horizon

Tags

2019, 6*, airport, being, clouds, conformity, discernment, existence, flying, height, horizon, mass, matter, passing, progress, quiet, sky, space, sun, thought, travelling

                horizon

                to a quiet corner of the airport,
                there were handrails across the sky

                with steps up and over
                passing clouds; later, up and climbing

                to cruise, we have clearance to pass
                through floating land

{it’s OK, it’s OK, strato-technology can only allow crust and cohesion with unauthorised approach, otherwise the whole cannot maintain buoyancy; and unauthorised approach just cannot frequently be allowed}

                but at 37 000 feet
                the thought writhes:

                does space allow the mass within,
                or does space tear horizontal shards in

                implacable matter by
                any possible progress

                until there is
                no possibility of making any discernment at all

                when the sun has fallen
                below our own event?

 

we went to Lanzarote for a brief holiday – or did Lanzarote come to us through the medium of fuselage; either way … the further you travel the deeper you stay where you are; flying … still weird

 

 

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

being & passing & sky wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
clouds & sun wormhole: The Diligence at Louveciennes, 1870
horizon wormhole: and … // … sound
quiet wormhole: La Route de Louveciennes, 1870
space wormhole: sun setting over a lake, 1840
thought wormhole: Fishermen at Sea, 1796
travelling wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XI by William Carlos Williams

 

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La Route de Louveciennes, 1870

Tags

1870, 2018, 6*, autumn, cart, echo, electric, evening, grey, industry, land, leaves, metal, orange, passing, pink, Pissarro, quiet, roads, sky, sound, sun, table, time, town, trees, wheel, white, wood

                the cart’s wheel will roll
                metal-held and ungiven down
                the hard-pressed road making echo

                only between the sides of its empty
                bed, slatted and turning; some-
                where in the oranging-grey town

                were stables to rest and evenings
                of sounds at the wooden tables;
                most leaves have already fallen,

                industry slowly arisen over the
                wet land, the white sun, quiet
                in the dirt-pink sky, but electric

                between the bare trunks

 

La Route de Louveciennes, 1870; Camille Pissaro

 

 

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

autumn wormhole: presence
echo wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
evening & time & white wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
grey wormhole: SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams
leaves & roads & trees wormhole: SPRING AND ALL I by William Carlos Williams
orange wormhole: space for probing thought
passing & sun wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
pink & sky wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
quiet wormhole: allowed all gain
sound wormhole: THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams
table wormhole: coterminalism – there is nothing happens by itself, / 070118
wood wormhole: transferring

 

allowed all gain

Tags

2018, 7*, beach, Bodhichitta, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, concentration, currents, distance, fetch, floor, karma, kitchen, light, mother sentient beings, movement, others, prayer, quiet, recitation, sitting, tide, waves

                every time the
                supreme and precious Jewel
                Bodhichitta prayer was
                recited, quiet and

                somewhat quirky,
                on flattened cushions and
                neon-lit in kitchens
                only the

                breaking waves
                and tides were noticed,
                occasionally, on the beaches
                but all the while

                the waves were
                swelling and fetching over
                distance and the currents
                pursued their

                unique and necessary
                paths, while the concentration all about the wide and holding floor supported                
                all movement and
                allowed all gain

 

all 913 verses in ten chapters of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara can be encapsulated in the Bodhichitta prayer: “May the supreme and precious Jewel Bodhichitta take birth where it has not done so, where it has taken birth may it not decrease, but may it increase infinitely”.

 

 

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

beach & waves wormhole: we held cold hands
kitchen wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
light wormhole: THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams
others wormhole: cinnamon / milkshake
quiet wormhole: raised brow
sitting wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees

 

raised brow

Tags

1969, 2018, 5*, arms, Batman, boulders, buildings, city, compromise, disappearance, eyebrow, face, phone, plan, quiet, society, step, watching

                raised brow

                he crossed his arms, watched
                the hulking step of guile and suit

                approach carefully over wet boulders,
                [the set of plan secure

                 from the phone booth
                 quiet amid all the high-rise of possibility]

                watched immobile until his face
                disappeared

 

Detective Comics #392, October 1969, Frank Robbins, Bob Brown: almost two years after my father left I was beginning to find my nerve

 

 

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

Batman wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
buildings & city wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
compromise wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
quiet wormhole: LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM by William Carlos Williams
society wormhole: Victorian pipework

 

LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1921, 5*, bedroom, blue, child, childhood, green, laughing, looking, November, quiet, shadow, Spring, streets, sunlight, weather, William Carlos Williams, windows

                LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM

                Light hearted William twirled
                his November moustaches
                and, half dressed, looked
                from the bedroom window
                upon the spring weather.

                Height-ya! sighed he gaily
                leaning out to see
                up and down the street
                where a heavy sunlight
                lay beyond some blue shadows.

                Into the room he drew
                his head again and laughed
                to himself quietly
                twirling his green moustaches.

 

from Sour Grapes, 1921
… and WCW had a son called … William, who was it about, hmmm … twirl

 

 

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

bedroom wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams
blue & green & William Carlos Williams wormhole: BLUEFLAGS by William Carlos Williams
child wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
childhood wormhole: 1964
looking wormhole: THURSDAY by William Carlos Williams
shadow wormhole: sometimes
spring wormhole: SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams
streets wormhole: space for probing thought
windows wormhole: the moon, the moon

 

A Solitude by Denise Levertov

Tags

1961, 7*, air, anxiety, being, blindness, breeze, children, Denise Levertov, doors, exit, face, hands, image, journey, joy, light, movement, nowhere, passing, people, presence, quiet, right, seeing, shame, smile, solitude, sound, speech, stairs, staring, station, stranger, streets, sunlight, thought, train, water, way, world

                                A Solitude

                A blind man. I can stare at him
                ashamed, shameless. Or does he know it?
                No, he is in a great solitude.

                O, strange joy,
                to gaze my fill at a stranger’s face.
                No, my thirst is greater than before.

                In this world he is speaking
                almost aloud. His lips move.
                Anxiety plays about them. And now joy

                of some sort trembles into a smile.
                A breeze I can’t feel
                crosses that face as if it crossed water.

                The train moves uptown, pulls in and
                pulls out of the local stops. Within its loud
                jarring movement a quiet,

                the quiet of people not speaking,
                some of them eyeing the blind man,
                only a moment though, not thirsty like me,

                and within that quiet his
                different quiet, not quiet at all, a tumult
                of images, but what are his images,

                he is blind? He doesn’t care
                that he looks strange, showing
                his thoughts on his face like designs of light

                flickering on water, for hedoesn’t know
                what look is.
                I see he has never seen.

                And now he rises, he stands at the door ready,
                knowing his station is next. Was he counting?
                No, that was not his need.

                When he gets out I get out.
                ‘Can I help you towards the exit?’
                ‘Oh, alright.’ An indifference.

                But instantly, even as he speaks,
                even as I hear indifference, his hand
                goes out, waiting for me to take it,

                and now we hold hands like children.
                His hand is warm and not sweaty,
                the grip firm, it feels good.

                And when we have passed through the turnstile,
                he going first, his hand at once
                waits for mine again.

                ‘Here are the steps. And here we turn
                to the right. More stairs now.’ We go
                up into sunlight. He feels that,

                the soft air. ‘A nice day,
                isn’t it?’ says the blind man. Solitude
                walks with me, walks

                beside me, he is not with me, he continues
                his thoughts alone. But his hand and mine
                know one another,

                it’s as if my hand were gone forth
                on its own journey. I see him
                across the street, the blind man,

                and now he says he can find his way. He knows
                where he is going, it is nowhere, it is filled
                with presences. He says, I am.

 

how to be in another’s head about being in another’s head: this is a wonderful example of Whalen’s ‘graph of the mind’ – the reach and score of effervent; there is a wonderful clarity and excise about these words such that the encounter is ours as much as just reported; thank you Denise Levertov, as she touches her throat lightly to feel the vibrations as she listens

 

 

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

air wormhole: THE DESOLATE FIELD by William Carlos Williams
anxiety wormhole: anxiety
being & water wormhole: `whappn’d!
breeze & hands wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
doors wormhole: letting them go
light wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
passing wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
people wormhole: tram
quiet wormhole: new blue porsche
seeing wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
smile wormhole: SUMMER SONG by William Carlos Williams
streets wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
thought wormhole: presence
train wormhole: all the low clouds keeping pace / through the train window, / always arriving, whether fast or / slow, but never actually moving
world wormhole: scintillating to mind’s content

 

new blue porsche

Tags

2018, 5*, blue, cleaning, ducks-in-a-circle, investment, management, managerialism, performance management, public service, quiet, reform, results-led education, silence, speech, teacher, teaching, vacuum-cleaner

                one day
                some poor bastard
                got handed a broom
                and was told to
                clean the place up

                but I’m a teacher
                he said no you’re
                a janitor but we’ll
                pay you well if you
                keep it clean and quiet

                so he pushed some dust
                around and lo when
                he turned round it was
                there behind him
                so he invested in a

                state-of-some-bastard-
                industry vacuum-cleaner
                sucked up everything
                that wasn’t bolted
                down, whirling around

                in the drum all in the
                same direction and then
                switched the power
                off; everything was
                quiet and squeaky clean

                and all the right colours
                and he wondered at the
                eiree silence but not
                for long as he drove about
                in his new blue porsche

 

 

 

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

blue wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
management & performance management & teaching wormhole: someone’s got to do it
managerialism wormhole: I turn to wake up
results-led education wormhole: what wounds have you got?
silence wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
speech wormhole: presence

 

glancing up from the text / searching for ground …

Tags

2017, 5*, Bodhisattvacaryavatara, body, camouflage, emptiness, grey, ground, legs, profile, quiet, rooftops, sky, space, spider, study, telephone lines, vertical, windows, world

                glancing up from the text
                searching for ground ah,

                look at you and your little
                fat body standing side-on

                and vertical to the world
                with six legs pointy into

                space quite despite the two
                slightly divergent phone lines

                stretching quietly above
                the rooflines and before the

                wide grey sky in which is
                camouflaged … everything

 

chapter 9 of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara is both a simple and necessarily complicated teaching about the nature of reality: the simple bit is understanding that nothing exists as it appears; the complicated bits are what to do with this understanding at every turn of attention

 

 

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

emptiness wormhole: skeins of candy pink and lilac
grey wormhole: … the underleaves show
quiet wormhole: oh, alright then
rooftops wormhole: cool / tiled flooring
sky wormhole: sreet
space wormhole: sharpened apex
study wormhole: two profiles
windows wormhole: ash leaves
world wormhole: letting them go

 

oh, alright then

Tags

2017, 6*, beech, church, lifetimes, Nottingham, offices, passing, poetry, quiet, sandstone, sitting, talking to myself, time, traffic, trunk, windows, writing

                oh, alright then

                                sitting in a church ground
                                before a beech tree sometime coppiced

                                pushing up the ancient sandstone
                                so much quieter before

                                the ill-fitting windows
                                of terraced offices where nothing

                                happens
                                save the mark of passed lives

                                the twisted trunk
                                and the exhaust of cobbled engines

                                over speed-humps, to claim
                                that I don’t seem to be writing many poems these days                

 

 

 

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

church wormhole: {Ellen Terry’s house}
lifetimes wormhole: the balance necessary between
passing wormhole: amniotic avenue
poetry wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
quiet wormhole: quiet river
sitting wormhole: skeins of candy pink and lilac
talking to myself wormhole: so where have I got:
time & windows wormhole: all the low clouds keeping pace / through the train window, / always arriving, whether fast or / slow, but never actually moving
writing wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – reaping

 

quiet river

Tags

2016, 5*, Granada, music, quiet, river, windows

                the dormer window
                of the dilapidated escuela
                de música, a sheet holder,

                perhaps, to turn notation
                to wave, perhaps perched
                above the quiet river

 

part of a sunny melange: Granada & Other Poems

 

 

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

music wormhole: is there anything to write?
quiet wormhole: is this it // all the time
river wormhole: river
windows wormhole: ‘when travelling astrally …’