meanwhile

Tags

2020, 6*, afternoon, angle, binoculars, blue, cranes, curtains, Eiffel Tower, flags, gorge, green, hope, horizon, mankind, moon, night, rite, rooftops, sea, seagulls, shape, ships, sitting room, sky, sound, stone, time, Tintin, travelling, walking, warehouses, water

                the seagulls, they glide about the
                cranes and warehouse rooftops

                they wheel above the pacing and fro,
                cut between pulleys and raised pennants

                oblivious to distant headland through
                studied binocular pointing out to sea, back in the day

                when the skies were afternoon-blue
                and the sea still sitting-room-green

                then, when there was dare to hope
                and ships anchored on the horizon

                under curtain-drapes of nightest sky
                while the moon snagged in line from

                fore-mast to prow; nevertheless, they
                trekked over crag and gorge, they walked

                through water and pushed through
                trapezoids – slab! – into rooms of stone

                locked and immovable despite
                horizon, fit or ninety degree angle

                oblivious to mankind’s rite and dress;
                meanwhile the twins climbed the tower

 

c’mon, now: a gold-plated no-prize to the first reader who can tell me which book this piece came from to celebrate my return to writing; perception – knowing what’s going on – is never as linear as it might seem to be in a story; already given that there is breadth and depth, even in the scant of depiction, there is usually a time (and a space, and we know how relative those two can be) during which something happens, but let’s not think that these are the only dimensions – there is always a right-angle to be taken that paisley-swirls to a far-wider cauldron than could have initially never been conceived but of which there were pre-echoes if listening askance intently-enough

 

 

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

afternoon & horizon & sky wormhole: travelling,
blue wormhole: silence
cranes wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
Eiffel Tower wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
green wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – tenderness
moon wormhole: ‘not sure …’
night & water wormhole: riders of the night
rooftops wormhole: travel // when I die
sea wormhole: then
seagulls wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
sitting room wormhole: the sitting room
sound wormhole: Four Noble Truths
stone wormhole: looking hard enough
time wormhole: travel // when I die
travelling wormhole: IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS by William Carlos Williams
walking wormhole: breakfast

 

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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

 

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

 

boiled spangle with soft centre

Tags

'scape, 1833, 2019, 6*, building, ice cream, people, river, society, stone, sun, sunset, town, Turner, water, wheel

                boiled spangle with soft centre

                they came in tents
                they came on wheels
                down to the water’s edge

                all the turrets and span
                of stone were already
                faded with every ice-cream sun

 

OK … ‘Spangles’ were a boiled sweet, square and dimpled, which suggested a soft centre, but didn’t; their taste was a combination of visual colour and transluscency rather than anything other than sweet; Turner‘s A Town on a River at Sunset, 1833, had the colour of event and the transluscency of time, but also the soft centre of … life-ing

 

 

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

people wormhole: my uncomfortable life
river & stone wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
sun & water wormhole: then
sunset wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky

 

then

Tags

'scape, 1819, 2019, 6*, anchor, apricot, day, drifting, east, looking, morning, port, reflection, sea, ships, sky, society, spire, sun, sunrise, time, town, water, William Turner

                                                                                earlier,
                before the sun suggested the apricot immensity of coming day
                                fill up the sky and

                                                                                deep within
                glazed waters, the hulls drifted anchored, spindly masts
                                like antennae

                                                                                only port towers
                of decades stood still and reflected, later, jetties of planks and
                                posts tied onto

                                                                                the sea
                like ripples, there were centuries of town and spired symbol, then,
                                to bounder playful sky

 

prologued from S. Giorgio Maggiore, Early Morning, 1819 & Looking east from the Giudecca: Sunrise, 1819 both by William Turner; did you see the sunsets that morning, was anybody else there …?

 

 

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

apricot wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
looking wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
morning & reflection & sky & sun & water wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
sea wormhole: slight sneer
society wormhole: quietly in my quiet house
time wormhole: Sujātā

 

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain

Tags

ash, beauty, bridge, clouds, consciousness, cottage, dawn, eyes, garden, gazing, gold, grass, grey, hedge, hill, land, leaves, light, memory, Michael J Redford, mist, morning, passing, petunia, quiet, radio, rain, reflection, river, roads, silence, silver, sky, skyline, smell, sound, speech, starlings, stillness, stone, summer, sun, sycamore, the Boats of Vallisneria, trees, valley, village, water, weather, willow, writing

Rain

“The morning will be overcast with frequent showers. They will be heavy at times in the south east but brighter weather will follow later from the west …”

Thus spake the oracle from the radio early one summer morning casting his own black cloud over the hearts of many.   I was a keen cyclist in my teens and at many a weekend my schoolmate and I would grease up our cycles and head for the open road.   Shoreham was our target this particular day but the voice of doom did not quell our enthusiasm.   The weather was kind to us on the way down with the sun occasionally breaking through the gloom above to splash a little watery light on the road ahead and we arrived on the outskirts of the village at around nine o’clock. Passing Samuel Palmer’s old cottage we came upon the bridge and dismounted.   After a strenuous exercise, it is a delight to lean upon a bridge and gaze upon the waters emerging from beneath one’s feet.   The flow catches the eye and lifts it slowly into the distance and the senses relax to the accompaniment of its music.   There weren’t many gnats and midges at that time of day, but those that were about were flying very low indeed.   Certainly there was rain about and it wasn’t very far off either for we could just detect the faint scent of it even above the mass of water at our feet.   Not wishing to miss any of its quiet charm, we walked our bicycles through the village, and as the sky grew heavy above us, my thoughts turned to my companion’s pet tortoise Horace who had been extremely active earlier that morning, this being a sure sign of approaching rain.   We turned down the hill past the Crown Hotel, on past the water mill which was then a tea house (I believe it is now a private dwelling) and out onto the banks of the Darenth.

A damp mist had filtered through the trees on the hill opposite and the grey light had transmuted the upturned leaves of ash and sycamore into flecks of silver that hung without movement in the stillness of the impending downpour.   An old weeping willow, pollarded of its crowning glory, leaned out from the bank across the water and as I peered into its dark reflection a crayfish, startled by the leviathan that reared above it, scuttled beneath the smooth stones. As I gazed, the picture was suddenly distorted.   A raindrop had followed immediately by another and yet another and soon I was no longer able to fathom the depths.   We donned our capes, drew up our knees and huddled against the tree like two diminutive bell tents.   Cozy in our little dry islands, the raindrops drummed upon our capes in anger and hissed at us from the river turning it into a boiling cauldron.   The mist that had settled among the trees on the hill opposite had drifted on making way for a great veil of rain that spanned the skyline in graceful folds – a grey but beautiful replica of the Aurora Borealis.

As the curtain drifted slowly by, the day grew appreciably lighter and the deluge eased to a steady drizzle.   Soon after, the clouds broke a little, and a shaft of pure gold struck the hills, becoming wider at its base as it raced swiftly down the valley.   Then the rain ceased as quickly as it had begun and silence, the ethereal beauty of which is always magnified when the rains are over, tumbled into the valley.   We sat in silence beside the bubbling waters and for several minutes we watched its breathless pursuit of the shaft of gold.

It is within such a quietude that I sit now jotting down these notes.   This morning was a grey but clean smelling morning upon which the hedgerow leaves quivered.   It had been raining all night but had stopped just as dawn broke, leaving behind a miscellany of drips and drops, musical and echoing.   Each blade of grass had its tip bent by a raindrop and the clothes line was a string of pearls waiting to be spilled upon the lawn by the quick grasp of a starling’s feet.   By mid-morning the low cloud had dispersed and great mountains of summer cumulus were heaped about the sky.   It was my intention this morning to tackle one or two gardening chores that had been neglected but due to a tiny and insignificant happening, these have yet to be done.   As I passed the petunia bed, I bent to pick up an old seed packet that had appeared and my sleeve touched a petunia leaf.   Upon this leaf there were three rain drops, and as the leaf was set in motion, the three tiny drops rushed towards one another and merged into one large globule that trembled precariously in the centre of the leaf before rolling off the edge and disappearing into the soil.   This tiny happening caused my mind to leap back across the years to remember once more a particular drop of water out of all the millions that must have fallen that day at Shoreham; a single drop of water that has long since been returned to Poseidon from whence it came. We were walking back through the village when we paused awhile beside a cottage garden to discuss our plans.   The clouds were now few and the sun was strong in the cleansed sky drawing out the sweet scent of purity from the land.   Suddenly, a spark of light leapt from the ground and pierced my eye.   So bright was it that it might well have been of solid substance, for it so dazzled the eye that it quite took the breath from me.   I stooped to discover the origin of this manifestation and there, within the cupped hands of a lupin leaf was a tiny trembling rain drop.   It was a perfect globe clearer than crystal; a gem that would have done justice to the diadem of the most illustrious of monarchs.

So it is that my gardening chores for today have once more been neglected.   A rain drop fell from a leaf and in that single drop a flood of memories, memories I felt I had to record, for – they had been pushed so far below the plane of consciousness, that I was afraid they would never have come to the fore again.

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

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

beauty & dawn & rain & silence wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
bridge wormhole: Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896
clouds & passing wormhole: slight sneer
eyes wormhole: mandala offering
garden wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
gold & grey & leaves & sun & trees wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
hedge wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
light & river wormhole: the Bodhisattva set out / for the Seat of Awakening
mist & morning & sound wormhole: 10/30 by William Carlos Williams
quiet wormhole: quietly in my quiet house
radio wormhole: within
reflection wormhole: in turgid reflection
roads & silver wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
sky & speech & writing wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
skyline wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
smell wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
stillness wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pigs
stone wormhole: “And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”
water wormhole: Valentine’s Day 2019

 

Valentine’s Day 2019

Tags

2019, 5*, beach, Carol, circular poem, Lanzarote, love, painting, paper, sand, sea, shoes, Valentine's Day, walking, water, waves

 

 

 

 

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

beach wormhole: allowed all gain
Carol wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
circular poem wormhole: ‘ouch’
love wormhole: in deed
sea wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
walking wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
water & waves wormhole: mandala offering

 

mandala offering

Tags

2019, 7*, cause and effect, doing, emptiness, eyes, giving, guidance, hands, holding, identity, interdependent origination, letting go, mandala, mountain, offering, orbit, pointing, selflessness, smile, society, water, waves, world

                not in water piled high in waves
                nor cleverly pointing

                to my own finger
                let’s just leave all that aside for the moment

                mandala offering

                but all that I let within and
                all that I give without

                without aim and with only
                slight smile and eyes

                that guides the lunge
                and holds for the whole of the fall

                flat as the palm of a hand
                deep as the highest mountain

                that the world will continue to spin
                in a palimpsest mark redford way

                and all might find their nature empty and
                centered around each orbit they make

 

                                                ___ ‘m‘ ~~~

a mandala offering is a ritual way of offering the whole universe to the Buddhas, a way of giving up everything for the sake of one’s essential goal in life; ‘is the universe mine to offer?‘ – my universe is, `bought and paid for; ‘but the universe is so big, how can you ‘offer’ it?‘ – easy, the whole of the universe is inside my head; ‘is your universe worth offering to the Buddhas?‘ – it could do with a clean up, which is why I imagine it buffed up with all the Mark Redford stuff cleared away; ‘why bother?‘ – it gives me a clean sheet with which to work on; ‘isn’t that just a bit self-indulgent?‘ – nope, self-indulgence is one of the things I hope to clean out of the universe in order to offer it, I’m hoping to invite a few friends and family around once it’s cleaned up; ‘`sounds rather limited‘ – you don’t know how many mothers I’ve got; ‘do the Buddhas want your mandala?‘ – the Buddhas are my universe, it’s just that I don’t see it yet, my damn ownership keeps getting in the way, and besides, I’m under universe-arrest at the moment … some stuff I did in the past …

                                                ___ ‘m‘ ~~~

 

 

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

doing wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
emptiness wormhole: there will be ovations
eyes wormhole: my uncomfortable life
giving wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
hands & waves wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
identity & letting go & society wormhole: in deed
smile wormhole: …zzh-vvttP*–… … …
water wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
world wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877