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

 

‘field of corn …’

Tags

2015, 5*, being, family, field, haiku, identity, others, walking, wind

                                     field of corn, the wind
                           across the tops of heads, some
                               taller, some not so

 

I still try to be other than what I am, and thereby fall short of what I am, and what I could be, to others; somewhat

 

 

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

being & identity wormhole: con / sum / mate
family wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy
field wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
haiku[esque] wormhole: I
others wormhole: beepbeep
walking wormhole: love and precision
wind wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow

 

beepbeep

Tags

1960s, 1967, 2016, 7*, abandonment, colour, commentary, courage, crying, Dad, depression, direction, divorce, driving, evening, eyes, feeling sorry for myself, freedom, groundlessness, Have, home, hope, identity, life, light, looking, now, others, passing, people, pointlessness, purpose, renunciation, revolution, sense of self, sex, sign, sound, texture, time, true nature, Victoria & Albert Museum, world

                                did Dad leaving
                                trigger my sense of revolution or
                my sense of depression
that there is no purpose
                                in the world
                that I would eventually have to find the courage
to face those new tremors,
                                but five years on,
                                                there, between the given textures
                already cheap and fraying

                                or did revolution trigger Dad to leave
                                                                and find some other way
                                                                                to find some truer nature?

                -O~~~

                                I didn’t want the headphones, now
                                I didn’t want the commentary
                                                all safely wrapped and bordered
                                                                so I kept my own eyes
                                                                open and saw 50 year old memorabilia
                                                                                strangely mute, now
                                                                                despite the peacock-print

                                                and little in between
                                                                save shuffling overcoats with
                                                                no sense of direction where to go
                                                                                save their right of individual                
                                                                                                                way

                                                                                                ~~~O-

                                I don’t think I want the revolution
                                anymore –
                                                away with your awkward sex! –
                I want to know the innate freedom
                                I trust I have already,
                                                save for my sense of right of way

                                                                I cried for fifty years later that evening
                                                it is hard to lose your way returning home
                                                                cut up and turning in circles
                                                                                hoping for the right lane
                                                                                                lights on and direction to go                
                                                                                                                everywhere
                                                                                                signed
                                                                and passing overhead
                                                                it is hard to arrive
                                                toe to toe
                                                                with a fifty year old overcoat
                                with no face
                                but a blinking eye
and me with no headphones

                                                                beepbeep

 

on 30th October 2016, I visited the Victoria & Albert Museum exhibition @You Say You Want a Revolution’ – Records and Rebels 1966-1970 (a birth day present, thank you, Carol); my Dad left our family on 2nd November 1967, my eighth birthday, and the divorce became final by 1969; I think it was Brigitte Bardot who said something about the ‘tremors’ which were felt in the late 60s, but few who had the ‘courage’ to face them, but I can’t seem to find the quote verbatim; we got a bit lost, at first, driving back from west London

 

 

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

abandonment & Dad & people wormhole: chartless …
depression wormhole: the both passive and transitive / non-presumptive pre-conceptualist attenuation of being
divorce wormhole: 1967
evening & identity wormhole: sleep now
eyes & life & sound wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
groundlessness & pointlessness wormhole: [once a] dilemminal [always a dilemminal]
Have wormhole: Doctor Strange III – the needs of billions
light wormhole: adjustment
looking wormhole: Clea
others & passing wormhole: passersby
renunciation wormhole: escape from Flat Planet
time wormhole: the too big moon
world wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow

 

passersby

Tags

2016, 6*, architecture, artist, blue, buildings, façade, finials, ghosts, Granada, identity, others, passing, rooftops, self, Shantideva, sky, smile, streets, superhero, thought, walls, wandering

                “acting like an apparition
                  with no sense of self”; not

                martyring myself an apparition
                because no one recognised my

                self; let me wander the streets
                and plazas parrying every foil

                in my head, swinging up
                facades and leaping rooftops

                with closed-lipped smile
                to greet the passersby; the

                artist sits with his back
                to the wall to finish

                the finials opposite with just
                touches of blue sky

 

the quote is from Stephen Batchelor’s translation of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara (V, 57) which I was reciting as my holiday reading; the ideal and the model, the should and the example; how to be amongst other (and amongst others), it is not the finials, so much, as the sky before which they reach …

 

 

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

blue & passing & thought & walls wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
buildings & streets wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
ghosts wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
identity wormhole: I
others wormhole: Clea
rooftops wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
Shantideva wormhole: inbreath
sky wormhole: be
smile wormhole: new-found love – poewieview #36
superhero wormhole: zero

 

Clea

Tags

2016, 5*, brick, circle, claim, Clea, direction, Dormammu, Dr Strange, eyebrow, fingers, fire, gaze, head, identity, looking, morality, obligation, others, path, play, rhyme, self, space, spell, stars, thought

                                                              Clea

                     she is made of circles and stars
                     but gazes only from brick-lined

                     tunnels that hang in space – portals
                     of thought – then eyebrows frown

                     to look, and fingers splay in fanned
                     direction; she will dispel the tiresome

                     play of self and other – claim to
                     claim, rhyme to spell – and obliged

                     a morality to stand firm on its
                     own two feet, despite paths that

                     lead in ribbons and head of open fire

 

through the portals hung in space from Strange Tales #s 126 & 127, by Lee & Ditko

 

 

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

Dr Strange wormhole: “The Lady from Nowhere”
identity wormhole: just one, open, nerve,
looking wormhole: let it all go
obligation wormhole: true nature
others wormhole: even / a second
path wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
play wormhole: Jericho
space wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs
thought wormhole: time

 

even / a second

Tags

2010, 5*, being, breathing, letting go, life, living, others, people, ritual, sitting, society, time

 

 

 

                                                                each day
                each minute

                           so washed and tided by
                           refrains and rejoinders
                           day- & night-time opera
                           with so many scenes
                           and actors and subplots
                           undirected anarchic
                           but ritualised and social

 

                                                                no time
                to step out

                           into the foyer, breathe
                           a little but then just
                           stopping & sitting
                           & breathing for even
                           a second would be
                           a satisfying ending
                           before the credits roll

 

 

 

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

being & sitting & time wormhole: magnetic field
breathing wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
letting go wormhole: zero
life & society wormhole: Doctor Strange III – the needs of billions
living wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Introduction
others wormhole: my seat // now
people wormhole: reaching branch

 

my seat // now

Tags

2016, 4*, balance, cafe, cars, contentment, doing, giving, grey, hair, Have, identity, joy, listening, mauve, others, Oxfam, patience, pink, red, seat, self-compassion, sitting, sound, speech, talking, vista, walking

                I lost my seat of joy
                in giving, I might have had it yesterday,
                but today I find myself
                gilled by her pink coat to do
                all the talking and irritated by
                the loud-enough heels to do all the walking

                I lost my seat of vista
                when stopping, I might have had it yesterday but
                today I cannot stop hearing
                the all-things-considered voice
                out back of the Oxfam shop wondering if dictatorships aren’t what’s needed in the end, I
                have to leave the shop

                I lost my seat of patience
                in getting, I might have had it yesterday but today
                I clear-the-throat listening to the too-exhaust-[ed] luxury cars
                revving and braking to leave the NCP

                I lost my seat of balance
                when doing, I might have had it yesterday but today I must listen
                to her hold attention with red-mauved hair
                and one greyed temple talk-clear to her back-turned friend,
                from the other side of the crowded room

                `never had a settled seat to miss, that I remember – `still trying to find that one –
                `never lost my seat and been happy about it, until

now

 

 

 

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

balance wormhole: balancing // with a whole lot of deft
cars & pink wormhole: the policies came to nothing
doing wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
giving wormhole: dry rot
grey & identity & sound wormhole: Elektra
hair wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
Have & listening & speech & talking wormhole: listen willya
mauve wormhole: between thoughts
others wormhole: reaching branch
red wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
sitting wormhole: substance
walking wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment

 

reaching branch

Tags

2016, allowing, architecture, branches, change, clouds, coffee shop, compassion, feet, identity, landscape, mind, others, passing, people, reaching, Shrewsbury, sky, walking, watching, windows, writing

                           the landscapes
                           that conceive the mind

                           shift like
                           architecture of deep-belly clouds

                           watching all
                           the occasions of feet pass

                           in the window
                           of the same coffee shops to which I return

                           allowing each
                           lace and ripple bulb and disperse over

                           reaching branch

 

 

 

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

branches wormhole: furl-reach
change wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
clouds & identity & windows wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – the soft canticle of the gourds:
coffee shop wormhole: the coffee shop opportunity
compassion wormhole: constant hummm
feet wormhole: Hurst Green
mind wormhole: ‘on second thought …’ – poewieview #27
others wormhole: and that’s where I are
passing & people wormhole: 1964
sky wormhole: tired
walking wormhole: tripping up to / London town
writing wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – introdepthion

 

and that’s where I are

Tags

2016, Aleister Crowley, alley, appearence, birch, black, Bowie, breakdown, breeze, brick, building, car park, career, Carol, cars, cats, child, church, clothes, coffee shop, creativity, decision, Diane di Prima, disappearance, down, Eastbourne, emptiness, fear, form, grey, Heart Sutra, horizontal, humanity, identity, left, leg, looking, mother, muse, others, passing, pavement, plane, posture, quantum, rebellion, right, right angle, roads, school, searching, seeing, silence, silver, sitting, sound, spire, stain, stopped, streets, talking to myself, teaching, trees, up, vertical, waiting, walking, walls, William Carlos Williams, wind, writers, writing

            inner coffee shop

            so, is writing pointless,
            just rebellion from root
            just the muscling of me
            to spite the hard fear that

            I’ll turn to stone if I look
            into her face … `spite the
            knowledge that others are
            far more brave than me?

            St. Saviour & St. Peter

            so what draws me to sit,
            after all, on the roadside
            wall across from the spire
            clear for all to see the

            even bricks buttress, cap
            and flute up so high to
            eleven storeys to, maybe,
            the single point, with run-

            down stain and grimèd
line defining plane and vertical rightened quantum to the neat, surrounding parking and the passing upright
            humans both of public
            dress and private gait

                           360º

            and then the grey cat
            strolled from some-
            where left between
            silent cars to cross the

            road right – stopped –
            t’looka’leaf ‘n’ disappear
            up on wall by tree-sniff
            stop – fence? – no,

            down be-hind th’wall
            out through th’front
            windscreen ‘n’
            downastepps t’street

            to not appear where
            expected; ‘shut’, a mother
            leads a tot from front
            door to car …
                                   … still no appearance

            … … scamper with the
            wind behind as the car
            pulls away; maybe I should
            record this wh’appened all

            around breeze, strolled –
            stopped – by the wall
            back from b’hind m’left
            enters the gateway out

            by th’alleyway (with the
            bold and naked silver birch
            I hadn’t noticed);
                                          upover
            the fence [not attempted

            before] tadaaanother cat
            black treesniff checkleft
            then … left, jumptowall,
            jump to pavementstop;

            over the road frontleg
            onelick s t r o l l s car-
            shielded; black belly-slink
            low across the road; they

            walk away both from
            sight either side of the van;
            one tail up and wiggy
            one tail fluffy with spine

            these things all of great
            importance to spite the hard fact
            of my writing them,
            old Bull Williams would have

            and that’s where I are

 

there are expanses awkward to the landscape in writing sometimes: the technique is there, the shift can be made, but the will and excitement just isn’t; I have been reading Diane di Prima’s “Recollections of My Life as a Woman”, I greatly fed off her childhood but have languoured once she got into the Work; I have been reading about Aleister Crowley’s ‘Do What Thou Wilt’ awkward plane; I have a huge project ongoing writing poewieviews to David Bowie’s oeuvre – I am going to new lands but the luggage is heavy and awkward and requiring decisions which I don’t easily make; oh, and I am off work again, feeling un-plugged in to my own practice of vocation like a forlorn state-of-the-art food mixer; I spent a morning down in Eastbourne chauffeuring my wife around like the successful carer that she is; walking; sitting in a coffee shop; snagged at St. Saviour & St. Peter Church on the corner of Spencer Road and South Street, still pondering the relationship between multifarious form and the emptiness makes it dynamic; but it wasn’t until I sat back in the waiting car and watched the chess moves of two cats in the street that I stumbled across the full quote from the Heart Sutra: “form is emptiness; emptiness is form; emptiness is no other than form, form also is no other than emptiness”; but it wasn’t until I got home and shaped it all up from scribbles to column – with my ageing black AND white cat leaning against my foot – that I wondered if I still hadn’t quite got it yet (as William Carlos Williams, the great great practicer of ‘no poetry but in things’ said); and yet it has been satisfying finding not so …

 

 

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

birch wormhole: fine droplets / across the glass
black & grey wormhole: hinged – From Hell ch. V
Bowie wormhole: Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20
breakdown & writing wormhole: nothing to write
breeze wormhole: strange / tarnish
buildings & silver & streets wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky
carer wormhole: just saying, is all IV: // lost
Carol wormhole: when in Belgium do as the chocolates do
cars wormhole: stacked
cats wormhole: new garden
child wormhole: dream 260815
church wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
coffee shop wormhole: ‘from under the awning …’
creativity & school wormhole: through
Eastbourne wormhole: along
emptiness wormhole: 1966 … actually sic // of it allllll-bsssssssh – poewieview #8
identity wormhole: dear clown’s face
looking & muse & sound wormhole: don’t look / at her eyes – poewieview #18
mother & silence wormhole: early evening
others wormhole: my // shell – poewieview #19
passing & posture wormhole: really
roads wormhole: sixty four sixty five – poewieview #1
searching wormhole: opening
seeing wormhole: where the goblins leered – poewieview #14
sitting & talking to myself wormhole: tong len / the inauguration of another – timely – butter fly effect / taking and giving
teaching wormhole: the MagOO Effect Effect
trees wormhole: Shonagh – poewieview #17
waiting wormhole: Saturday – poewieview #3
walking wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
walls wormhole: Nostalgia for Samsara – poewieview #16
[William Carlos] Williams wormhole: and then just stop
wind wormhole: keep the light off

 

my // shell – poewieview #19

Tags

1970, 2016, Bowie, Buddha, delusion, desire, echo, eyes, forest, happiness, identity, karma, lifetimes, monkey, others, samsara, shadow, shell, the Three Poisons, thought, words

                my

                                shadows whip `round me
                                sometimes before you’ve
                                thought your words

                                you cannot help it
                                I have echoes in my eyes
                                from all the “I”s that faded

                                too soon to cast open their
                                only desires left hanging tantalic,
                                your monkey’s hand held tight in the

                                                                                 shell^*

 

^* “the prince heard the cry of a monkey in the forest: it had been trapped by hunters who used a nut case which was so-shaped that a monkey’s hand could fit into the shell when opened flat, but not if the hand was held as a fist.   The hunters placed food in the shell which greatly attracted the monkeys; when they put in their hands to grab the food they could not withdraw their hands, and yet they wanted the food so much that they would not let it go.   And so they were trapped.   This seemed to the prince that it might be the answer: beings find no happiness in life because the very act of trying to get happiness binds them to frustration.   In selfishly trying to grab their own lives, they were trapped in them.   The enemies to fight were the delusions within oneself: selfishness, pride, greed, belief in the self, anger, jealousy, hate, desire etc, those things which try to grasp happiness in life.”

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

 

 

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

Bowie & eyes wormhole: don’t look / at her eyes – poewieview #18
Buddha wormhole: out!
echo wormhole: where the goblins leered – poewieview #14
identity wormhole: Shonagh – poewieview #17
lifetimes wormhole: thick thick fog
others wormhole: crescendoeing cascade of chordage – poewieview #10
samsara wormhole: Nostalgia for Samsara – poewieview #16
shadow wormhole: keep the light off
thought wormhole: strange / tarnish
words wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky