psssssh

Tags

2019, 5*, afterlife, air, attachment, breathing, death, denial, fish, hands, hell, hook, identity, land, life, living, regret, self-cherishing, sound, water

                oh yes, lookit
                a morsel, just
                hanging there
                can’t believe my

                luck, maybe too
                good to be true,
                look, wriggling
                and juicy, ah

                what the hell
                openwide and
                chomp; hmmm,
                juicy, ahh: agh

                hook through
                my lip, no, I
                didn’t mean,
                it wasn’t me, I

                wasn’t there, I
                didn’t do nuffin’,
                quick, I’ll rip my
                lip, it’ll heal, just

                get away, no
                it’s up through
                my mouth, shit
                it’s sticking out

                through my nose
                how do I get
                out of this … but
                it was so juicy –

                ugh, where’s the
                air, where’s all that
                water I was
                thrashing around in

                where am I, who
                are all these others
                with no faces, keep
                still y’all, I can’t

                breathe, I can’t
                move through what
                I live in like I
                used to, what

                these hands
                like lands, who
                am I, where
                do I belong

                heating up
                heating up,
                this land is
                too hot, do

                n’t put me
                on it, I’ll
                disintegrate
                psssssh

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara chapter VI, verse 89: These viciously sharp hooks cast by the kleśa-fishermen – these turbulent thoughts, these hateful emotions – and you, o pitiful mind, have been snagged on them again and again – [net-loads of you] – where you will inevitably be turned over to the guards of hell as raw ingredient, to be cooked-alive in the cauldrons there over and over again.

 

 

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

air wormhole: distance
breathing & life & living & sound wormhole: breakfast
death wormhole: in deed
hands wormhole: mandala offering
identity wormhole: eyes like petals
water wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later

 

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after all

Tags

2016, 4*, Alan Moore, anarchy, breakdown, career, compromise, extreme, gender, innocence, Katie, regret, retirement, sadness, sleep, society, teaching, V for Vendetta, victim, wind

                Katie tugged at the eaves, alright,
                so I roused just deeply sad

                at the end of my wasted career,
                too naïve to win, so I read

                the beginning of Evey and V’s
                encounter and knew it could

                never have been done
                after all

 

storm Katie hit the southern UK in March of 2016; naming storms makes it personal; I was also starting what turned out to be my last protracted burn-out from work; Evey and V are the main protagonists in Alan Moore’s ‘V for Vendetta’ – V is the play-through of Anarchy created by the state against which it wages vendetta, his very presence provokes the state, let alone what he says or does; Evey is the play-with of innocence nurtured by the state to fulfil her gender to which she serves as victim, her very presence is exploitative; Evey and V could never co-exist if they stay as they are: if they stay as they are, they are extreme, if they change, they are compromised; by the end of August I was retired and filled with thoughts of what could have been of those 29 years

 

 

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

Alan Moore wormhole: darkness
breakdown wormhole: I turn to wake up
career & teaching wormhole: “I need help”
compromise wormhole: sweet chestnut
retirement wormhole: dream I // dream II
sleep wormhole: good going into / that gentle night
society wormhole: found
wind wormhole: clear as vista

 

that comicbookshop in dreams,

Tags

1960s, 2015, anxiety, arrival, bay window, beach, black, blue, buildings, comics, doing, doors, dream, Edward Hopper, eyes, finding, floorboards, frustration, glass, going, grey, growth, hill, home, hope, identity, lemon, lifetimes, lino, looking, moon, morning, numbers, regret, searching, shadow, shops, sky, step, streets, sycamore, Thames, time, town, trees, universe, Victorian houses, walls, windows, wormhole, writing

 

 

 

that comicbookshop in dreams,

where the sidestreets meet together
off the highstreets under the shadows
slanting down the rear façades of pipework and blackened window
from so much higher up than can never concern us it’s frightening
the morning afer Hopper’s Nighthawks
is closing down

the ones I try to get to
when I find myself done in town (after
the frustration of trying to get somewhere
or the anxiety of trying to get away from a somewhere
that always follows me) but never arrive at; I make
my various ways there, I know the routes
like the back of my hand

the ones with
warped door stuck at the top
or the bottom (will the glass pane hold) with
step onto lino once lemon and grey with new hope
now one with the floorboards as they sag under warren
of backrooms like forgotten lifetimes (wormholes to everywhere) into
the fust and pulp of paper and number all for the finding,
are closing down

I should have
patronised them more, I suppose;
I still haven’t found that second issue, that elusive fourth,
and the stacks just keep sliding wondering other titles and other
universes pressing their sky and moons into my eyeball as I stand
and scan; but I couldn’t keep up, blinked too soon
have to get on, things to do
places to be

it’s having a sale
clearing all the stock; the sentinels stand
impassive with all find, impassive before all loss: hooded
eyes on somefaraway beach; for old times’ sake I pick up some
mid-60s anthologies with their simple figures reaching out of panel
with all the stance of opera, and maybe a sixth issue, and maybe an early
fanzine for some intertextuality, but I’ll avoid the figurines: too
defined in detail, too static
in marque

I’ll come away
with stash held close to my heart
back out into bustle of street busily in all direction
with all the noise of weak indication and strong giant message;
I’ll work my way uphill by quiet sidestreet past high walls that
impossibly hold the looming sycamore and bay-windowed villas
over the river under skies of grey and blue gantry
home to catalogue my finds on the shelf like
a maze and plot their weave in life
like a stanza

 

 

 

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

anxiety & looking & searching & shops wormhole: lo
beach wormhole: gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared
black wormhole: Black Rook / in Rainy Weather
blue wormhole: Buddha / Shakyamuni
buildings & comics wormhole: escape from Flat Planet
doing wormhole: the endless acts of life
doors & sky & time & windows & writing wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting
dream & moon wormhole: prayer to my self
Edward Hopper wormhole: Dr Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
eyes wormhole: the Conqueror
glass wormhole: heirloom – break / after heavy shower
grey & Victorian houses wormhole: corner of Plum Lane / Eglinton Hill and / Shrewsbury Lane
hill wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 – / the breath of London
identity wormhole: good looking
lemon wormhole: Brugges April 2015 – looking lost
lifetimes wormhole: now, have I forgotten anything
morning wormhole: hot summer / morning
shadow & walls wormhole: of a sudden // all the time
streets wormhole: silhouette: // second / thoughts
Thames wormhole: Jackie’s slight smile
trees wormhole: Exceat to Cuckmere Haven

 

as they wish

Tags

2012, 5*, creativity, offering, others, publishing, regret, sitting, thought, water, writing

 

 

 

                                 publishing too much
                                    not writing enough
                                       not allowing myself
                                          time to    sit at a page
                                             and let the flow of thought
                                                well up from a core
                                                   where I will shape it skilful
                                                      into a bowl of equal bulge
                                                         all round and a slightly
                                                            out-turned and even lip
                                                               for someone else to glaze
                                                                  and colour or hold water in
                                                                  as they wish

 

 

 

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

creativity 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
others wormhole: Woodbrooke labyrinth / affirmations
publishing & sitting & writing wormhole: and
thought wormhole: again
water wormhole: let us mauve a whirl          elongated

 

existence

Tags

2012, 5*, being, cat, death, discussion, karma, Mum, realisation, rebirth, regret

 

 

 

                                one of my biggest regrets was all
                                piously and prophetically insisting
                                that our pet cat Whiskey
                                would go to hell in her rebirth
                                because she was a cat
                                what else could she do

                                but she has brought so much fun
                                said Mum doesn’t that count
                                no it is only the intention that counts
                                I persisted

                                both Whiskey and Mum are dead now
                                completed their existence while I remain
                                wondering and slowly realising
                                that I was too harsh
                                and way too insistent

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: ‘just slip into life …’
cat wormhole: new garden
death wormhole: dream / 190599
Mum womrhole: dream / 130207
realisation wormhole: a maturation