the quiet whale

Tags

2013, 8*, air, breath, community, currents, echo, groundlessness, life, light, passing, quiet, silence, society, sound, speech, superhero, water, whale, windows

                there was a thirty year cacophony
                     storied and canyon
                     full of echo and window
                     and impossible superheroes
                but the giant fin e – ven – tu – all – y
                     passed gliding out of freeze-frame
                     the quiet whale drifting off
                                like a community

                                there is nothing left
                     the after-currents, the dwindling tendency
                     the receding cheers the gears the home-lights
                                                receding bobs
                                                no ground to
                                                stand from
                                                su – spend – ead

                                     but too
                     no need to hold my breath anymore
                                no need to stay submerged down here
                                                let this leaden air out
                                                to rise where
                                                it will
                                I will take in all water
                                                behind my ears
                                                               and reach anywhere
                                                                               through power
                                                                                                   of silent speech

 

 

 

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

air & passing wormhole: too greedy
breath wormhole: municipal garden
echo wormhole: occa / s / i // o / n / a // l // l // y
groundlessness wormhole: ‘let them slide off …’
life wormhole: step
light & society wormhole: Infantino / district of Gotham
silence wormhole: St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton
sound wormhole: where else
speech wormhole: St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards / with the forelegs hanging down obscene / reaching some height blindly to connect / out from the long-stalk tri-separating up- / to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what / is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know- / what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and- / it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”
superhero wormhole: bud
water wormhole: embodying
whale wormhole: gulp // spout // and recede
windows wormhole: to rescue something

 

bud

Tags

2013, 6*, budding, colour, doing, identity, non-doing, sitting, smile, superhero

                                              bud

                there is nothing that I do that is important –
                                that I do it, that it be done at all, that I do it well
                                              or heroically –

                                but that I do any of it
                                              with all the filament colours
                                                              of a slight smile

 

 

 

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

doing & superhero wormhole: where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …
identity wormhole: seen but not heard
sitting wormhole: breathing
smile wormhole: retirement

 

where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …

Tags

2017, 7*, austerity, being, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, conscience, conscientiousness, death, doing, effort, fall, gravity, illusion, inspiration, karma, Lucifer, mind, now, practice, self-cherishing, Shantideva, superhero, talking to myself, time, virtue

                where it has taken birth
                may it not decrease … there are

                tiny filaments here and there
                from time to time
                connecting the flexing muscle
                further corridors within the firing mind

                it’s not a whole package
                nicely taped up in cardboard
                and delivered with a smile, a signature
                and a how-might-I-do-better survey

                it … won’t happen like that;
                here’s where if anywhere
                the austerity takes place
                here’s where if anywhere I develop

                gaunt lines of virtue
                in my cheek, after the inspiration
                has gone:
                just keep on keeping on; if I try super-heroically –

                ag-grandiosely – there is nothing
                to let ‘not decrease’,
                if it does not burn it is not fire;
                I am either serious or not

                and if not, I should;
                go back
                calm down and create new filaments
                quietly and accordingly

                anything ethical
                should be conducted … only,
                not become an eater of conscience
                like Lucifer’s hapless fool

                simply bargaining
                with illusion is the loss of its finding … out,
                the gravity of the flailing fall
                exponential

                to each and every action
                where it will take a long time to gain ground; death
                affords time to practise
                now, all the time now, not

                later, not I-did-have-it-but-
                now-I’ve-lost-it … NOW

 

right-angled out of chapter IV of Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara … or in

 

 

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

being & doing & talking to myself wormhole: six paramitas
death wormhole: ‘never look up’?
mind wormhole: moment
practice wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …
superhero wormhole: passersby
time wormhole: the bench

 

passersby

Tags

2016, 6*, architecture, artist, blue, buildings, façade, finials, ghosts, Granada, identity, others, passing, rooftops, self, Shantideva, sky, smile, streets, superhero, thought, walls, wandering

                “acting like an apparition
                  with no sense of self”; not

                martyring myself an apparition
                because no one recognised my

                self; let me wander the streets
                and plazas parrying every foil

                in my head, swinging up
                facades and leaping rooftops

                with closed-lipped smile
                to greet the passersby; the

                artist sits with his back
                to the wall to finish

                the finials opposite with just
                touches of blue sky

 

the quote is from Stephen Batchelor’s translation of the Bodhisattvacharyavatara (V, 57) which I was reciting as my holiday reading; the ideal and the model, the should and the example; how to be amongst other (and amongst others), it is not the finials, so much, as the sky before which they reach …

 

 

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

blue & passing & thought & walls wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
buildings & streets wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
ghosts wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
identity wormhole: I
others wormhole: Clea
rooftops wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
Shantideva wormhole: inbreath
sky wormhole: be
smile wormhole: new-found love – poewieview #36
superhero wormhole: zero

 

zero

Tags

2010, alchemist, being, burden, doing, ideas, identity, letting go, practice, rishi, significance, sitting, sublime, superhero, talking to myself, wisdom, zero

 

 

 

                                                                                      I think I am zero
                                                                         when I do nothing
                                                              so I do things
                                                              like a Superhero
                                                                         like an Alchemist
                                                                                      like a Rishi but

                                                              I am ever-only and
                                                                         going-to-be an
                                                              Occasional Good Idea
                                                                         a Jumpy Quest after Sublime;

                                                cast it all adrift and
                                                let it sink –

                                                this Mark Redford
                                                that I do is such a
                                                burden –

                                I am significant
                                wise and right

                                                because

                                I am zero

                I am Fine
                As I Am

                                Occasionally

 

 

 

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

being & identity & superhero wormhole: balancing // with a whole lot of deft
doing & practice wormhole: diligence
letting go wormhole: Jericho
sitting & talking to myself wormhole: bloogying

 

balancing // with a whole lot of deft

Tags

2016, balance, being, deft, detail, identity, importance, joy, legacy, living, observation, openness, precision, superhero, writing

 

 

 

                                              the
                                importance of
                balancing
                                being
                                              precisely and detailedly
                                              with
                                whatever
                                              I
                                              am
                                              in
                                and with, with observation
                                              with openness
                                                              in small bits
                                                                                 with joy,
                                                                                 let the heroics take care of themselves
                                                                                                            let the legacy take care of itself,
                                                                                              not too much
                                                                                              not too little and

                                              with a whole lot of deft

 

 

 

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

balance wormhole: true nature
being wormhole: constant hummm
identity wormhole: currency of generations
living wormhole: too late:
openness wormhole: the both passive and transitive / non-presumptive pre-conceptualist attenuation of being
superhero wormhole: the writing’s on the wall
writing wormhole: the coffee shop opportunity

 

the writing’s on the wall

Tags

2012, beauty, being, blindness, breath, creativity, doing, groundlessness, hope, Howl, identity, inertia, letting go, looking, memory, pen, penance, pointlessness, powerlessness, publishing, seeing, self-doubt, sitting, superhero, talking to myself, universe, vindication, walls, waltz, writing

 

 

 

                                the writing’s on the wall

                                I can be becoming lost for weeks
                                unable to release, foiled in creativity
                                even by my breath; unable to waltz

                                or twirl about as I promise myself
                                held by the very wall that materialises
                                precisely where I thought to move

                                again; because there is something
                                closer than my retinas which I cannot see,
                I cannot see

                                because I am hanging on to a
                                last shred of dignity that makes me
                                blind that I cannot see the walls

                                at my toe before I swing my
                                foot to kick and I cannot see the walls
                                in my cranium before I blink

                                              so
                                              little
                                              beauty

                                to stumble over, stood in inertia
                                no matter how busy I become
                                no matter how much I do

                                without looking; (it’s the writing
                                (no it’s the tidal lunge for vindication,
                                 (no it’s the reminder, the reinforcement

                                  that I am powerless))) in a pointless universe
                                in which I still want to be the hero
                                brandishing the latest sheaf of sublimity

                                (even if not on the rooftops waving
                                 my genitals – see, see) so what do I do,
                                do I stop it all now and snap out of it

                                do I make myself sit for hours of
                                balming penance, do I slap my wrists
                                for wanting to publish; no, Mark,

                                              here’s a pen and
                                              here’s the line and
                                              here’s the wall to write on

 

 

 

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

beauty & being & doing wormhole: while walking
breath wormhole: miss / ad / venture – poewieview #22
creativity & walls wormhole: and that’s where I are
groundlessness wormhole: Dear Sir/Madam,
identity wormhole: 1968
letting go wormhole: tong len / the inauguration of another – timely – butter fly effect / taking and giving
looking & writing wormhole: impressionism
pointlessness wormhole: development
publishing wormhole: time proceeds
seeing wormhole: Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
sitting wormhole: well,
superhero wormhole: no point
talking to myself wormhole: dream career // groggy
vindication woormhole: thy will be done

 

no point

Tags

2013, anatta, being, doing, identity, letting go, meaning, non-doing, pointlessness, reaching, settling, superhero, writing

 

 

 

                     there is no point to seize
                wispy and evanescent no matter
                     how slight and deft
                         I reach

                     there is no point to make
                tensile and unassailable no matter
                     how muscular and ever
                         I hold on

                     even if I define myself
                inscrutable or heroic by them I was
                     never there to match
                         their word

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: library windows
doing wormhole: when / ever
identity & meaning & superhero wormhole: poessay X: soul love
letting go wormhole: because
pointlessness wormhole: New York Movie, 1939
settling wormhole: ‘filtered coffee …’
writing wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915

 

poessay X: soul love – poewieview #2

Tags

2016, appearence, art, assimilation, asymmetry, Bowie, bread, butter, centrifugal, centripetal, chords, communication, defining, depression, dichotomy, eclectic, existence, gold, I, identity, illusion, inside, insight, leaves, liberation, living, love, meaning, music, naïveté, nose, octave, others, outside, piano, poessay, right & wrong, seeing, semantics, soul, superhero, syntax, warp, weft, words, world

                poessay X: soul love

                thin depression
                like butter over frozen bread
                when things go well, a shoulder tap,
                the superhero mask with no nose;

                somethings is not right
                outside or in, oneself aren’t what I thought, we
                just don’t co-ordinate as we should
                creating havoc with syntax; but there

                the gold, the outsight,
                that things isn’t quite right
                allows a cleaner, naïve sights of your leaves¹ as long as ‘I don’t fit’
                doesn’t get in the way;

                maybe ‘things’ don’t exist as they appear (or,
                even, shouldn’t),
                that everything are wrong (with
                trans-dualistic semantic); where depression

                is trying to maintain an illusion in a world we did not create (‘wauuugh’),²
                not proof that ‘we’ is wrong but insight
                to what ‘things’ truly is, and where
                art could be liberative,

                if communicative; which is why Bowie w/is
                important: no sense but the weft of asymmetry
                and the warp of dichotomy in … love
                for other/s-ness-eh city, where eclectic

                assimilation is the means of meaning, always
                far wider than defined, where chordings and octaves are
                centripuntal to word; or not …
                with damn good piano solo

 

¹ this piece of work grew out of a conversation with Johnbalaya which we had over coffee and jam on toast one mornings in the pages of Powieviews; orange juice anyone?
² an mlewisredford No-Prize if you can tell me which character’s strap-line this is; c’mon, c’mon …

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

 

 

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

Bowie & identity & naïveté wormhole: sixty four sixty five
communication wormhole: … the discipline of shamatha / the waft of vipashyana
depression & music wormhole: Poewieviews
gold & living & love wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
leaves wormhole: along
meaning & world wormhole: let the dreams / become the ghosts they / always were
others & piano wormhole: com- / mute
poessay wormhole: poessay IX – … just saying, is all II
seeing wormhole: Office at Night, 1940
superhero wormhole: sit
words wormhole: when writing // stay

 

sit

Tags

2010, abandonment, ageing, Batman, bedroom, being, biography, birthday, books, border, branches, cape, carpet, cars, Catcher in the Rye, childhood, children, comics, compassion, counting, cowl, crying, Dad, divorce, father, flower, fog, fracture, French, green, guru, history, house, identity, image, leaf, life, living room, lyric, marriage, moonlight, Mum, music, night, numbers, parents, pattern, planets, posture, power, Salinger, self-compassion, sentient beings, settee, shadow, sitting, skyline, speech, stone, sunlight, superhero, Superman, surrealism, talking to myself, teaching, wife, world, writing, yin yang

 

 

 

                           I stared at the pattern of the carpet
                           driving my cars behind the settee
                           while my parents said final things
                           to each other; the twirl of the branches

                           a better life, the curl of a flower;
                           you’d better go, the border; and
                           never step back in this house again,
                           the shadow of the leaf is also a

                           darker green; I had never studied
                           the pattern before – never had to,
                           never could – I can work it out now,
                           see how it repeats; I think something

                           is happening with Mum and Dad
                           on the other side of the settee; but
                           this pattern continues around the
                           whole carpet, around the whole room;

                           only later – in bed – is it announced
                           what I had already known, and only
                           then could I ask why does it have to
                           happen to us and cry; only when it

                           was announced, only when it was
                           expressed; I had already known
                           but I could only count the patterns,
                           I could only drive the cars; and

                           as I cried, I was numb – pattern
                           before settee – I could fracture
                           from the world, just find a pattern;
                           you’re the man of the house now,

                           someone said to me, so I studied
                           the pages of comicbooks – patterns
                           of power, solving under cowl,
                           jumping under cape, between the

                           skyline and the world: I shall
                           throw stones high, until they
                           don’t come down; I shall dig so low
                           that no one could follow, no;

                           I shall count all numbers; I shall
                           collect all numbers; I shall
                           discover all planets; I shall adopt
                           the posture of heroes, no; I shall

                           number the histories; I shall weave
                           the texture of music; I shall taste
                           the shock of lyric; I shall smell
                           the books, no; I shall sunlight

                           the chorus; I shall cry the biography;
                           I shall see the image, and write them
                           into existence, yes; I shall follow
                           the curl and the twist and the twirl

                           under moonlight all the night long;
                           then, I shall play catch in the rye;
                           I shall alors les boulevards; I shall
                           yin the old yang; I shall surreal in

                           the fog; I shall honour my guru
                           I shall marry my wife; I shall father
                           my children; I shall teach in those classes –
                           but forty two years on, he had still

                           just left; and I still didn’t know how
                           to be the man; time to get out from
                           behind the settee, take a seat with
                           all the others, and
                                                  just
                                                  sit there with them all awhile

 

 

 

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

abandonment & divorce wormhole: … back to the outbreath
Batman wormhole: zok! and pow!
bedroom & Dad wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
being & identity & talking to myself & world & writing wormhole: out!
books wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
branches wormhole: Exceat to Cuckmere Haven
carpet wormhole: Ashdown Forest / 080213 14:47
cars wormhole: after all?
childhood & music wormhole: fantasia
comics wormhole: Detective Comics #345
compassion wormhole: de Boeddha // of light
father wormhole: sight / seeing
fog wormhole: my life / of others
green wormhole: three musicians
history wormhole: Brugges April 2015 – looking lost
house wormhole: House by the Railroad, 1925
life & speech wormhole: “write, let’s break outta here!”
living room wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II
Mum wormhole: dream 230315
night wormhole: mauve / night
posture & sitting & superhero wormhole: exactly equal
power wormhole: the continental stride of trains
shadow & teaching wormhole: … anymore
skyline wormhole: The Louvre in a Thunderstorm, 1909
stone wormhole: Evening Wind, 1921
Superman wormhole: escape from Flat Planet