travel // when I die

Tags

2019, 7*, accountability, afterlife, afternoon, architecture, bardo, being, black, brick, brown, buildings, capitalism, century, clouds, crane, data, death, decades, dedication, depth, doing, echo, fields, floating, green, ground, Have, height, horizontal, identity, industry, interdependent origination, iteration, length, lintel, London, magenta, mind, notice, orange, passing, perspective, pillars, presence, purple, rain, rainbow, red, reference, ripple, rooftops, russian vine, samsara, sandstone, sapphire, self-cherishing, self-grasping, silence, sill, sky, sound, speech, Thames, thought, tide, time, train, travelling, trees, Uckfield-London line, utility, walls, white, world, writing

                                                                                travel

                                                                                noticing
                                                                at all is a product of
                                                                shifted perspective
                                                                related to behold;

                                                                when I’ve nothing to write
                                                                I’ve lost any perspective,
                                                                cornered by both these walls
                                                                I’ve walked along

                when I die
                this mind will no longer whorl about this pinchèd self
                in a world of diminished return and profusion of iteration

                                                                cranes atop
                                                                pulling them further up and up
                                                                from the ground on which they
                                                                balance on receding point;

                                                                communities of them
                                                                each taller than the last and the next
                                                                all along the wharfs
                                                                of endless account

                it will be expansive
                high and up in industrial and sandstone sky
                it will fathom all the deep of brown kelp in shifting purple

                                                                kilometres long
                                                                courses of brick
                                                                grimed black and utility-studded
                                                                updown onoff foothold and wire

                                                                ripple along nicely
                                                                across right-angled centuries
                                                                and occasional shot bolts
                                                                of deepest russian vine

                with no sound
                save diminishing echoes of a pleading late self
                having nothing left to refer to and nothing left to here, and

                                                                believe it or not
                                                                a rainbow exponential
                                                                to the white arch of Wembley
                                                                we’ll chase for miles

                                                                orange shimmering to
                                                                magenta through staccato tides
                                                                out and over flat roofs
                                                                on and into the fields

                all data wiped –
                suds off my hands from my shoulders –
                and did I back enough up for some grander vector to reach?

                                                                where trees grow from ground
                                                                shaping over decades
                                                                green-flamed cupolas
                                                                clamped to the sky

                                                                and from perspective passing
                                                                of open field
                                                                turn – creak –
                                                                the whole world

                I may well
                have built pillars of cleverness and thought:
                plinthed, fluted, capitaled and giddyingly architraved …

                                                                and there
                                                                Lancashire red brick
                                                                with high and whitey
                                                                sills stale and lintel

                                                                before washed-out
                                                                sapphire-afternoon of steely sky
                                                                and horizontal fingers of
                                                                scud-rain

                … but they’d just
                floated there upright in space ‘neither use nor ornament’
                straining on the string in my baby-fat hands, I’ve

                                never really
                                made stuff happen
                                and didn’t have to try

                                more than let more and more
                                of stuff happening anyway
                                happen through me

 

train trip; East Sussex to London to Lancaster to Ulverston, Cumbria; where we lived for three years and started a family; stay at Swarthmore Hall; visited Conishead Priory where we lived for 18 months after marriage and graduation; notes and observations on the journey, sense of bridging 32 years of lifetime(s); notes > (maybe) two poems, but two which could nevertheless not be separate, although distinct, like train tracks; three years retired, still processing if I achieved anything in this capitalist and samsaric world …; London centuries old, still processing …; architecture as the stage-scenary of endeavour; the ‘here’ in the 9th stanza is definitely (sic); this is, positive

 

 

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

afternoon & sky wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
architecture & thought wormhole: “And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”
being wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
black & sky wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
brown & green & walls wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
buildings & crane & rain & red & speech wormhole: riders of the night
capitalism wormhole: `whappn’d!
clouds wormhole: at Kreukenhof
death & identity wormhole: psssssh
doing wormhole: writening
echo & mind & passing & sound & time wormhole: – creak —
Have wormhole: on facing the Have
London wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – An Old Piano
orange wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
purple wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
rooftops wormhole: Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896
samsara & trees wormhole: breakfast
silence wormhole: window
Thames wormhole: London, 1809
train & travelling wormhole: beneath
Uckfield-London line wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
white wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
world wormhole: none and all
writing wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later

 

– creak —

Tags

2019, 6*, church, dome, echo, hoping, kleshas, listening, mind, passing, quiet, sitting, sound, talking, time

                                                sitting
                in St. Ludwigskirche again
                      five years on

                                                hoping
                for the quiet of mind free of overlapping conversations
                      passing like pedestrians

                                                someone
                explained something quietly echoing
                      across the dome

                                                so I listened
                to the German vowels and consonants
                      proliferating everywhere

                                                understanding
                nothing, I sat comfortable in the pew
                       – creak —

 

a return to: St. Ludwigskirche all those years ago

 

 

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

church & mind wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
echo wormhole: breakfast
listening wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
passing wormhole: distance
quiet wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
sitting wormhole: eyes like petals
sound & time wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – An Old Piano
talking wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’

 

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – An Old Piano

Tags

age, childhood, family, history, house, London, Michael J Redford, music, piano, reading, singing, sound, the Boats of Vallisneria, time, tone, walnut, World War

An Old Piano

It will not last much longer now, thought I as I gazed at our old piano standing proudly under a reproduction of ‘The Haywain’. Yes, despite its age it is still a proud instrument, even if it has lost one or two accoutrements such as the candle-sticks that were once hinged to the front panels and the tiny mother of pearl centre of a marquetry flower. Even so, it still stands firm and erect, defiant in its appearance of time. Of course it has been well looked after having been under constant attack from polish and duster and tuned with religious regularity ever since it came into our home.

The old walnut upright was bought for £6 just before the Second World War and although I was four or five years old at the time, I cannot recall its arrival in our midst. I can remember many things down to the age of three, but this piano for some reason had crept into my life so unobtrusively that it may well have been part of the family for generations. Mother had the ability to read music as easily as I can read a book, it was therefore a natural development that both my brother and I should undergo tuition. My brother was the first to sit scowling in concentration beside the music teacher every Thursday night, and I followed suit a couple of years later. Soon little hands were struggling stodgily through ‘The Bluebells of Scotland’ and ‘Minuet in G’, which was a great step forward from the time when my only contribution to the world of music came from putting the cat upon the keyboard.

One evening a year or so ago, while I was browsing through the keyboard discovery new chords and chord sequences, I hurled myself into an impressive arpeggio up the scale and finally landed on top E flat with a dull and toneless plunk. This had a most deflationary effect and I sat back in shocked silence. After composing myself, I explored the dark, humming interior of the piano and discovered a broken string that had coiled itself tightly around its neighbour in a final fit of frenzy, having succumbed at last to the continued battering of a felt-tipped hammer. Since then, the strings have been breaking at the rate of approximately one every three months. The pitch has dropped so much it cannot be brought up again, the tome has taken on a peculiar twang that is somewhat reminiscent of an Indian sitar and when the loud pedal condescends to operate (more often than not it seizes up completely), it does so in creaking protest which somehow doesn’t quite fit in with ‘La Mer’ or a nocturne in E minor.

It cannot last much longer now. This morning I lifted the lid softly and peeped in and saw that it needed re-felting, and in one dark corner was a tiny but ominous mound of sawdust. I do not know the age of our piano for it came into our possession second hand, therefore it may not be as old in years as I imagine. But even if it isn’t old in years, it is certainly old in use, for it has been played upon almost every single day for the past twenty five years. I will not, therefore, feel ashamed should a silent tear fall when that sad day of parting eventually arrives.

I have often toyed with the idea of keeping it even when every note has hammered its last, and retiring our faithful friend to the front room. But pianos are large instruments and I shall undoubtedly want another and there is certainly not enough room for more than one piano in this house. How is it that one can become so attached to an old piece of furniture? It is of course the associations and memories that bind them to us tighter than any cord, and what sort of memories can a piano bring but happy ones. Memories of distant family gatherings when no one thought of the inevitable days of parting to come; birthday parties that were once looked forward to; carols at Christmas. The piano on such occasions was the centre of all things, chairs, settees and stools were turned to face it and the congregation gathered around the walnut alter.

I remember the family gatherings twenty five years ago that brightened the dark, oppressive evenings of war. I hear father playing his banjo-uke and mother at the piano singing ‘Arm in Arm Together’ and reviving the then old songs ‘Chorus Gentlemen – Just Once More’ and ‘Shipmates O’ Mine. The strings of this old piano have vibrated to ‘Cornsilk’, through a feeble attempt at Rachmaninoff’s second to ‘Oo Bop Shebam’. During the war when this old instrument lived with us in London, the ceiling fell on it more than once and bombs showered it with glass from the windows. And yet it played on. It has been a wonderful friend but, like every member of the family, it has played its part and must soon leave us.

I feel kindly towards a house that has a piano for then a house becomes a home, but without a piano a house has an emptiness about it, to me it is incomplete. I know that this certainly holds true for my house, and each time I play upon its creaking frame, the increasing tenderness with which my fingers touch the keys must surely expose my feelings towards a dear friend who will very soon be gone.

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

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

childhood wormhole: Batman: Oddysey
family wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
history wormhole: looking for the right exit
house & London wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
music wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
piano wormhole: weight of high sash windows – poewieview #33
reading wormhole: breakfast
sound & time wormhole: riders of the night

 

riders of the night

Tags

2019, 7*, buildings, cars, coat, continent, crane, dark, docks, dualistic conception, hats, headlights, ideas, inexplicable, light, living room, making sense, morning, night, paper, pink, propaganda, rain, red, ships, silhouette, sound, speech, streets, sweat, thinking, time, Tintin, truck, waiting, war, water, waves

                riders of the night

booms of inexplicability
                had spattered velvet stars and shredded cloth all morning

despite the raised-brow
                consternation of the smartest of overcoats and the darkest of hats

that startled drops of sweat
                could devise in the presence of impending war, it was only   th-  

  at night   by the docks where
                the cargo waited unknown and the ships floated above the water,

that one could think a thing between them
                before any further dénouement under filigree refinery of silhouette;

                the   next  morning   the ship sat in the water, content to the
lapping red line,

                waiting fast and moored under the single ribbon of exhaust
from the funnel f’ard;

                but it is only   later   that water ranges continental across stepped and geologic                
wave, under relentless rain,

                that solitary lights lolling will make any sense at all;
and there were some

                had ideas like a living-room on a pivot that housed raised cranes
but the cars drove through streets

                like they owned them and the trucks travelled in straight trail
of their antecedents’ front headlights

                and although buildings always pointed up, the propaganda usually
ended up on pink paper:

                ‘Me, drive ‘round something that is nothing, but something you think is something,                
 but is nothing …?’

 

{image not mine, found on the internet, can’t remember where, happy to take down if a problem}

 

 

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

buildings wormhole: everything is caused by something, which / something is caused by something else, nothing / stands alone where all pass as phantoms
cars wormhole: travelling / back
crane wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
light wormhole: breakfast
living room wormhole: what life went on
morning & sound & streets & time & water wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
night wormhole: THE ATTIC WHICH IS DESIRE: by William Carlos Williams
pink wormhole: beneath
rain wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
red wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
silhouette wormhole: window
speech wormhole: the blessings of the Buddhas
thinking wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
waiting wormhole: my uncomfortable life
war wormhole: in deed
waves wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley

Tags

7*, black, bracken, brother, curtains, dark, doors, evacuation, eyes, faces, hills, horizon, house, listening, London, morning, opening, ponies, rock, rooks, sky, sleep, sound, streets, sun, time, truck, valley, Wales, water, wheel, wind, windows, World War

valley

we were evacuated during the war
from London to the Rhonda Valley
it was dark when we arrived

the sound of rocks woke me in the morning
I hadn’t heard them before
in such numbers

I looked at the strip of sky between the curtains
while my brother slept
a small cross a wooden chest minutes

ticked …
until he moved eyes already open
then two faces at the window gaping at bare hills

and one house
with three ponies in the paddock manes in the sun;
downhill was a black tower holding enormous wheels black

and then cables down to
a blacked hut and trucks and shacks dotted everywhere black
save the rail lines; shuntings

between the constant hisss, psssh
hooves in the street below pulling a float
‘cark’ of rooks above;

in time
doors opened: crystal streams before
racing the bracken which dipped and waved out to the next horizons

 

read the collected work of ‘Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters]‘ as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley

 

 

^{————w}(O)_{rmholes________________________________|—–}

black & faces & hills & house & London & morning & sleep & valley & windows wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
curtains wormhole: at Kreukenhof
doors wormhole: there will be ovations
eyes & wind wormhole: breakfast
horizon wormhole: Candaka
listening wormhole: …zzh-vvttP*–… … …
sky wormhole: blue sky high
sound & water wormhole: psssssh
streets wormhole: THE ATTIC WHICH IS DESIRE: by William Carlos Williams
sun wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
time wormhole: everything is caused by something, which / something is caused by something else, nothing / stands alone where all pass as phantoms

 

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

 

breakfast

Tags

2019, 7*, blindness, blogging, branches, breakfast, breathing, canopy, coffee, dark, echo, energy, eyes, flash, gooseberry, ground, growth, jam, leaves, life, light, living, monkey, path, reaching, reading, samsara, seeing, shadow, sound, sunlight, toast, trees, walking, way, wind, woodland

                breakfast

                these shadows on a long walk
                through the woodland with only occasional sun

                all there, underneath the undergrowth
                cannot see the ground, the stems that grow from it

                branches reach, leaves envelope everywhere
                from nowhere; weave

                and grow round and entwine each other;
                if I lift the leaves to see my way forward –

                searching for light, searching for life
                to grow, to continue – and if I break the smaller branches to

                make way
                I will scratch my arms, sap will sting my skin, my

                eyes, I cannot see, I cannot see;
                and I won’t see; some trees

                are quicker and older (than me)
                they hold the path and reach wide,

                and creepers make them fat
                and vines hang like curtains of water;

                the canopy above, maximised
                to greatest energy, sent back down through rough wires;

                only when the wind leans
                or a monkey leaps, is there a flash of light, gone by the

                time I’ve looked back down to the path
                blinded, to see where I am

                there must be so much light somewhere
                out there, if only I weren’t stumbling around and bleeding

                … really; I come downstairs
                and breathe coffee and spiced home – made gooseberry jam on home – made toast                           

                while reading my posts … yes,
                a thousand hacks and sap in the dark

                where I cannot see
                and cannot know where I am

                a thousand ‘choks’ deferred
                the undergrowth too dense to echo

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara chapter VI, verse 12: How can I attain happiness when the causes for happiness are obtained only through great effort and very rarely, and when the seeds­ of pain and sorrow are so prevalent, relentless and multifarious that they are realised easily and without any effort? And yet it is only from suffering that the thought and longing for escape and liberation from the suffering of conditioned existence will come about … therefore, O my deepest mind, hold yourself strong, patient, steadfast!

 

 

^{————w}(O)_{rmholes________________________________|—–}

branches & breathing wormhole: blue sky high
coffee wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
echo & path & walking wormhole: the Bodhisattva set out / for the Seat of Awakening
eyes & life wormhole: eyes like petals
leaves & living wormhole: everything is caused by something, which / something is caused by something else, nothing / stands alone where all pass as phantoms
light & trees wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
reading wormhole: {reading right to left}
samsara & sound wormhole: at Kreukenhof
seeing wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
shadow wormhole: alabaster balustrade
wind wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley

 

at Kreukenhof

Tags

2019, 5*, air, Amsterdam, breeze, clouds, compassion, curtains, fashion, fire, flowers, gravity, growth, Kreukenhof, letting go, photograph, retirement, river, role, samsara, sky, sound, traffic

                gravity, and river air hold the curtains
                down, breezes and distant traffic make them
                adjust against the sill stiffly, audibly

                but then, my people, I am learning
                not to resent your burning like fire
                when you play your endless roles like fashion

                and I am learning to let clouds fill the sky
                as you take every single photo
                of every single flower at Kreukenhof

 

Kreukenhof is a display garden near Amsterdam sited amid surrounding fields and fields of cultivated tulips, grown in strips of colour across a whole field; when we visited this year, we stayed on the Botel, a converted ship docked on the river Amstel in the IJ bay

 

 

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

air wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
breeze wormhole: threshold to behold
clouds wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
compassion wormhole: light of all interaction
curtains wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
letting go wormhole: mandala offering
retirement & sky wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
river wormhole: boiled spangle with soft centre
samsara wormhole: the Bodhisattva set out / for the Seat of Awakening
sound wormhole: the blessings of the Buddhas

 

the blessings of the Buddhas

Tags

2019, 6*, blessing, Buddhas, identity, morality, nose, sound, speech

                the blessings of the Buddhas

                                                agghhh … – schTinnk –
                                whmmp, wh’ whattayoudoing!
                                look, you bloodied my nose, I

                                think it’s broken; why did you
                                stop me; “you snivelling, little
                                squit; not even looking where

                                you lash your forkèd tongue
                                or blink your sclerotic I; get-
                                outtahere, can’t you read, go

                                away and learn to read, or
                                I’ll kick your arse again and
                                show you what this pike can

                                                really do; that other door; there” – dink –

 

smack up against: Bodhisattvacharyavatara Chapter VI – verses 98-101: [98] Anyway, receiving praise and recognition and such make me complacent, they disrupt my equanimity, and then undermine any fear and weariness I have with cyclic existence and any sense of urgency to escape it, they engender jealousy towards those who have developed good qualities, ending up with anger and rivalry towards them so that all that has been built up and achieved has been defiled and wasted.   [99] Therefore can it not be said that those same people who are so closely involved in undoing my reputation and cutting me down to size and such, are really rendering me the service of holding me back from falling into lower rebirth and hell?   [100] These ties of getting and status I do not need and are unfitting for me who strives for Liberation.   How is it that I would be angry with those very persons who accordingly liberate me from those same ties?   In what way are they my enemies?   [101] And, how is it that I can be angry with those who cause me pain, who have become, as if blessings from the Buddha, a closed door, preventing me from entry as I stumble headlong and blindly to enter a world of overwhelming suffering?   In what way are they my enemies?

 

 

^{————w}(O)_{rmholes________________________________|—–}

identity wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
sound wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
sound wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later

Tags

7*, bridge, clouds, eyes, grass, grey, ground, leaves, light, mist, music, passing, rain, roads, silver, sound, starlings, sun, time, trees, water, writing

sooner;

occasional sun broke through
splashed watery light on the road

on the bridge gazing on the waters
the flow      caught the eye upwards

while the music scented of
mist through the trees

(grey light and silver hung
without movement in

folds) until
raindrops drummed upon our capes;

and later – jotting

in the note-book – each blade of grass
suspending a drop

(pearls waiting on the
clothes-line for the starling’s quickfeet),

then, when
my sleeve touched a leaf

and three drops merged and rolled down
into the soil down

through the years, there where
clouds draw scent from the land, there,

when a spark of light jabbed
into my eye

bright as solid substance cupped
within a lupin leaf

 

read the collected work of ‘Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters]‘ as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain

 

 

^{————w}(O)_{rmholes________________________________|—–}

bridge & leaves & mist & rain & roads & silver & writing wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
clouds & eyes & grey & passing & sound & sun & time wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
light wormhole: light of all interaction
music wormhole: c’mon – keep up
trees wormhole: Candaka
water wormhole: boiled spangle with soft centre