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

 

Advertisement

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

 

the Bodhisattva set out / for the Seat of Awakening

Tags

2019, 7*, Arya Lalitavistara, Bodhisattva, Buddha, calm, dark, demon, earth, echo, elephant, food, ground, happiness, light, lion, lotus, mindfulness, mountain, omniscient, past life, path, plateau, power, river, samsara, spontaneity, stars, step, three poisons, Tree of Awakening, view, walking, wheel

                so he bathed in the Nairañjanā,
                he ate the food, his strength

                returned, and he began the walk
                toward the Great Tree; he walked

                with easy gait, grounded
                as a mountain, each step gained

                and graceful with no fight, dream
                or idea; the placement pad of a lion,

                the calliper-swing of an elephant,
                a stride that touched not the earth

                but left perfect wheels
                upon the ground, a step that echoed

                across the plateau, a step that
                levelled mountain paths, each step

                that lead to happy lands,
                each step sprung from past lotuses

                of love and stable intention,
                that rendered demons powerless

                that calmed all view, that evanesced
                the darkness and stopped the

                endless endless rounds; his
                walk outshone the distant stars,

                his walk becalmed the rulers;
                the walk spontaneous, the walk

                omniscient, the walk mindful
                of every ancient step, with such a gait

                the Bodhisattva set out
                for the Seat of Awakening

 

from the Arya Lalita Vistara Nama Mahayana Sutra – the life story of the Buddha – originally using the words from the translation by the Dharmachakra Translation 84000 Committee which is freely available online here (for which thank you, thank you) and then other words once my gaze had settled into the image; the ‘Nairañjanā’ is the river by which the Buddha practised his austerities, the ‘food’ was that given to him by Sujata

 

 

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

Buddha wormhole: Sujātā
echo wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
light wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
path wormhole: alabaster balustrade
power wormhole: in turgid reflection
river wormhole: Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896
stars wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
walking wormhole: Valentine’s Day 2019

 

La Route de Louveciennes, 1870

Tags

1870, 2018, 6*, autumn, cart, echo, electric, evening, grey, industry, land, leaves, metal, orange, passing, pink, Pissarro, quiet, roads, sky, sound, sun, table, time, town, trees, wheel, white, wood

                the cart’s wheel will roll
                metal-held and ungiven down
                the hard-pressed road making echo

                only between the sides of its empty
                bed, slatted and turning; some-
                where in the oranging-grey town

                were stables to rest and evenings
                of sounds at the wooden tables;
                most leaves have already fallen,

                industry slowly arisen over the
                wet land, the white sun, quiet
                in the dirt-pink sky, but electric

                between the bare trunks

 

La Route de Louveciennes, 1870; Camille Pissaro

 

 

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

autumn wormhole: presence
echo wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
evening & time & white wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
grey wormhole: SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams
leaves & roads & trees wormhole: SPRING AND ALL I by William Carlos Williams
orange wormhole: space for probing thought
passing & sun wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
pink & sky wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
quiet wormhole: allowed all gain
sound wormhole: THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams
table wormhole: coterminalism – there is nothing happens by itself, / 070118
wood wormhole: transferring

 

THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1921, 4*, city, firetruck, gold, gong, light, night, passing, rain, red, rumbling, siren, sound, wheel, William Carlos Williams

                                THE GREAT FIGURE

                Among the rain
                and lights
                I saw the figure 5
                in gold
                on a red
                firetruck
                moving
                tense
                unheeded
                to gong clangs
                siren howls
                and wheels rumbling
                through the dark city.

 

from Sour Grapes, 1921
how could this not be included; how could I not include the painting by Charles Demuth; how emblematic is this of taking the notice of all that is in the universe that we are born to …

 

 

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

city wormhole: raised brow
gold wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
light wormhole: despite that
night wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
passing & red wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
rain wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
sound wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pigs
William Carlos Williams wormhole: THE LONELY STREET by William Carlos Williams

 

tram

Tags

2017, 20th century, 6*, boulevard, buildings, concrete, ground, passing, people, progress, Rome, sound, steel, tram, tremors, wheel, windows

                                                                tram

                                tonnage
                                rollson rollsoff
                                each point of
                                steel wheel
                                on steel rail

                all along the boulevard
                                the floating boat of people
                                                making progress

                                broiling tremors
                                in the concrete
                                ground all around
                                and up the talling
                                windows

 

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
buildings & windows wormhole: breakfast
passing & sound wormhole: letting them go
people wormhole: amniotic avenue

 

Brugges April 2015 – looking lost

Tags

2015, air, archaeology, architecture, brass, Brugges, buildings, calves, carillon, church, compassion, faces, finding, ghosts, girl, gold, grey, happiness, history, identity, infrastructure, lemon, letting go, lifetimes, lime, looking, lost, mantra, measure, nuns, oak, passing, people, portrait, posture, purple, saints, scaffolding, seeing, silver, simplicity, sky, society, sound, space, speech, station, step, sun, time, train, wheel, wood

                Brugges April 2015

                looking to find myself at the international train station – all
                the people passing – I’ll feel stone-faced and unmoved until
                I let their faces pass with all manner of their step ‘n’ roll
                looking to find themselves at the international train station –

                looking is found when letting is seen – lost     the civic
                detail of architecture in spikey scaffolding       turning; the
                bite in the sunny air before the grey girder holding     everything –
                the tracks and posts of infrastructure turned by brick-weight

                and wooden wheel found archaeological, built space high
                into the sky with threefold holy design – life spent and time-
                worn in silent healing sitting collected and still in a lifetime
                of ghostly movement before brick pillars clear as history

                makes them; “time is just a measurement” said John right,
                before he died “happiness is very simple” said Ediccia;
                the purple skirt was settled then the lime shirt veined lemon
                with om mani padme hum threads was procured and the slipper

                slipped from the waitress’ heel as she used her fine calves
                to find free tables; golden saints on pinnacles languidly
                show something that the 7 year old strutting before the
                Open Light Brass Band cannot as oak twigs bud in the sky;

                the dark-carved wood gilt with silver effulgence to a higher
                record than the fine-branched brass scales that measure
                the herbs porcelain to the touch while the carillon plays
                dissimilar tunes discordantly to forgotten time and history

 

I am very pleased to present the above, cultured from a short stay in Brugges at the beginning of this month; we travelled by Eurostar leaving from St. Pancras station and passed through Brussels, then out to Brugges; there is no newer building in the centre of the town, the spires and towers still rise down side streets no matter where you walk (Spire of the Church of Our Lady); there is a large photograph of nuns dedicated to life healing at the exhibition in Sint-Janshospitaal and an exhibition ‘Right, Before I Die’ by Andrew George of photographs of people towards the ends of their life and the words they have to say; we visited the old apothecary back at Sint-Janshospitaal; there was a music festival happening but we only saw the Open Light Brass Band play …

 

 

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

air wormhole: I’ve only just realised / after so many decades / that the smell of neglected land is lilac buddleia
architecture & buildings & girl & identity & passing & people & seeing & sound & time wormhole: sight / seeing
church wormhole: Trinity Arts
compassion wormhole: the dash is magnificent / the shadow grotesque
faces & society wormhole: mass
ghosts wormhole: under silent direction of architecture
gold & speech wormhole: gold wedding band
grey wormhole: Hypnopompia
history wormhole: ha ha ha
lemon & lime wormhole: crumpled / notebooks / at the end of a gentle retreat
letting go & space wormhole: between
lifetimes wormhole: what heavy and cantilevered structure
looking wormhole: bottom of Herbert Road to the / foot of Eglinton Hill dream
oak wormhole: corroboration
posture wormhole: oh,
purple wormhole: the edge has come …
silver wormhole: new year’s eve 2014; train up to London to / walk the bridges across the Thames, and / listen to the voices say it is, and was, like, / but get back home before the fireworks / obliterate it all in the emptying twilight
sky wormhole: gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared
sun & train wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
wood wormhole: the Buddha head in an antique shop