(FRO)ZEN BUT (SPO)OK(ED) IN WEYMOUTH

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Walked via Cromwell Road & Abbotsbury Road. Had hoped to catch a bus. Missed the  No.3 but caught the No.8 after zen-like photo opportunity hit my eye ........                                

( see my blog - " i-less in dorset.")....

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COLD SEA-FOGS. NO HORIZON AT CONVERGENCE OF SEA &SKY. i TAKE PHOTO OF SUN FOR ALEX MYDDELTON, FOR WHEN I SEE HIM. SUN IN MY HEART KNOWS WHERE TO FIND A LIKE-IMAGE...ALEX ROLLS ONE, OUTSIDE HIS SHOP, ON THE STREET. A YOUNG WOMAN, W/ PUSHCHAIR (& BABY), STOPS TO CHAT...EVENTUALLY ENTERS SHOP. JUST THE 3 OF US. THE YOUNG WOMAN GOES TO THE "NEW" VINYL RECORD SECTION AND STRAIGHT-AWAY HOOKS-OUT OTIS REDDING. SHE'S GONNA BUY IT IMMEDIATELY - O.R. IS HER ALL-TIME FAVOURITE. I TELL THEM THAT "SITTING ON THE DOCK OF THE BAY" WAS MY FAVE IN 1968, BONTDDU, WALES...i WAS 20. FIRST TIME AWAY FROM HOME. NEITHER ALEX NOR GEMMA (THE YOUNG WOMAN), WERE EVEN TWINKLES IN THAT PROVERBIAL EYE..........*.......EVENTUALLY, GEMMA LOOKS UP FROM HER BROWSING AND SAYS,"ARE YOU CHRIS?"...."NO" i REPLY," THAT'S MY BROTHER'S NAME, BUT HE LIVES IN MELBOURNE, IN OZ."....."WHAT'S YOUR NAME ? THEN," SHE ASKS.....i TELL HER MY NAME IS "BERNARD", ADDING - " AND WHO IS CHRIS ?"..."I DON'T KNOW ," SHE SAYS, "I JUST THOUGHT THAT WAS YOUR NAME."

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3 A.M. - FIRST THOUGHTS, BEST THOUGHTS...

HAIKU COME TO MIND

BUT

NO PEN, NO PAPER

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MOVING FIR-CONES

MUM'S OLD ROOM

SEEDS SCATTERING

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EARLY-MORNING-SITTING-ROOM

GOOSE'S NECK

BROKEN IN HASTE

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now back to bed ? ...03.32 hours...or more pottering...writing...sitting...........

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3 HELICOPTERS CAME

3 HELICOPTERS CAME

& LANDED ON THE BANKS OF RADIPOLE LAKE ON SUNDAY A'NOON

3 CHILDREN & THEIR GRANDMOTHER HAD BEEN HIT BY

2 MOTORBIKES @ SPEED ON

WEYMOUTH WAY

THE DREAM OF A LITTLE FAMILY HAS FADED FOR ALL TIME

NO MORE WILL THEY PASS MY WINDOW ON THEIR WAY TO SCHOOL ON SCOOTERS OR BIKES OR ON FOOT

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THE SUN WILL STILL COME UP

THE STARS WILL STILL BE THERE

AND ERIC CLAPTON SINGS THAT THERE WILL BE NO MORE TEARS IN HEAVEN

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Y'DAY A'NOON

I WALKED PAST THE LITTLE FAMILY'S HOUSE

UNDER A BLUE SPECKLESS SKY

THRU THE SUBWAY WHERE WHITEWASH SEEKS TO HIDE THE GRAFFITTI

AND TO THE BEACH OF WEYMOUTH SANDS

WHERE TRACTORS WERE SMOOTHING THE DAYS EVENTS OVER READY FOR ANOTHER DAY

LEFT UNTOUCHED WERE THE SCRIBBLINGS OF CHILDREN'S ART

OUT TO SEA NOT ONE THING OUT OF PLACE..

4.40am Golden GOJI Hermitage 13/march/2012

MAY ALL BEINGS BE FREE FROM SUFFERING

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SIT DOWN & SHUT UP

IN THE NEW SITTING ROOM, NOT SITTING-ROOM

JUST SITTING

BARE BONES MEDITATION

"FUN" TO SIT @ DUSK & @ DAWN

APPROACHINGS OF DARKNESS  & LIGHT

GREY JEANS MELT INTO GREY CARPET

THIS MORNING HEAR FIRST TWITTERING BIRDS

FROGSOUNDS DO NOT REACH THIS FAR FROM POND DURING THE NIGHT

THIS WHOLEHEARTED SITTING IS ENOUGH

THIS PRACTICE, DURING THIS LIFE.

& ?

COME AND SIT @  "GOLDEN GOJI HERMITAGE" - stingyartist48@hotmail.co.uk

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A DORSET TROUBADOUR WOULD SING OF PAUL BLACKBURN

Written IN Weymouth & environs - ON buses or ON coffee-house tables - ON my laptop, IN a notebook, or ON my lap - here, there & in various PREMISES - but essentially @ home @ Golden GOJI Hermitage, drinking IN & out of poetry - ingesting this or that - and THAT  is what drew me to Paul Blackburn many moons ago = ALE HOUSE POEMS, BAKERY POEMS, THE PROVENCAL TROUBADOUR POETS.....earthiness & classicism. BUT what does this Great Fool, w/out a passport to his name, know of such a wor(l)d ? Albeit that his mother came from Alexandria, and gestated sons who loved books and great libraries !

#1) My brother in Oz, prodded me to write about P.B., following my quirky, previous blog-post on here, which referred to Paul Blackburn. i dismissed the idea w/out even considering that i write anything = just not up to such things (?)....less than 24 hours later, i found myself working, as if on benzadrine, on this essay/blog-post. And it is work. And it is a practice...s'thing i had never accepted 100%, as i had the practice of zazen. Just sitting, was all that mattered = SHIKANTAZA = the practice of DOGEN. Katagiri Roshi's remark to Nathalie Goldberg, that WRITING should be her LIFE-PRACTICE, never quite accorded. After-all, for Dogen, ZAZEN WAS BUDDHISM. Likewise, when Franco Beltrametti told me in the 80's, that he practiced WALKING MEDITATION, i thought - not the real thing. i had not matured by a mile. Slowly, more teachings percolated into the mind of this great fool. THICH NHAT HANH talked of WASHING-UP MEDITATION.....life itself is the great practice, life and death, THE GREAT MATTER.

#2) Could not, for the life-of-me, find Paul Blackburn's books when i wanted'em. Searched the library in vain. Then, sidetracked by rearranging some BLACK SPARROW'S in studio/conservatory, i find "THE JOURNALS" under my hand & gaze. i flick thru, happy to have found s'thing. i knew Blackburn had died "young" - but OH! - only 45! (1926-1971) and realised, in that moment ,that when i first read him, he was already dead. Robert Kelly writes, as editor of this book - "The last writing in it comes up to six weeks of his death in September, 1971."

What i "liked" about Paul Blackburn was the "open form" and his ease with contemporary NEW YORK city & translating from the Spanish eg. LORCA. He won a Guggenheim Fellowship...etc...To quote Robert Kelly, once more - "In New York which was most his home and center, he could find the sunlight on a wall not different from Barcelona."

#3) It has been so long now, since my readings of the 70's that, as i sit in "COSTA COFFEE",(decaff.espresso & soya milk), with "THE CITIES" before me & to hand, it strikes me, that these poems are "new"/still fresh. @ 45, Blackburn was still "young enough" to have gone on and worked & practiced, for many, many years. i think of Bob Dylan's refrain = "may we be forever young"...but not in this way, to not have gone on...And there are many...THE POETS OF THE GREAT WAR, JIM MORRISON, HEATH LEDGER...and in "our" family, TIM HEMENSLEY (of the POWDER MONKEYS) - i blub into my coffee. No one notices.

#4) "THE CITIES", (Blackburn's "first, extensive collection of verse" -(Grove Press - 1967)) the Auth or's Note reads - "Every man's stand be his own. Finally, it is a construct, out of my own isolations, eyes, ears, nose and breath.."  ....i hear an echo of CHARLES OLSON in that ="No such thing as mass, as much as, many people, each with eyes in their heads, to be looked out of." Do i misquote ? That is what i have as my memory of it. i do not want to rise from my place and search it out...do not even really know where to look...Human Universe essay ? Do not wish to interrupt this flowing of "mountains  walking"...?....? BUT, maybe i will...SUDDENLY, i feel i have written enough in this first draft/ this blog-post.. appropriately, it is young/ still fresh...ready to be played with in this warm and early spring of ours in Weymouth, where the cherry blossom, out front, has passed full-bloom,and is falling to the ground, even as i write.....i will wait, stay my hand, and WAIT and see if it PROVES, like the bread-dough in tins, waiting for the heat of the oven.....i will soon make my way into the world - to find some fresh, young heirs (pun intended)...."The air sweeps out the odor of love from rooms / the air we love, we weep, we read, sing.."(from "The First Round", Paul Blackburn - AGAINST THE SILENCES - Permanent Press - 1980).

#5) I'm going to THE KING'S ARMS on the harbour. Not a drinker as such - i like a good taste - a good taste of real ale, home-baked bread and poetry....a half-pint will do me. & a packet of s'thing salty....just a half-pint to keep me hand in!!....How else to encounter the world ?/ this world. It is the friction / our continually rubbing-up against / this buffering away, that will reveal the new in which we are moment by moment, breath by breath, being reborn...and it is in this ,that those who are no longer visible are held in our hearts. This is all we have and it is the whole created world. It is enough....

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finished @ 17.30 hours,10 / march / 2012.

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JUST BROWSING #1

DIARY OF THE WAY - Ira Lerner

A & W Visual Library - 1976

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PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST - Jorge Lewinski

Carcanet - 1987

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BLUE BIRD - Maurice Maeterlinck

(illustrated -Brian Wildsmith)

Oxford University Press - 1976

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SPERLONGA MANHATTAN EXPRESS

Scoribanda Productions - 1980

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Might be amusing to learn what i paid for 'em. i bought 'em in year of publication. Thus = 1)$6.95..2)£12.95..3)£2.95..4)no price hereon, and cannot remember..maybe franco beltrametti sent it to me..?

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BUY THE BOOK #4

The Collected Songs of

COLD MOUNTAIN

Translated by RED PINE

COPPER CANYON PRESS - 1983

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£35.00p incl.p&p in UK & EU

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THINKING ABOUT PAUL BLACKBURN

IN

ON

OR

ABOUT

the

PREMISES

around WEYMOUTH

7/march/2o12

in the afternoon.

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GARY SNYDER ON THE JURASSIC & P.S....

This aint the Pacific Rim.This aint Haight.Kyoto, this is not. & none know of Gary Snyder on this Jurassic coast. Caught bus to Portland w/ GS in the bag, and for a walk, starting at the easternmost end of this 50 million year-old coast. but i sit instead, out of the chill-wind @ The Cove House Inn, w/ a half-pint of Broadside (Adnam's Brewery), and crisps, before the fire.



Altho sunny& bright and i'm "merry & bright"(Henry Miller), i feel i would be much reduced by the chill breeze in my skimpy, summer-wear. No walking along the West Weares path or the 9 miles, on pebbles, to Abbotsbury. This is THE JURASSIC, and planning to come here, i quickly grabbed the nearest Snyder books to accompany me = AXE HANDLES and Timothy Gray's book, "Gary Snyder and The Pacific Rim". Jurassic and Pacific Rim seemed romantic juxtaposition.
i ponder another half & feel the sun thru window - warming but not burning, my neck - it is only 5th March. The wood-burner, not the beer, accounts for my rosied cheeks. Time to split. Plenty of time, if indoor warmth thru window be trusted to walk on the pebbled beach awhile.



P.S.

i pop across road from Chesil and "Cove" to visit the painter, Liz Wright in her studio/home. Have not seen her in a while. She is happy to drop paint-brush, offers tea and we chat. Lots of new work. We trade/barter my new "The Thomas Hardy Poems" - (quirky, found poems from a Hardy text) and i happily take home a print of one of her new works....Best of all, she shows me a collaborative "film" of her paintings with voiced-over poems by her old amigo, Mike Sarne, of "Come Outside" fame in the 60's. He has yet to actually recite/read the poems himself, for the film. But both poems and paintings work very well...AND i am surprised at the quality of the poetry ! i would never have thought it. Here's me, with Snyder in my bag, very much my bag...but yes, the Wright/Sarne collaboration was excellent, and found on this old Jurassic coast at Chiswell, Portland.

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BUY THE BOOK #3

THE SOUND OF ONE HAND

(Paintings and Calligraphy by Zen Master Hakuin)

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SHAMBHALA - Boston & London - 2010

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£60.00p incl. p & p in UK & EU.

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BUY THE BROADSIDE

FRANCO BELTRAMETTI

2 letters to Nado

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Stingy Artist Editions - Dorset - 2010

limited edition of 100 copies

£7.50p incl.p&p in UK & EU

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BUY THE BOOK #2

BY HEART

Bob Arnold

Origin Press - Kyoto/Vermont - 1991

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£12.00p incl.p&p in UK & EU

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APPROACHING BRIDPORT

BLUE THRU BACK O' BUS WINDOWS
BRIDPORT BECKONS BEYOND -
I GO - NOT TO BROWSE
THE BARROW-BOYS' WARES
NOR DRINK A BEER
ON MARKET-DAY
NOR WITH BAITED-BREATH
FOR BOOK-BIZ
OR BARTER OR BANTER
IN THIS SMALL TOWN
WHERE BOOZE IS ON THE BREATH
RATHER THAN POETRY.
POETRY IS NOWHERE-BEING-BORN
BUT BUSY DYING -
A FOOTNOTE IN SOME
BACK-O'-BEYOND
OF A FOREIGN FIELD -
BEYOND AND BEYOND
IN AN UNTENDED CORNER.
BUKOWSKI SOME CURRENCY MAYBE -
BUT BASIL BUNTING OR BELTRAMETTI?...
DOES BLOODAXE BRING HOME THE BACON
IN THE TOWN OF ROPEMAKERS' BOOKSHOPS?
BEST TO JUST BREEZE-IN
AND BOW-OUT
WITH A BUDDHA-SMILE
AND RETURN TO THE BEAT
IN MY OWN BACK-YARD.
                                                  1o.35 - 14.20 hrs -23/march/2012

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RISING IN MY MIND

sitting here, before the fire, while SPELT dough proves. house temp. doesn't warrant heating but the yeasted bread-making does. LANA sings to me from the corner stereo-player : the young diva who has currently ousted ADELE in my attentions. beside me, on sofa, is my shoulder-bag and my swag of birthday books from KRIS (and his COLLECTED WORKS BOOKSHOP) in Melbourne. There's a glow from the red, fleecy throw, draped over backrest, that rivals gas-fire....i pick-up ROBYN ROWLAND'S book = "THIS ROAD" (Picaro Press -March 2007 - Wagtail-63). my eye alights immediately on the very first poem - no further than the title,in fact = "PERVERSE SERENITY".  and it stays my mind/catches my mood.
i live in Dorset.and am amazingly settled and content to be here at the moment. is there serenity in being here? are we defined by where we are? is a serenity that is dominated by environs a type of escape from reality - a perversity? i am very aware, that for many years, i have been sustained by things that are not of Dorset, and are not even of being in this house, until lately. i had links around the world, but precious few, and certainly none meaningful outside of family, locally. i was fortunate to have been sustained, in the main by KRIS, who ploughed a sustained and deep furrow from OZ to the UK & the family in Dorset, since the mid 80's when "we" moved here from Southampton. it was his delight to throw himself into "our " Dorset life / or into one of the many blackberry bushes  that line the little lanes and paths around Radipole & Chafeys (my meditation path) AND the path leading to St.Catherine's at Abbotsbury. He says he does not live in Melbourne but inside his head. for my part, the proposition of being where one lives, is overridden by where one is in one's head.
the BUDDHISTS say = ALL IS MIND. i agree. YUP! ALL MIND. ALL MINED. ALL MINE. DORSET ON MY MIND. DORSET IN MY MIND.....(the risen dough became the well-baked bread...)

....now i can enjoy the feast of all that arises in my mind....

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