in deed

Tags

2019, 8*, Arya Lalitavistara, austerity, being, birth, black, Buddha, children, consumerism, death, doing, ears, fear, grin, hate, identity, infrastructure, investment, karma, letting go, lifetimes, love, mother, nirmanakaya, nose, samadhi, shame, skeleton, society, son, thought, war, womb, world

                                I

                gave birth to you, I
                held you deep within my very womb,
                the very kernel of all the labour of all my life’s beings and I

                gave you up to being
                with all the love of whole investment
                placed in care of self in state, you cannot,

                                just
                                die

                                __O—

                … she addressed her son

                who sat unmoved
                to the whole world’s reach
                that only his bones leaned together
                dry and upright

                who sat unconsumed
                to the whole world’s glut
                that to feel his stomach
                was to grasp his spine

                who sat unloved
                to the whole world’s reflection that
                children poked grass in his ear ‘till it
                came out his nose

                who sat unknown
                to the whole world’s shame
                that he was dust-black as a
                tree stump hideously grinning

                                __O—

                and know, mother, I do not die;
                I embroiled with the world to show
                the terrible wake of uncoupling
                her greasy mechinations,

                                in deed

 

honnnnnnnned like the string from a lute, not too tight not too loose, from chapter 17 of the Arya Lalitavistara Sutra in which the Prince’s mother (who had died and gone to heaven) came to see her son after he had been practising austerities for six years and was on the point of dying; she feared he was taking his quest to extremes, but he calmly told her that (the point of the whole Sutra being called ‘Lalita’, a ‘play’) that he had to show, in human form, what the two extremes of living in life were, in order to then show the way between to two extremes to liberation

 

 

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

being & war wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
black wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
Buddha wormhole: the old man;
death wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
doing wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
identity wormhole: threshold to behold
letting go wormhole: the reach turned to love
lifetimes wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
love wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
mother wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
society & thought wormhole: my uncomfortable life
war wormhole: on facing the Have

 

Advertisements

threshold to behold

Tags

1967, 2019, 8*, abandonment, alcove, being, birds, blue, books, breeze, Dad, Eglinton Hill, evening, garden, head, identity, life, meaning, openness, place, purpose, room, shoulders, skirting board, sky, son, sound, standing, text, time, trees, Victorian houses, weight, windows

                                  threshold to behold

                having persistently interrogated every alcove
                and skirting and sash-window of every room
                he could possibly have been in

                for any lead to any whereabouts, to even a
                chalk-outline, of how to be (beyond the breath
                of standing next to him in the breezy garden) –

                they were so well-moulded, fitted at perfect
                right angle, pulleys holding the weight just right
                to open, surely they would know – nothing,

                (or were they just too arcane to decode),
                the son stood before the bookshelves – how
                was it, now – legs not really astride but anyhow,

                (dangling, even), but head and shoulders alert,
                scanning the spines, weighing what each had
                to offer to respective places and times in the

                whole of a life, ah, this is the one – plucked –
                from the top of the spine, reached down; felt
                their weight, now, opened boarded covers

                (sound of crease), open at random (must of
                decades), what does the text say when
                eavesdropped unaware, has it sense, could I inhabit

                that sense enough to see what to do, to breathe
                what to be – birds take flight into the turning deep blue
                above evening trees

 

my father left his family on my eighth birthday; I’m sure he didn’t plan in that way, but that’s the day he happened to come home late again and confess that he’d been seeing someone else – I played with my new cars behind the sofa and listened to him leave, I didn’t look up so much as stare at the shape of the room as if noticing for the first time in the Victorian house on the hill where we lived; ‘I searched for form and land, for years and years I roamed’ (a no-prize to anyone who can name where these lyrics come from) looking for the direction I needed to be ‘the man of the house, now’ as someone said to me at the time; it’s only now I have retired that I realise there is no direction to go and that there is no man about the house other than saying makes it so; I still don’t look up, but am more and more sure that I don’t have to, now; still, all that browsing, plucking and hoarding over the years …

 

 

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

abandonment & Dad & life wormhole: my uncomfortable life
being wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
birds wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
blue & trees wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
books wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
breeze wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
Eglinton Hill wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
evening & time & windows wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
garden wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
identity wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
meaning wormhole: the old man;
openness wormhole: the mantra of Maitreya
sky wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
sound wormhole: 10/28 ‘On hot days …’ by William Carlos Williams
Victorian houses wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing

 

Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles

Tags

2014, 3*, coffee shop, father, glass, Jon, Lewes, looking, posture, shirt, shop, son, streets

                Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles

                ‘fat            nervous            stupid            rich’

                in the side-glass entrance to the shop
                I watch down the street two men
                amble up the street – same shirt
                same posture they both turn to
                look in a shop window fat nervous
                stupid and rich

 

 

 

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

coffee shop & father & Jon & Lewes wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III
glass wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
looking wormhole: the sitting room
posture wormhole: !
streets wormhole: I turn to wake up

 

Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III

Tags

2014, 4*, bus, coffee shop, desire, father, joke, Jon, Lewes, raspberry, son, speech

                Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III

‘double-decker bus        gravestone
                dingle berry        fumbling        clutching’

                                hot day in the coffee shop
                                I’ll have something different
                                ah yes, a Double-Decker Dingle-
                                berry Gravestone Cooler
                                would be good, I think,
                                amid the ambient fumbling
                                and clutching of desire,

                                ‘would you like raspberry
                                 sauce with that, sir?’

                                uh, no thank you, I have
                                a bus to catch

 

 

 

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

bus wormhole: municipal garden
coffee shop & father & Jon & Lewes & speech wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop II

 

Mark & Jon at the coffee shop II

Tags

2014, 3*, coffee shop, father, joke, Jon, Lewes, poem, son, speech, words

                Mark & Jon at the coffee shop II

                ‘I’ve got to give you five words and you’ve
                 got to work them into a poem:

                fluffy       popsicle      Nostradamus
                carcinogenic      parasite’,      so I said

                                it can’t be done

 

 

 

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

coffee shop & father & Jon & Lewes & speech & words wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop I

 

Mark & Jon at the coffee shop I

Tags

2014, 4*, coffee, coffee shop, father, joking, Jon, Lewes, notebook, rhyme, son, speech, words, writing

            Mark & Jon at the coffee shop I

               ‘write, what rhymes
                  with coffee’ said Jon
                     taking the piss of my
                        notebook out in the coffee shop
                           but I had my own back
                              by messing with his words

 

 

 

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

coffee wormhole: too greedy
coffee shop wormhole: with endless love
father wormhole: singsong chant
Jon wormhole: magnetic field
Lewes wormhole: relief
speech wormhole: make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let
words wormhole: reading // unstirred
writing wormhole: over-pink cagoule

 

Doctor Strange III – the needs of billions

Tags

2012, 5*, black, canyon, Clea, Dormammu, Dr Strange, father, generation, growth, Have, humanity, life, mother, nuclear, power, reaching, society, son, Steely Dan, unstable, veins, walls, words, world, yellow

 

 

 

                                a colossus
strides effortless across canyons and generation
                fed by the needs of billions
                                engorged enough to consume itself nucleic
                                it speaks with flaming head
                                              unstable
                                too much
                                              too much that it will disperse itself even as it reaches,
                the needs of billions
                                              flooded through a world of veins like
                                                                        pumped
                                                                        yellow
                                                                        fat
                                the mother is bound the father is blind
                                              and only all the words of worlds
                                                                        will speak
                                              while Strange and Devotion
                                                                        expand through dimensions
                                grown alarmingly through the stages of their lives
                                              quickly for to get there

                                                                        wanting
                                                                        it      all
                                                                        the son
                                              sits ‘by the blackened wall
                                                                        he does it all, he thinks he’s died        
                                                                                            and gone to heaven’*

 

* from The Royal Scam, The Royal Scam, 1976, Steely Dan

have you seen the second trailer for the coming Doctor Strange movie – you see: it’s coming, expanding through the dimensions –

 

 

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

black wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
Dr Strange & Have & power & society & world wormhole: Doctor Strange II – … things are the same again
father & mother wormhole: Elektra
life wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
walls & yellow wormhole: what life went on
words wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Olly

 

Jon

Tags

2015, birch, birds, blue, father, grey, Jon, nose, outside, silhouette, silver, sky, son, trees, woodland, work

                                              Jon

                                              but
                                he was right
                to take the Old Dog out to the woods
                                after work
                                shut me out a little
                                while he forages for something or other

                                              while
                                I lean among the silver birch
                                and join the birds with
                cold ears and running nose and greet the blueing sky
                                cold grey and held with silhouettes

 

Jon is my second son; he practises foraging for naturally available foods and sometimes takes me out if I look like I need it …

 

 

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

birch & silver wormhole: and that’s where I are
birds wormhole: suddenly fly off again
blue wormhole: first Spring storm
father wormhole: mauve
grey wormhole: up on the hill
Jon wormhole: Luisenplatz
silhouette wormhole: keep the light off
sky wormhole: tabla
trees wormhole: red ink
work wormhole: through

 

Dr Strange III – the needs of billions

Tags

2012, 6*, Clea, consumerism, Dormammu, Dr Strange, father, Gene Colan, generation, Have, head, humanity, life, mother, society, son, Steely Dan, Steve Englehart, time, words, world, yellow

 

sequel to Dr Strange II – … things are the same again and Dr Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street respectively; Dr Strange appears in this episode, but at a receding measure of size rather than distance; what ever is ‘strange’ about the character is that he plays an infinitesimal part in the build-up of events, but is nonetheless the essential hinge in the whole business for the events to not matter: an ersatz-ordinary human in an en-maddening world who is nevertheless the only sanity in the whole experience when he sees through his own ersatz

 

 

                                              a colossus
                strides effortlessly across canyons and generation
                                fed by the needs of billions
                                              engorged enough to consume
                                              itself nucleic
                                it speaks with flaming head
unstable
                                too much
                                                              too much that
                                              it will disperse itself even as it reaches,
                the needs of billions
                                              flooded through a world of veins
                                                              like pumped yellow fat
                the mother is bound the father is blind
                                              and only all the words of worlds
                                                                                 will speak
                                                              all while Strange and Devotion
                                              expand through dimensions
                grown alarmingly through the stages of their lives
                                              quick for to get there

                                                              wanting
                                                              it      all
                                                              the son
                                sits ‘by the blackened wall
                                              he does it all, he thinks he’s died
                                                              and gone to heaven’*

 

askance from: Dr Strange #6-13 (Feb 1975-April 1976); Marvel; writer: Steve Englehart; artist: Gene Colan
* Steely Dan, The Royal Scam, The Royal Scam, 1976

 

 

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

Dr Strange & Gene Colan & society & world wormhole: Dr Strange II – … things are the same again
father wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
Have & life wormhole: Matildenplatz / & Luisen
mother wormhole: letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love
time & yellow wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
words wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate

 

letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love

Tags

1960s, 1999, 2014, 7*, bedroom, black, books, breathing, child, Christmas, comics, courage, crying, Dad, death, duty, Eglinton Hill, friendship, Genesta Road, heart, hospital, ideas, illness, kitchen, laughing, Lesnes Abbey, letter, life, living, love, morning, mother, Mum, Nan, orange, parent, parenting, Plumstead common, reading, rebirth, roads, sadness, Saturday, sharing, son, speech, streets, Sunday, talking, time, typewriter, white, Woolwich, work, writing, yellow

 

 

 

                                                                                    060399

Dear Mum,

it was a shock to see you in hospital, overstretched just
                                living at home
                                and still I hadn’t admitted just
                                              how ill you are
                                and the meet to make the final arrangements
                for whenever they become and seeing you face up to this yourself
                                              has shown me dealing with icing and marzipan
                                                              and not a lot much courage

                it is almost guaranteed that we will not say goodbye as we would like
                                I’d like to say all the things that a Grand Goodbye at the End of a Life
                                                              should
                                              through the choke and early mourning wisp of times
                                                              we grew together in Genesta Road
                                that will always remain

                                              that you are coming to the end of your life
                                is so definitely sad, you said that
                                              you don’t want us to be too upset
                but I am going to be anyway, and already am
                                I will be losing a dear parent
                                I will be losing a dear friend
                                              and I have to be sad about that
(with Nan I came through the crying by learning the times we spent together
                like a lesson, sharing and doing
                                I wish I had shared this with her)
                                              I will be sad losing you
                but I won’t be sad because I am losing our lives together
                                these things which have already happened
                                              which cannot be lost
                                even when you die
                                even when I die:

                your fight to bring us up after Dad left
                                the sacrifices moving down from Eglington Hill
                                              a posh meal only on Sundays
                you said to me one day that we were only a paper delivery away
                                              from the standard of living as when Dad was there
                                as we crossed a road doing shopping for here and there
                the happy stores we had in for Christmas
                                you having to go to work every day
and making the best of it coming home
                                              to the sparse meal to help with the diet
                                                                                    hundreds of times
                hundreds of times which I cannot remember and never experienced
but stay in my heart
                                              somewhere
                it wasn’t effort in vain
                it wasn’t not noticed
                it wasn’t not valued

Thank you.   I was aware

                                from quite early that
                                I was one of very few children
                                whose parent had left them in the 1960s
                your bringing me up is one of the most treasured things in my life
                                              you taught me this
                                although I still haven’t mastered
                or even learnt it very well: carrying on in duty and love
                                you have had much to be bitter about
                                but I have seen you – visibly – emerge
                                like a Phoenix “come on, this is no good …”
                (I am a depressive and a self – indulger and “aren’t you ever going to smile again …?”
                                              that child still does it – far too serious when there is anything to do
                                with him) and I treasure the laughs we had when younger
                                              I will learn to have them in my own family
                because I will miss you when you go
                                and every time I miss you I will have silly time with them
                I remember aching stomach at times
                                I remember you squealing with laughter
                                              I remember Nan’s joy at seeing you laugh so much when you did;
                                I know you hadn’t perfected it yourself
                                I know I only remember the times when it just happened
                                              but it is a valuable lesson
                                                              nevertheless

                the magic of Eglington Hill
                                with its many rooms, its endless floors
                                              become a symbol
of possibilities of life, the ‘scene’ of your providing and care
                the magic of Genesta Road
                                where I grew to learn how to see
                                the bedroom decorated orange and yellow
                                then black and white because you asked us
                with shelves to put my comics and books
                                the kitchen to study with the smell of meal
                                              the lounge to book and write and type …
                                                              flavours of my life
                my development now the space which you clothed me in
                                you are those flavours and
                                as I ‘develop’ into the future
                                you are always here
                                              (you always started from what I was
                                               and letting me do what I needed whether you liked it or not
                I try the same with my own kids
                but only remember when I fail
                                yet another lesson, Mum,
                                you have been so wise
                                              and neither you nor I have
                                              fully appreciated it)

                                the magic of reading:
                                the mere presence of books
                                the unfold of opening paper
                                the rocky uphill of snatched syntax
                the scent of travel the pride of cover
                                I try to have the same for my kids
                so that even if they never read them
                                              they will line their walls with book
                (Joe has satire and sci-fi and atlas
                                Jon has earth and struggle and revolution
                                              Charlotte has stacks and stacks of comic)
                                I will be satisfied with that and I hope you had a similar hope
                                              and yes, Mum, it worked
                                                              and it was valuable
                                                                                    another job well done, I think

                                invigoration of sheets over ourselves and haunting the Common one morning
                putting all the milk bottles from the street on the doorstep of one house a few doors down
                                              planning the front room when you won some money, allowing ourselves gift of ideas on wheels
                letting me go hitch – hiking when I suddenly said I needed to go – I still don’t know how you did that
                                friendship of strolling the park, the ruined Abbey, wandering Woolwich on a Saturday morning
                                                              Mother and Son strolling

                and yes, I can agree with you, you have had a good life
                wherever you go we will meet again in some way
                and these specks of our lives will intrigue us
                                              in some form familiar but unrecognisable
I am very sad to be losing you but comforted with what we have shared
                it is probably only now that I realise how much I love you
                                              and how closely we lived

                I shall miss the Mum who taught me a life
                                but I shall always be breathing the lesson

love from,

 

Mum died 20th March 1999; I wrote this letter but hesitated sending it – a regret of my life; I ‘send’ it now hoping she’ll read it somewhere.   Having marked her would-be 81st birthday the day before yesterday, I thought it high time …

 

 

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

part of the ongoing life and page of … Mum
bedroom wormhole: sitting up in bed s i m u l t a n e o u s l y
black wormhole: capes flying
books wormhole: Tulips by Sylvia Plath – How Far To Step Before You Raise The Other Foot
breathing wormhole: whirlpool
child & Christmas & Dad & Eglinton Hill & Genesta Road & mother & Mum & talking wormhole: letters to Mum IV – healing comes in smiling
comics wormhole: introducing / the stranger
death wormhole: we’re born // to die
kitchen wormhole: sounds // suddenly / stop
life wormhole & writing time: no exit
living wormhole: letters to Mum III – ongoing-term // eventually
love wormhole: a cup of tea, gov
morning & streets wormhole: oh-pen too
Nan & work wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate
orange wormhole: the precision // the gentleness // and / the letting go
reading wormhole: stuck free to move within
roads wormhole: I could step / more open
Saturday wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
speech wormhole: we’re all the same age really
Sunday wormhole: zazen in everyday life
white wormhole: Bat-Shadow
Woolwich wormhole: ‘like a piece of ice on a hot stove / the poem must ride on its own melting’
yellow wormhole: on sitting / in front of / a hedge