                              away from Nan’s annoyance

                                          and the draw of a cigar slightly moist yet
                                                              with light brown wrapping and deep brown leaf –
            he was completely arrived when he held that cigar gently between jointed fingers –
                           and the crawling out of a bedroom window right along the roof of the outhouses
                           to get THE shot in a water fight during a too hot day
            and the magic – the alchemy – showing me how to paint the image of a tree
                                          with oils – a stroke and a dab-smudge in the wind
                                          you ‘suggest’ the shape rather than create it –
                           the single detail he painted on the mantelpiece in his sitting room
                                                                                              olive green
            the near-tearful goodbyes when the visit came to an end waving until we were out of sight –
                                                              he’s still waving!

                           he once showed me annoyance
                                          when he stopped me walking straight across a side street in Herbert Road
                                          without checking I was a little stunned
                                                              but enormously honoured that he thought it was important

                           I probably only saw him
                           for forty days in my life
            but he has coloured my world as indelibly as oil paint
                                                              (suggested not created)
                           I saw great loss in your face and your shoulders today
                                          Dad
                           but please please look at all the colour and texture
                                          in your life from the 72 years you shared with him
                                          he was an OK painter on canvas
                           but he created wonderful landscapes
                                                              in our lives

                                                                                 he once lamented
                           that you and I don’t see each other much – and he was damned right of course –
            his last masterstroke was to show me this
                                                              today

 

* Mick served in Kenya during his National Service; when he returned he worked on a farm and as a gardener and finally set up his own business framing pictures which supported him for the rest of his life
** stupid boxer dog family pet

 

 

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

afternoon & green & olive & rain wormhole: bad sneakers
bedroom wormhole: dream 040198 / Eglinton Hill
brown wormhole: blue and green / a l l s o r t s
cars & dog wormhole: through the window
death wormhole: existence
doing & smile & time wormhole: t w e n t y f i r s t c e n t u r y l i f e
family & house wormhole: father figure – triptych
field wormhole: slow slow / quick quick / slo / w
hedge wormhole: 3:30 am
Herbert Road wormhole: Herbert Road diptych
kitchen & yellow wormhole: zazen in everyday life
life wormhole: tag cloud poem I – numbers
lifetimes wormhole: Have what, now?
mirror wormhole: dream / 301197 // home
muse wormhole: Saturday
Ramsden Heath wormhole: duck calls
red & silence & trees & walking wormhole: let
roof wormhole: … the discipline of shamatha / and the waft of vipashyana
seeing wormhole: zazen
shadow wormhole: point of realisation
streets wormhole: wha’
uncle wormhole: Michael Redford: // someone missing
wind & windows wormhole: across the room / through the patio doors / through the conservatory windows / at the bottom of the garden / the still bifurcated trunk of / the oak / before the let-grown hair and fringes / of the fir tree / blown every lifetime in a while by the winter sun // actually
wood wormhole: again

 

dream / 301197 // home

Tags

1997, 2012, 4*, Dad, dream, Eglinton Hill, evening, family, green, growth, home, kitchen, mirror, pink, room, twilight, walking, walls, windows, work

                                dream
                                301197

                I am here with a party of people
                                feel of a party gathering
                                feel of a family gathering

                I am sitting in one of the upstairs rooms
                                noticing how it has changed
                                noticing how it is the same
                                this symbol of mine that I live in

                                later I am with my Dad
                and my own family are in the house too all living together
                                I have been to work
                                I have walked back home and into the house
                                through the back kitchen door
                Dad says that he had tried to contact the school to arrange a lift
                                but couldn’t and he apologised

                                I had walked home
                I was very relaxed and contented
                                I had walked home after work

                I spent time exploring the house
                                reviewing
                                recognising a walk-in cupboard I hadn’t noticed before
                                and other changes that Dad had made to the house
                                has he been looking after my life for all these years?

                during dinner I remarked
                that the house didn’t seem to be where it was
                Dad said that they’d moved it here because they liked it
                                and it suited them

                Eglinton Hill was no longer in Eglinton Hill:

dark green twilight Kent quite near semi 101 Dalmatians fleeing to Suffolk glasses on the mantelpiece smokey tall people pink walls talking glassey mirror large sitting room glimpsed through other front windows of houses in Eglington Hill late evening dark green wallpaper tired light feelings

                nothing is the same
                                when grown up

 

 

 

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

Dad & dream & Eglinton Hill wormhole: dream / 121097
evening & walls wormhole: point of realisation
family wormhole: Moebius strip
green wormhole: Eridge Station
kitchen wormhole: Saturday
mirror wormhole: tired – diptych
pink wormhole: wraggle of architecture
twilight wormhole: twilight
walking wormhole: dream / 010397
windows wormhole: 1996 dream
work wormhole: Sunday