“And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”

Tags

2019, 6*, anger, animals, architecture, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, collapse, corner, dream, fireplace, lintel, moss, pediment, pillars, ruin, settlement, sound, stone, thought, trees, walls, weight, windows

                                “And anger it is that lays in ruins
                                  every kind of mental goodness.”

                crunch what have I stepped on
                cracked, hollow, all about, what

                is this square stone pediment
                skewed and in the way, no, not

                square, this moss has rounded
                the corner, and here is a

                pillar (where’s the arch, where’s
                the other pillar) all concussed

                and made of cone it seems,
                it must have just collapsed

                one day, couldn’t hold the weight,
                maybe someone took the

                other pillar, maybe the lintel
                just shattered and got walked over;

                but no walls here, just that
                mound over there, I could

                climb the side, there are steps, oh,
                it was the fireplace, all that rubble

                has filled the hearth and …
                this was the back wall, here

                is a corner of a window space,
                but there are just trees to see

                now, was it cleared here once,
                did they keep animals milling

                about, were they comfortable,
                did they have dreams …?

 

a wistful from Bodhisattvacharyavatara VI, verse 7: “Encountering that which I fear or do not want, and obstructed or frustrated in obtaining what I want, these provide the fuels of discontent, of unhappiness, of irritation. They smoulder and then flare-up, spreading within me. I become built-up and headstrong with anger which eats away inside and will eventually consume me and the toxic world I have created for myself.” The title-quote is from “The Nectar of Mañjuśrī’s Speech”, a commentary to the Bodhisattvacharyavatara by Kunzang Palden.

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: La Route, Effet d’Hiver, 1872
dream wormhole: on facing the Have
sound wormhole: in turgid reflection
stone & trees wormhole: Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890
thought wormhole: in deed
walls wormhole: Female Peasant Carding, 1875
windows wormhole: threshold to behold

 

Advertisement

… the discipline of shamatha / the waft of vipashyana

Tags

'scape, 2013, Bournville, carillon, chimney, communication, constancy, direction, drops, glass, gutter, moss, rain, roof, seeing, shamatha-vipashyana, sky, sound, time, trees, wind, windows, Woodbrooke

 

staying at Woodbrooke again for a short break, I need to celebrate by posting one of my favourite poems, written here, again …

 

 

                the frame stays constant

                the trees tall and wave
                in constant negotiation
                with the drifting sky
                the Bournville Carillon
                strikes ten in all directions
                some faint some bong

                a telephone wire draped
                from a chimney to a ridge
                like a skipping rope and
                the constant run-off onto
                gutters despite the moss

                the frame has ghost-shifted
                double but remains constant
                the pane is not seen at all

                until I notice the drops run
                and then the frame snaps clear
                and c – o – n – s – t – a – n – t

                such useful things: windows …

                … the discipline of shamatha
                the waft of vipashyana

 

 

 

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

chimney wormhole: the breath of London
communication wormhole: currency: / assent for statement – / ‘smakin’alivvin’
glass & sky & sound & windows wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
rain wormhole: south horizon
roof wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
seeing wormhole: out!
shamatha-vipashyana wormhole: Do Nothing Usually / Take Everything Regularly / Consider It All Clearly / And Step Aside It Waltzingly
time wormhole: if left alone
trees wormhole: new garden
wind wormhole: Hotel Room, 1931

 

clouds

Tags

'scape, 2013, birdsong, black, blue, boulders, candyfloss, clouds, drifting, frond, girder, gliding, gorge, green, grey, iced bun, incandescence, Independence Day, kettle, moss, National Geographic, pan, passing, pine, plume, sky, slow, snow, spaceship, steel, sun, swirls, washing up, wasp, water, waterfall, white

 

 

 

                                              clouds

                                sun fresh-laid snow grey
                                moss on boulders grey
                wisps of steel scourer grey
                                              kettle-plume greys
                                slightly bulging wide underneath of girder grey
                                new galvanised pan grey
                                                                gorge grey
                                black and white National Geographic waterfall grey
                                bowl of water after the washing up greys
                white billows beside the clear blue grey
                                speed-swirls drifting achingly slow grey
                                incandescent candyfloss grey
                                gliding in front of girth belt of grey
                                giant iced bun finger grey dropping
                                              undercarriage like a wasp grey
                                Independence Day invading spaceship grey
                                              where has all the birdsong gone grey

                all behind and above the green-dark silhouette of pine fronds

                                                                                 grey

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–
black wormhole: 2 pm
blue wormhole: Soir Bleu, 1914
clouds & grey & passing wormhole: portrait: / two pigeons
green & white wormhole: when in Belgium do as the chocolates do
pine wormhole: Ashdown Forest / 080213 14:47
sky wormhole: row boat
snow wormhole: now, the verticals go down as well as they go up
sun wormhole: com- / mute
water wormhole: sooner or later

 

Exceat to Cuckmere Haven

Tags

1800s, 1930s, 2015, afternoon, attention, banjo, bass, being, blues, branches, breeze, canopy, chalk, clouds, crow, Cuckmere Haven, distance, Eastbourne, echo, elderflower, exposure, eyebrow, eyes, family, forget-me-not, future, garden, generation, grass, haiku, hair, hills, identity, jazz, karma, listening, mind, moss, music, party, river, sky, sound, stone, talking, time, trees, trumpet, voices, walking, walls, white, wind, writing

 

 

 

                                          Exceat to Cuckmere Haven

                                          enough attention to what is here all
                                          around creates event enough for all
                                          the mournful and background lines

                                          and interjections of a single head to
                                          fill and echo enough to be slightly
                                          embarrassed and self-conscious

                                                      —O¬

                                          uphill first, treeline to the left tends
                                          to the right, to the right to the left:
                                          stonewall gate; then downhill over

                                          the moss on a stone-capped wall
                                          trying blankly to describe the full
                                          and close distance of all the trees

                                          down the hill some trad jazz blues
                                          starts up somewhere from below
                                          (from someone’s garden party);

                                          upsweep of trumpet plnkplnkplnk
                                          of banjo, discussing whether saving
                                          bugs one by one from the foraged

                                          elderflower or just plonking them
                                          all in the boiling water is good for
                                          your karma or not bdjmm-dmtsh;

                                                  dry white silt track with
                                             strolling by double bass line
                                               islands of sparse grass;

                                          aggh; band stops river widens – Île
                                          de la Cité – eyes to the canopy
                                          watching the breeze listening to

                                          the fall, the bug on my forehead
                                          stops stepping between the hairs
                                          of my eyebrows – ahh; band sings

                                          out of earshot, breeze plays at the
                                          edge of the copse; must get to know
                                          these (forget-me-nots) by the fallen

                                          branch; along by the full Cuckmere
                                          ebbing back to the afternoon of the
                                          1930s, (1800s Big Country clouds to

                                          the right), in front the high sky out
                                          to the, as yet, unformed future; the
                                          different ways families talk between

                                          generations down the beach:
                                          declarative conciliatory emolliative
                                          echoing along the outflow wall

                                          crow walks awkwardly on the stones
                                          down the beach, the following
                                          wind raising its back feathers

                                                      ¬O—

                                          turning back: chalk clouds in the
                                          hillside, elderflower fronds cruise
                                          past in fleets of aligned skim

 

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: Hypnopompia
attention & wind wormhole: before // writing?
being & echo & eyes & family & identity & listening & time wormhole: my life / of others
branches & breeze wormhole: out side of the writing / lodge
clouds & garden wormhole: ambling around / the garden centre
crow wormhole: tune up // baton taptaptap
Eastbourne wormhole: gold wedding band
haiku(esque) wormhole: ‘discution poli / d’orage …’
hair & walking wormhole: I love with all the history and lack of perfections at our command
hills wormhole: [start where you are III] – delve
mind & sound & writing wormhole: the art of sit and follow
music wormhole: “King …”
river wormhole: Totnes
sky & walls wormhole: up here
stone & voices wormhole: 1963
talking wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
trees wormhole: hot summer / morning
white wormhole: 1959