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

 

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TREES by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1917, black, dark, grey, hill, identity, melody, music, night, north, poplars, scale, sky, stars, trees, vague, voices, weave, William Carlos Williams, wind, yellow

                                TREES

                Crooked, black tree
                on your little grey-black hillock,
                ridiculously raised one step toward
                the infinite summits of the night:
                even you the few grey stars
                draw upward into a vague melody
                of harsh threads.

                Bent as you are from straining
                against the bitter horizontals of
                a north wind,–there below you
                how easily the long yellow notes
                of poplars flow upward in a descending
                scale, each note secure in its own
                posture–singularly woven.

                All voices are blent willingly
                against the heaving contra-bass
                of the dark but you alone
                warp yourself passionately to one side
                in your eagerness.

 

from Al Que Quiere! 1917

a lot of these poems were some of the first poems I read with intent and an open, clean mind that had no precursor of what to see or find; and their reading imprinted deep, even when I didn’t read that well or attentively or learnedly; and, much later, when I attempted to re-ignite my writing, the language emerged like tramlines, there to follow, but fresh, utterly fresh; and utterly mine – which would never have been but for reading WCW

 

 

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

black wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams
grey & sky & voices & wind wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
identity wormhole: moon- // washed
music wormhole: animus rises – powieview #37
night wormhole: ‘the Bat-Signal …’
stars wormhole: EL HOMBRE by William Carlos Williams
trees wormhole: presence
William Carlos Williams wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
yellow wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams

 

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

 

SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams

Tags

'scape, 1917, 7*, anchor, angle, birds, blue, branches, buds, concentration, convergence, desire, disappearance, energy, erect, flying, grey, ground, holding, orange, passing, red, right, rock, sky, Spring, sun, tap root, trees, twigs, William Carlos Williams

                                SPRING STRAINS

                In a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
                crowded erect with desire against
                the sky–
                            tense blue-grey twigs
                slenderly anchoring them down, drawing
                them in–

                            two blue-grey birds chasing
                a third struggle in circles, angles,
                swift convergings to a point that bursts
                instantly!

                            Vibrant bowing limbs
                pull downward, sucking in the sky
                that bulges from behind, plastering itself
                against them in packed rifts, rock blue
                and dirty orange!

                                                                                But–
                (Hold hard, rigid jointed trees!)
                the blinding and red-edged sun-blur–
                creeping energy, concentrated
                counterforce – welds sky, buds, trees,
                rivets them in one puckering hold!
                Sticks through! Pulls the whole
                counter-pulling mass upward, to the right,
                locks even the opaque, not yet defined
                ground in a terrific drag that is
                loosening the very tap-roots!

                On a tissue-thin monotone of blue-grey buds
                two blue-grey birds, chasing a third,
                at full cry! Now they are
                flung outward and up – disappearing suddenly!

 

from Al Que Quiere, 1917

the cacophany of a single moment – all instruments loosening-up, scaling, tensing, waiting for the grand inaugural middle ‘C’ – all held together in a fidgety bag; the shabby audacity of this piece – ‘let’s not just have vignettes, let’s also have local, tectonic landscapes’ – made my young eyes work, I had to read it several times successively to hold together all the strands, and then he lets me off, I finally ‘got’ the three birds disappearing … you don’t hold it all together, you don’t; there’s no need to; William Carlos Williams was a crafty master

 

 

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

birds wormhole: {Ellen Terry’s house}
blue wormhole: SUMMER SONG by William Carlos Williams
branches & sky wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams
grey wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …
orange wormhole: I
passing wormhole: tram
red wormhole: Bridgnorth
Spring wormhole: city streets
sun & trees & William Carlos Williams wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams

 

LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1917, being, black, branches, curtains, dress, elm, house, love, sky, smell, song, time, voices, white, William Carlos Williams, windows

                      LOVE SONG

                Sweep the house clean,
                hang fresh curtains
                in the windows
                put on a new dress
                and come with me!
                The elm is scattering
                its little loaves
                of sweet smells
                from a white sky!

                Who shall hear of us
                in the time to come?
                Let him say there was
                a burst of fragrance
                from black branches.

 

from Al Que Quiere! 1917

some poems ride the air: they are about nothing much at all (of import to the nation), they don’t do anything, but they are so much more alive and enduring than the cleanest and enshrined momument; I suppose they renew each time they are read with evanescence and sniff …

 

 

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

being wormhole: all // are // none
black wormhole: I
branches wormhole: transferring
curtains wormhole: languidly close the portal
house wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye
love & time wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
sky wormhole: sometimes
smell wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay
voices wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
white wormhole: cowl
William Carlos Williams wormhole: SUMMER SONG by William Carlos Williams
windows wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …

 

sometimes

Tags

1966, 2017, 7*, action, armchair, Batman, between, building, city, cowl, fence, gap, immanence, mind, moon, outline, pavement, perspective, shadow, sky, skyline, space, streetlight, thought, true nature, turning

                sometimes even the
                broadest flow of thought –

                fan-pivoted about cowled
                head, turning tightly – cannot

                breech the tightening gap
                where casts the shadow,

                sometimes the mind
                must suspend in space

                and enfold
                its natural shape

                      he vaults
                the fence straight down the center
                      of the city
                and the outline of the moon
                      becomes
                the outline of the downtown skyline

                      between

                the streetlamp on the pavement
                and the moon above the sky

                      stood

                the building like a giant armhair –
                immanent perpsective

 

Detective Comics #354, August 1966; cover: Carmine Infantino; “No Exit For Batman!”, writer: John Broome, artist: Sheldon Moldoff: tight-corner thinking and evasion – the redaction to zero, then out, again, the other side

 

 

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

Batman & thought wormhole: thought
city wormhole: sufficiently away
mind wormhole: so / do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or … / Rumplestiltskin
moon & sky wormhole: SUMMER SONG by William Carlos Williams
shadow wormhole: cool / tiled flooring
skyline wormhole: 1964
space wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …
streetlight wormhole: where did the silence go

 

SUMMER SONG by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1917, 5*, blue, colour, dew, irony, journey, moon, morning, question, shirt, sky, smile, song, summer, tie, wandering, William Carlos Williams

                                SUMMER SONG

                Wanderer moon
                smiling a
                faintly ironical smile
                at this
                brilliant, dew-moistened
                summer morning,–
                a detached
                sleepily indifferent
                smile, a
                wanderer’s smile,–
                if I should
                buy a shirt
                your color and
                put on a necktie
                sky-blue
                where would they carry me?

 

from Al Que Quiere, 1917

the trajectory of a turn of quip of humour going absolutely nowhere far, with dew

 

 

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

blue wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
moon wormhole: sufficiently away
morning wormhole: letting them go
sky wormhole: transferring
smile wormhole: skeins of candy pink and lilac
William Carlos Williams wormhole: EL HOMBRE by William Carlos Williams

 

transferring

Tags

1990, 2017, 7*, air, apricot, blue, branches, commentary, connection, corridors, distance, fall, falling, fence, flow, here, humour, iconography, land, microphone, muddy, neon, night, openness, phone, shirt, sky, sound, spark, teeth, telephone lines, thawing, traffic lights, transference, trees, Twin Peaks, voices, water, waterfall, wind, wood

                here

                are the transferring phones
                dialling over waterfalls
                voices in the curly wire

                giving soundtrack and
                commentary through
                all manner of splayed connection

                in the trees, through
                empty corridors – the transformer
                must be off, or something:

                muddy waters to apricot air
                sparks grade, twist and edge teeth
                into lumber … oh, checkshirts;

                the post fence sinks to land
                and distance, there is air
                in a wide-open microphone

                there is neon under a
                dirt blue sky, through all the branches
                a cascading iconography

                of posthumour – fall flow thaw;
                at night the wind
                moves the swinging lights

 

mostly a palimpsest of season 1 from 1990 of Twin Peaks

 

 

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

air wormhole: with all love released
apricot wormhole: 1964
blue wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
branches wormhole: ash leaves
flow wormhole: Batgirl –
night wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – reaping
openness wormhole: clear as vista
sky wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …
sound wormhole: sreet
traffic lights wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
trees & wood wormhole: … the underleaves show
voices wormhole: the turtle and the yoke
water wormhole: sharpened apex
wind wormhole: lost the search

 

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

 

sreet

Tags

2017, 6*, architecture, bird, birdcall, colour, facade, lip, Rome, sky, sound, time

                sreet

                                sounds like a bird of prey
                                out from the façade of the Colosseum
                                rising into the sky like a lip

 

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: perspective
bird wormhole: H e a v e
sky wormhole: I
sound wormhole: tram
time wormhole: oh, alright then