despite that

Tags

1966, 2018, 6*, apartment, Batman, Batmobile, between, city, clouds, driving, falling, hats, horizontal, kerb, light, melodrama, moon, night, passing, realisation, silence, silhouette, society, speech, stairs, streets, thinking, vertical

                                despite that

                between the rear fins and
                raised front screen shield

                the case began to settle,
                and the horizontal clouds

                parted to allow the
                Vertical City silhouettes;

                ‘gee, that’s swell,’ said a
                bystander to a witness,

                ‘they have a reason to
                 drive somewhere’, vrrrmm;

                that bowler hats were off
                to work as the moon

                climbed the downpipe
                and, giantly sat over the

                steering wheel the blow
                of resolution struck, the

                apartment lights hung
                unstraight and some fell

                off silently, but really,
                and down the street –

                fin to kerb, kerb to
                bonnet – they were

                getting nowhere fast
                up the staircase

 

 

 

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

Batman & society wormhole: moon- // washed
city wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
clouds wormhole: coterminalism – there is nothing happens by itself, / 070118
light & streets wormhole: BLUEFLAGS by William Carlos Williams
moon wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
night & passing & silence & speech wormhole: only
realisation wormhole: you
silhouette wormhole: that
thinking wormhole: how to teach

 

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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

 

“I need help”

Tags

2015, 4*, career, dream, fear, letting go, passing, shame, speech, stairs, teacher, teaching

                vulnerable and stuck
                on the way to first lesson

                taking the short-cut over
                the main stairwell, narrow

                foot-ledge, I cannot
                continue, don’t look down,

                I cannot go back, “I need
                help, get a teacher” and

                I am not ashamed to
                call out loud, no one

                does, I cannot go back,
                a teacher passes, I

                cannot remember her
                name “I need help”;

                I realise there is a balcony-
                corridor behind the ledge,

                safety partition is loose,
                I can lean back into it,

                break the screen, fall
                back, no more fear

 

 

 

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

career wormhole: circuitry
dream wormhole: breathing through hypnagogia
letting go wormhole: place
passing wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
speech wormhole: Sandwich
stairs wormhole: is this it // all the time
teaching wormhole: I turn to wake up

 

is this it // all the time

Tags

2015, 6*, Bodhichitta, breathing, corridors, depression, emptiness, fear, groundlessness, identity, living, mist, perception, pointlessness, questioning, quiet, rope, searching, self-cherishing, silence, snake, stairs, standing, stone, sun, time, trust, walls

                is this it
                coming again out of the mist

                that in my trust I find I still
                get nowhere that I want to be –

                by the walls along the corridor
                or at the top of silent stairs

                standing on the landing – it
                is not up here after all, nowhere

                else to go …
                is

                it
                this damn mist

                so easy to overlook
                so quiet to breathe

                that I mistake the stones for a figure,
                I fear the rope for the snake, and yet

                this mist will disperse
                the sun will always eventually appear

                I need not wear my collar up
                all the time

 

 

 

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

Bodhichitta wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
breathing & quiet wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
depression wormhole: to rescue something
emptiness wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
groundlessness wormhole: place
identity & stone wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
living wormhole: looking back over the tack / and jibe of my life I / notice there is / a fetch // after all … / but certainly not / where I had planned / or where I thought / I’d been
mist wormhole: while
pointlessness wormhole: is there anything to write?
searching wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
silence wormhole: circuitry
stairs wormhole: currency of generations
sun wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
time wormhole: sweet chestnut
walls wormhole: snapshots about Totnes

 

currency of generations

Tags

2012, buttons, childhood, clothes, colour, cupboard, echo, Eglinton Hill, family, generation, history, identity, lifetimes, living room, marble, marshmallow, morning, Mum, muse, pastel, sound, speech, stairs, taste, tin, transparent

 

 

 

                                currency of generations

                                ‘fetch the tin of buttons’
                                a quest to the cupboard
                                by the stairwell just outside
                                the room we dressed in
                                and spent all morning
                                because it was warm
                                ‘the one with the fruits’
                                different sorts of fruit
                                pastel-coloured and
                                marshmallowy on a tin
                                ‘they’re petit-fours’
                                something to understand
                                later (the taste had been sugary
                                and pasty and although
                                it looked like fruit it stuck
                                in my throat) now has
                                buttons which are cool
                                and swirly when I run
                                my finger through them
                                and marbled-enough
                                to see history and boiled-
                                sweet transparent-enough
                                to see worlds themed in
                                colour and echo from the clothes
                                of real people from family aunts
                                and uncles in the past who
                                I never knew or can’t remember
                                the lineage from which I came
                                contained under tin-bent lid

 

 

0.62

 

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

childhood & Eglinton Hill & morning wormhole: between thoughts
echo & stairs wormhole: no one – poewieview #24
family & lifetimes & sound & speech wormhole: being in love – poewieview #26
history wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
identity wormhole: too late:
living room wormhole: fine
Mum wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
muse wormhole: and that’s where I are

 

no one – poewieview #24

Tags

1970, 2016, Bowie, buildings, control, death, echo, emptiness, form, identity, illusion, land, life, night, Salinger, society, stairs, suicide, vista, wind

                           am I really the only one
                           who doesn’t know that
                           buildings are stage props
                           to keep illusion of form
                           and land from blowing
                           away in the night wind

                           the echo of stairwells
                           is inevitable reminder
                           the topple of vistas a
                           tease, but no one saw
                           old James Castle jump
                           we never lost control

 

James Castle jumped from a tower … at which school, and from which book?   Therefore who is the ‘I’ and ‘we’ of poem?   The Man Who Sold the World, 1970

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

Bowie wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23
buildings wormhole: bavardage
echo wormhole: my // shell – poewieview #19
death & wind wormhole: mauve
emptiness wormhole: 1964
identity wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
life wormhole: Dear Sir/Madam,
night wormhole: London Hearts – poewieview #4
society wormhole: miss / ad / venture – poewieview #22
stairs wormhole: the start of adolescence

 

the start of adolescence

Tags

2009, adolescence, black, childhood, dark, Eglinton Hill, emergence, glass, identity, lamp, red, shadow, stairs

 

 

 

                        the start of      adolescence
                      red smoked-     glass shade
                        of the oil       lamp and
                        the wet-      sharp-black
                       shadow      under
                            the      already dark stairs

 

 

 

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

black wormhole: and that’s where I are
childhood wormhole: mauve
Eglinton Hill wormhole: 1963
emergence wormhole: walking through Lewes
glass wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky
identity & red wormhole: first Spring storm
shadow wormhole: my // shell – poewieview #19
stairs wormhole: top table

 

top table

Tags

2015, change, defining, disappearance, glance, information, power, reality, stairs

 

 

 

                                              always
                information rises up the stairs,
                      twirling

                                              as it
                remains the same success
                      ively

                                              re-
                defined through perpetual storey
                      until it

                                              dis-
                appears amid highly-trained shift of glance
                      at the

                      top table

 

seen amid the rising wallpaper of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” (2011); Directed: Tomas Alfredson; starring: Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Mark Strong

 

 

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

change wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
power wormhole: teached / in the ass
reality wormhole: four-colour pulp into cinematic di[gital]pix[el][live ac]tion so easily makes for semantic palava (if you read what I mean) … the foredreading of Dr Strange
stairs wormhole: twisted / pulled / and chipped

 

twisted / pulled / and chipped

Tags

2012, 6*, furniture shop, realisation, stairs, striving, table, Tunbridge Wells, vindication

 

 

 

                                twisted
                                pulled
                                and chipped

                                a table
                                a desk
                      for my important work
                      for my vindicating work where
                      I will have all my works
                                spread out
                                and organised
                                that’ll show them

                                they don’t listen to me
                                nobody listens to me
                      I’ll lift the table from the top floor
                      to the ground floor
                                myself
                      I am strong I can do it
                                this way

                                missed the
                                last step
                      of the first flight
                                heel caught
                                dip tuck twist
                      hold table shoulderstrong       pulled
                      mouth drops to edge of table
                      front tooth chips from inside drop table
                                sigh sitdown
                      falls three steps side legs wrench off
                                thnNNK

                                feeling the inside
                                of my front tooth
                      sheet of sweat on my brow
                      I stand up and sit down
                      when the black and grey houndstooths
                                appear

                                I knew in a head-down
                                what had happened
                                I knew in a don’tpassout
                      what I had been practising for weeks or months
                                up to this point

                                the very antipathy
                                of what I am trying to be
                                the very stuff
                                I am trying not to be
                                and in that trying
                      compounding the lack of what I truly am
                                twisted
                                pulled
                                and chipped

 

 

 

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

part of … oh
realisation wormhole: I didn’t see it coming
stairs wormhole: phantom / stranger
table wormhole: Woolwich Central – / making life better II
Tunbridge Wells wormhole: sun low / from behind
vindication wormhole: the / pyrrhic / play

 

phantom / stranger

Tags

2011, 5*, childhood, comics, doubt, growth, letting go, life, stairs, windows

 

 

 

                                   phantom
                                   stranger

                      it is uncanny how alone I am
                                   wandering the stairwell
                                   lost in comic-world by bare window
                      it is weird how naturally I am not noticed
                                   slight look off before they resume
                                   what they were saying anyway
                      results in me pausing before my rejoinder
                                   questioning the back foot
                                   what if…ing too deeply before my
                                   response with no echo
                      I communicate doubt
                                   and no one wants to listen to doubt

                      let me resign
                                   to the mystery
                      I wouldn’t want the suspense
                                   of having to stay anyway
                                                   !

                      a-ha   ha   HA   HAha!!

 

 

 

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

childhood wormhole: Grandad / Redford

comics wormhole: holiday
letting go wormhole: guru
life & windows wormhole: Woolwich Central – / making life better II
stairs wormhole: the start of / adolescence