Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890

Tags

1890, 2018, 6*, light, Pissarro, river, Rouen, shadow, sky, spire, stone, sun, time, trees, wood

                Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890

                they’ll grip the bank
                and grow for forty years

                while barges hardly move
                the sun will turn to wood,

                but they’ll be gone, the
                shadow they keep cannot hold,

                the light flattens all save
                the scars of the stone spires

 

grown from the banks of Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

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

light wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
river & sky wormhole: in turgid reflection
shadow wormhole: alabaster balustrade
stone wormhole: St. Erasmus in Bishop Islip’s Chapels, 1796
sun wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
time wormhole: threshold to behold
trees wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
wood wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees

 

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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

 

Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879

Tags

1879, 7*, axle, boulevard, burn, carriage, chimney, evening, future, horses, individualism, lives, Montmartre, night, passengers, pavement, pediment, petrol, Pissarro, shops, skyline, sun, time, windows

Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879

                each atelier window
                piled up above the
                pediment line,
                shutter-shut but
                lives to be told, each
                with individual chimney

                each carriage with each
                passenger pulled by their
                own horse evenly around
                an axle; fixed,
                only the boulevard proceeds …

Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879

                … through time; but at night
                the shop-fronts burn and
                ignite the petrol pavement,
                there, under the rippled
                surface, the ache of things to come

 

 

 

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

chimney wormhole: Impression of Winter: Carriage on a Country Road, 1872
evening wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
night & skyline wormhole: intent
shops wormhole: pediment to behold
sun wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
time wormhole: the old man;
windows wormhole: Female Peasant Carding, 1875

 

the old man;

Tags

2019, 8*, bougainvillea, Buddha, hope, life, lute, meaning, ochre, old age, open, pink, politics, power, purpose, renunciation, samsara, society, the Four Signs, time, walking, wind, windows

                the old man;

                by the open window –
                air of civic celebration

                flowering deep pink
                bougainvillea on ochre

                wind, but despite
                all iron machination

                the Prince of all
                that hope could keep

                had seen that Make
                held long-together only

                with foresworn and
                decrepit elapse

                that bent walking
                could behold;

                and the borough might hold
                but there were

                further portents
                on the way and a

                fourth that
                warranted all wasteland –

                when the lute-string
                snapped

 

An old man was the first of the Four Signs that tipped the Prince to thinking that there was more to life than privileged indulgence – there was a seriousness in life to consider which his father had designed to keep from him; when the Prince had been born, there was a prophecy that he would either become a great king enjoying power and influence far beyond, even, what his father had achieved, or that he would leave home and become a seeker of deeper purpose and meaning in life, but the father could not keep all of life’s questions at bay for the rest of the Prince’s life … the other Signs were: illness, death and worldly renunciation; this encounter fore-shadowed the Prince leaving his home to search for that deeper meaning and purpose

 

 

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

Buddha wormhole: birth in the world
life & time & walking wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
meaning wormhole: to let be
ochre wormhole: every step I take
open & windows wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
pink wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
politics wormhole: how to teach
power & society wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
renunciation wormhole: and … // … sound
samsara wormhole: Batman: Oddysey
wind wormhole: {reading right to left}

 

Puerto del Carmen

Tags

2019, 6*, balcony, birth, boats, branches, buildings, canopy, death, distance, east, evening, glass, green, harbour, hills, horizon, hovering, impressionism, Lanzarote, life, midday, mist, morning, people, promenade, sea, streetlamp, sunset, time, trees, trunk, walking, water, west

                Puerto del Carmen

                to the east
                in the morning

                the promenade
                ended out at the

                harbour wall beacon,
                occasional impressions

                of couples made
                their way under

                irregular lamps on
                their rusting stems with

                fragile glass bulbs;
                one boat anchored

                out at sea, seemed
                closer than it was

                because the
                horizon is always indistinct;

                then, here at midday, the
                single spindle tree holds

                a canopy intricate
                of branches and peppered-green

                writhe-angled
                to the trunk through which

                storeys and balconies
                can clearly be read;

                in the evening to the
                west, the further

                hills all will hover
                for all the distance

                that bolts of mists will allow
                and for all the show of

                lowing sun will preview
                blind across the water

                                straight
                                at
                                me

 

Puerto del Carmen, a stretch, in distance, along the southern coast of Lanzarote, an elongation of time when one is there …

 

 

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

branches wormhole: YOUNG SYCAMORE by William Carlos Williams
buildings wormhole: intent
death wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
evening & morning & people wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873
glass & green & sea wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
hills wormhole: sun setting over a lake, 1840
horizon & life & trees wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
mist wormhole: Batman: Oddysey
promenade wormhole: waiting to be heard
time wormhole: I
water wormhole: Fishermen at Sea, 1796

 

I

Tags

2018, 6*, anatta, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, identity, karma, left, lifetimes, looking, reflection, right, self-cherishing, time

                                    I get what I deserve,
                                    I can see it there in the mirror
                                    looking back at me,

                        it seems its left is my right but it is
                        all just the same
                        reflection

            it would be better
            if I hadn’t brandished this ‘I’ about in the past
            making it all right and powerful over others whenever I could,

            simply ending up
            with this pain in my
            own neck …

            it would be better if I
            didn’t have this
I

 

from Bodhisattvacharyavatara chapter VI, verse 42: In previous lives and former times, I myself have subjected just such pain, suffering and torment on other sentient beings, therefore, it is only just and fitting that I, the former perpetrator, who distressed, wronged and harmed all these beings, deserve the return, that I become the attacked, that this becomes my lot.

 

 

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

identity wormhole: the reach turned to love
lifetimes wormhole: oh, alright then
looking wormhole: somehow
reflection wormhole: travelling / back
time wormhole: alabaster balustrade

 

alabaster balustrade

Tags

2019, 6*, balustrade, going, holiday, Lanzarote, path, pedestal, pediment, perspective, shadow, staying, time, white, yin yang

                alabaster balustrade demarking
                path and apartamentos

                white and shadow curled about
                the bulbing drop,

                shadowed under pediment and
                white along the pedestal

                a hundred times
                in precise perspective either way

                will yin and yang
                within almost noticeable elapse

                so that it will
                no longer matter whether you proceed or stay

 

white & shadow contemplation from the terrace of a February holiday in Lanzarote

 

 

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

holiday wormhole: coterminalism – there is nothing happens by itself, / 070118
path wormhole: Impression of Winter: Carriage on a Country Road, 1872
shadow wormhole: St. Erasmus in Bishop Islip’s Chapels, 1796
time wormhole: and … // … sound
white wormhole: intent

 

and … // … sound

Tags

2019, 8*, allegory, Arya Lalitavistara, Buddha, conceit, hierarchy, hope, horizon, humanity, identity, ignorance, kleshas, lies, love, music, parents, renunciation, role, royalty, society, sound, teaching, time

                                and …

                … there, where humans
                have found themselves
                in ever-corporate cluster

                evolving mass of breadth
                and hope in horizon; see,
                they conceive their self

                in immaculate conception:
                pyramidically instilled
                and royal to behold;

                it is their that I will
                be, allegorical to there
                conceit, I shall higher their boat

                to get to the other
                shore, I will honour their
                parents, I will love

                their fulsome lies, but
                the time will come
                that I shall cede the role

                and break their fragile Is
                when the boxes with
                broken strings nonetheless …

                                … sound

 

inspired both from, and within, the ‘Arya Lalita Vistara Nama Mahayana Sutra‘, which is the life-story of the Buddha, the title of which is beautiful: ‘Arya‘ meaning ‘higher, exalted’ as in connected to reality; ‘Lalita‘ meaning ‘play, game, role’, that everything is not just as it seems … an allegory, although coupled with ‘Arya’ it is an allegory that doesn’t merely ‘point to’ a deeper/higher meaning, it comes from and dwells within that meaning … playfully, poetically, suggestively, also suggesting how the scripture is to be read; ‘Vistara‘ meaning any and all of ‘breadth, dimension, elaboration, enlargement, expansion, extension, spread, width’ – the ‘exponetialising’ means of coupling the ‘Arya’ with the ‘Lalita’ parts; ‘Nama‘, meaning ‘named, called’; ‘Mahayana‘ the spiritual way and means of exponentialising; ‘Sutra‘ a ‘discourse’ or ‘means’ given by the Buddha, yes this is an autobiography, but so much more if read with eyes wide open; there are several allusions to musical instruments that ‘sound’ (and sometimes ‘speak’) when not played, or when broken; ‘their’ and ‘there’ in the 4th stanza poem are sic and are meant to be questioning both identity and place in samsara

 

 

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

Buddha wormhole: with all love released
horizon wormhole: The Diligence at Louveciennes, 1870
identity & society wormhole: Fishermen at Sea, 1796
love wormhole: sun setting over a lake, 1840
music wormhole: on facing the Have
sound wormhole: YOUNG SYCAMORE by William Carlos Williams
teaching wormhole: between
time wormhole: ‘there, …’

 

‘there, …’

Tags

2018, 5*, anger, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, corroboration, evidence, fidgeting, identity, irritation, lotus, me-me-me, patience, practice, thinking, time

                                                there,

                that fidgeting ‘no’
                and the cloud of a
                thousand irritations,
                that flick the switch

                without audible click,
                the not-should-somes
                the way-shoulds and always
                the don’t-like-doesn’ts,

                the no-good-nothings
                and me, and me, and me a thousand
                and one times a day,
                build me up accumulated,

                become familiar,
                remind me that I don’t like,
                recognise myself as don’t
                like, corroborating me

                evident to just as it is; I’ll
                go looking for it when
                feeling unsure, make me
                constructed again – girder

                rivet, graunch – hold the
                gantry and pucker in
                the face of all adversity, my
                steely face’ll s t r e t c h

                like leather and I’ll draw the line
                in the sand all around me
                like a corpse taken away
                for inevitable forensics;

                no, the practice of patiences
                are a billion-fold and perpetual
                opening throughout time
                into a grandiloquent lotus

 

from Bodhisattvacharyavatara VI, 2: There is nothing so destructive and negative as hatred or aggression; there is no discipline or austerity stronger than tolerance, forbearance or patience. Consequently it is only right to practise and cultivate patience and to do so constantly and persistently in all ways and in all situations.

 

 

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

identity wormhole: Fishermen at Sea, 1796
practice wormhole: between
thinking wormhole: despite that
time wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing

 

Hastings: neither all or nothing

Tags

2018, 7*, being, birch, blue, buildings, church, doing, flats, furniture, grey, Hastings, height, houses, net curtains, passing, pavement, reaching, reason, roads, sea, silver, sky, steeple, steets, time, Victorian houses, walking, windows, wondering, writing

                                                                Hastings: neither all or nothing

                I walked steep down
                                through Victorian house fronts
                                                down the whole height of the
                                                                church steeple

                and stood at the grey sea
                                wondering if there was good reason
                                                to write of it, after all;
                                                                the houses

                were now flats with nets knotted in the
                                windows and abandoned furniture
                                                on the street, but look,
                                                                that corner building

                built to the shape of bifurcating roads, oh
                                and the silver birch at the edge
                                                of the pavement reaching
                                                                up into the blue

                cleared sky and although I needn’t write it,
                                I do; and the roots of this small
                                                tree have bulged the paviours
                                                                unnoticeably over the years

 

 

 

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

being & doing wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
birch wormhole: over-pink cagoule
blue wormhole: {reading right to left}
buildings & silver wormhole: London, 1809
church wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
grey & sky wormhole: Impression of Winter: Carriage on a Country Road, 1872
net curtains wormhole: keep the light off
passing wormhole: passing
roads wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XI by William Carlos Williams
sea wormhole: Fishermen at Sea, 1796
streets & writing wormhole: on facing the Have
time wormhole: somehow
Victorian houses wormhole: Victorian pipework
walking wormhole: blister on me thumb
windows wormhole: Dulwich College, London, 1871