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

 

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TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams

Tags

2017, 7*, blue, brown, church, convergence, flower, jasmine, line, moon, morning, orange, petals, pink, pinnacle, seeing, sky, slate, smooth, steeple, stone, turquoise, weight, William Carlos Williams

                     TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE

                Rather notice, mon cher,
                that the moon is
                tilted above
                the point of the steeple
                than that its color
                is shell-pink.

                Rather observe
                that it is early morning
                than that the sky
                is smooth
                as a turquoise.

                Rather grasp
                how the dark
                converging lines
                of the steeple
                meet at the pinnacle–
                perceive how
                its little ornament
                tries to stop them–

                See how it fails!
                See how the converging lines
                of the hexagonal spire
                escape upward–
                receding, dividing!
                –sepals
                that guard and contain
                the flower!

                Observe
                how motionless
                the eaten moon
                lies in the protecting lines.

                It is true:
                in the light colors
                of morning
                brown-stone and slate
                shine orange and dark blue.

                But observe
                the oppressive weight
                of the squat edifice!
                Observe
                the jasmine lightness
                of the moon.

 

from Al Que Quiere! 1917

it was me he was talking to, it was me; and although I was young and didn’t really follow him with consciousness, nevertheless, as I grow older I notice, mon cher, that I walk about with my head, tilted;

 

 

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

blue wormhole: new blue porsche
brown wormhole: brown corduroy shirt / and dark redwine tie
church wormhole: oh, alright then
moon wormhole: moon- // washed
morning & seeing wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
orange wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
pink wormhole: Bridgnorth
sky & William Carlos Williams wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams
stone wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye

 

I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on

Tags

2018, 7*, apartment, apricot, being, birds, blackberry, blue, cream, damson, facade, fruit jellies, future, grey, holiday, island, January, knowing, Lanzarote, lemon, life, light, morning, palms, planes, right angle, sea, seeing, sky, sunset, table, talking, toddlers, voices, volcanic rock, white, wind

                                     I don’t need to go out
                          onto the balcony to see behind me
                               to know what’s going on

                the sea is a damson-blackberry
                fruit-jelly grey in January
                around a volcanic island; the

                cream of apricot née lemon
                awash the staggered faces of
                apartments fades to berry-

                blue along the white facades
                (until the right-angled sides
                 become wholly indifferent in

                 the morning) while palm trees
                blow into the setting sun and
                planes land in the headwind;

                eventually they are broadleaf-
                white under the damson-blackberry
                fruit-jelly grey sky when the

                balcony light flicks on, voices
                talk of the future around the table
                and toddlers shriek like birds landing

 

 

 

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

apricot & wind wormhole: transferring
being wormhole: cowled
birds & blue & grey & sky wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
holiday wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
lemon wormhole: … vague / thunder
life & seeing wormhole: anxiety
light & voices wormhole: moon- // washed
morning wormhole: SUMMER SONG by William Carlos Williams
sea wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
sunset wormhole: Is There / Life on Mars? – poewieview #32
table wormhole: … the underleaves show
talking wormhole: coagulating
white wormhole: presence

 

anxiety

Tags

2017, 6*, anxiety, emptiness, everything, experience, falling, identity, imputation of inherent existence, letting go, life, perception, ripple, secret, seeing, self-grasping

                there is always so much more
                to anything to everything than
                meets the sclerotic I and that

                is always precisely nothing less
                than I can never see despite the
                thousand drops that plop and

                lose their secret identities and
                ripple endlessly throughout
                the turbid panorama in which

                they should really take their
                identity could they ever let go
                what they ever grasped and

                never really grasped amid
                their tumbling and freefall
anxiety

 

 

 

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

anxiety wormhole: the sitting room
emptiness wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …
identity wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
letting go wormhole: letting them go
life wormhole: so / do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or … / Rumplestiltskin
seeing wormhole: it’s all about…;

 

it’s all about…;

Tags

2016, 6*, giving, Have, identity, looking, possession, seeing, thinking, wanting

                it’s all about…;

                it’s not looking
                for what I want
                it’s having
                what I see

                it’s not having
                what I want
                it’s giving
                what isn’t mine

                and when I
                think carefully
                about it, nothing
                is really mine

 

 

 

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

Have & identity wormhole: coagulating
looking wormhole: hold them
seeing wormhole: sharpened apex
thinking wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold

 

sharpened apex

Tags

2016, 6*, Alhambra, apex, belief, colour, dimension, emptiness, faces, gap, Granada, hierarchy, hope, line, seeing, simultaneity, space, spontaneity, sublime, water, white

                I am sorry Alhambra
                I just didn’t like you much

                I wanted to, I always have the
                soft spot for the yawning gap

                and I wanted to hope that
                there was sublimity in your

                finest white line that
                proceeds in simultaneity,

                its exponential spaces
                spontaneous to behold: colour

                dimension, the faces of beings
                the trickle of water between;

                I saw it all but it was
                too demonstrable to see

                a monument to yet another
                hideous hierarchy and

                yet another shaved and
                sharpened apex

 

part of the pyramidical melange of: Granada & Other Poems

 

 

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

emptiness & space wormhole: lack of center
faces & white wormhole: ‘when travelling astrally …’
seeing wormhole: frame
water wormhole: next unexpected step

 

frame

Tags

1964, 2016, 4*, Dr Strange, frame, hands, magic, movement, open, seeing, society, Steve Ditko, windows, world

                hands like open plates
                send the seed of
                miniature through
                opened windows

                in a world that
                fashioned windows to
                see all movement,
                requires the cross of

                frame

 

from Strange Tales #117, ‘The Many Traps of Baron Mordo’, February 1964; Lee & Ditko

 

 

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

1964 & Dr Strange & windows wormhole: turned backs of saddened victory
hands wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
open wormhole: for / the first time
seeing & society wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
world wormhole: circuitry

 

and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call

Tags

19th century, 2016, 20th century, 8*, access, air conditioning, alley, architecture, back, balcony, bay window, being, black, blindness, blue, burgundy, carlights, chimney stacks, clouds, compromise, contemplation, cross-section, distance, down, Eastbourne, eyes, facade, Ford Cortina, foreground, front, Have, height, hierarchy, history, hope, hotel, houses, inside, life, living, outside, passing, pier, pipes, privacy, prologue, promenade, sea, seagull, seeing, sky, society, sound, streetlight, sun, time, tree, up, Victorian houses, walking, walls, waves, white, windows

                and naerrgh a mention of a seagull’s call

                prologue

                the fetch of uneventful league to
                mingle with pier piles nonchalant;

                the borderline lightbulbs strung for
                decades between promenade lamp

                and stack of height and white façade
                of black-wrought balcony for where to stay

                setting

                frontage shows the way-to-look-
                ing blind to what is seen amid

                all the detail of hierarchy, eye
                turned to what it hopes, while

                rear windows, set central in
                the shapèd drop, look inward

                to find the fit to be; in time
                the rear extension of amenity

                cut fresh cross-sections of life
                turned 90° deep with windows

                unadorned; but then
                were added storey, creating alley

                to hidden access whenever
                contemplating the corners

                that encourage right angle
                where you can serve your

                down and truncating down-
                pipe blind to abutted wall

                perambulation

                                but, I’m in luck

                eye caught by extractor flaps
                in the foreground venting downwards

                venting upwards, sun neatly off
                the downpipes to the right

                on the left long-painted white pipes
                rusting, and between, a leafing tree

                undecided which way to lean
                the background, the monolith back

                of the seafront hotel, conditioning
                air; later, passing the backs of

                houses-become-their-own-entrance,
                seagulls perched at rest

                on the chimneys, I caught
                the tail of a reg-D Cortina with

                burgundy-deep fins and round
                tripartite lights, smaller

                than I remember

                epilogue

                oh, yes and a Persian-blue
                chimney stack with off-white pots

                under sky-blue sky
                and wisps of cloud

 

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: looking ahead
architecture wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
being wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
black & blue & Have & living & passing & society & walking wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
burgundy wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
clouds wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
compromise wormhole: after all
Eastbourne wormhole: city streets
eyes & life & seeing & time wormhole: 1964
history wormhole: looking / ridiculous
hotel wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
promenade & sea wormhole: Bexhill 140215
seagull wormhole: do I
sky & white wormhole: travelling // arrival
sound & sun & windows wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – reaping
streetlight wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
Victorian houses wormhole: red / lacquer / door
walls wormhole: certainly a Captain, / but not America
waves wormhole: place

 

1964

Tags

1964, 2016, 8*, afternoon, apricot, breeze, childhood, circle, city, comics, culture, docks, eyes, faces, groundlessness, growth, horses, humanity, Journey Into Mystery, life, mouth, Saturday, seeing, skyline, story, Thor, time, vision

                1964

                I found that
                there were circles
                in life turning

                wide and oiled
                around invisible axes above
                darkening city-lines

                the faces of ages
                at the circumference, caverns
                in their mouth

                and vision
                in their eyes that is lost
                in their own story

                which I cannot
                fathom; Saturday afternoons
                fashion

                an apricot balm
                that wingèd horses
                can scarce be seen

                and humankind
                is blinded in its
                multiplying culture:

                the tied piles
                at the docks are creaking
                the eyes, turn,

                down;
                in all the starry cosmos of time
                there is no floor

 

Journey Into Mystery #104, May 1964; Stan Lee, Jack Kirby; I submitted this to a local poetry competition – not even an honorary mention

 

 

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

1964 wormhole: 1964
afternoon wormhole: low afternoon
apricot wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
breeze wormhole: sweet chestnut
childhood wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
city wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
comics wormhole: Batgirl –
eyes & faces & mouth wormhole: I am not yet ready
groundlessness wormhole: travelling // arrival
life & seeing wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
Saturday wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
skyline wormhole: two profiles
Thor wormhole: pen and ruler
time wormhole: certainly a Captain, / but not America

 

Sheffield Park Gardens

Tags

2016, 9*, air, black, blue, bluebells, branches, Buddha, Carol, children, contemplation, copper beech, creation, daffodil, dandelions, discovery, duck, eyebrow, face, family, fields, flag, future, garden, gem, girls, glance, green, hair, Have, humanity, India, kalpa, lake, land, life, limbs, living, mauve, May, name, passing, petals, plants, pollen, primrose, promise, rhododendron, seeing, serendipity, settlement, shade, Sheffield Park Gardens, sitting, society, stone-chat, talking to myself, transluscency, tribe, voices, walking, water, yellow

                Sheffield Park Gardens

                we walked
                upright
                across wide fields

                in scattered groups,
                family and tribe,
                private longing

                under shaded
                brim for a land
                of silk and money

                8th May 2016, with

                only childrens’ voices
                we walked into
                the garden

                dispersing to
                our hides to make our own
                discoveries

                by happenstance
                and peripheral glance
                held cold and fresh

                before name:
                that stone-chat
                that makes the

                copper beech
                transluscent;
                the cool stretch of branch

                yet to bud
                before the haze
                of dusty pollen;

                what to make
                of the solitary dandelion –
                butter yellow life –

                amid
                fain clusters of primrose; and
                there in the shade,

                mauve-bells and
                daffodil stalks make in-
                visible a steely blue;

                bluebells
                like raised eyebrows, relaxèd
                to see a future;

adult voices pass, now, talking ways of life; young girls practise handstands and routines in the fields;                

                let’s sit by the lake awhile:
                where a duck’s
                head

                sits
                just out the shade of exotic plants
                (let’s say, from India)

                the water lapping
                anywhere (let’s say, oh,
                 two thousand

                 five hundred
                 years ago), tucked
                immaculate

                black
                letting nothing out
                but the feint

                of blue
                or green that will form a gem
                in kalpas

                of contemplation;
                across the water a willow rests
                like a flag

                (girl’s hair
                 recovers from each upswing from each
                 hand-stand);

                turning home
                Carol stooped
                to smell the rhododendron flower

                “oh, …”

                pushed her face
                into the petals with lust
                was it

                because I’d
                said the branches
                were an orgy of slippy limbs

                or was it just me
                making things up
                as we walked along?

 

I know, I know, it’s mid February, and the poem was written and set in a May; it’s not seasonally right, but this was the next in line to be printed: them’s the chops …

 

 

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

air wormhole: Batgirl –
black & blue & Carol & passing wormhole: travelling // arrival
branches & voices wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
Buddha wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
family wormhole: out
garden wormhole: slightly / uphill
green wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
hair wormhole: two profiles
Have wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
life wormhole: sweet chestnut
living wormhole: ‘still …’
mauve wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
seeing wormhole: glide
sitting wormhole: amid
society wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
talking to myself wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
walking wormhole: loss
water wormhole: without any buffet at all
yellow wormhole: greedy