in port

edward h. potthast in port

after sailing across seas

and oceans of the mind

the work

of washing

and painting

the hull of me

seems mundane

and yet also

necessary

every so often

i stop

and gaze deeply into

the rippled mirror

of my work

to admire its deliquescent form -

like so much melted glass

we come from very far

from deep in the belly of a whale

after tumbling down the side of a himalayan mountain

we have come from very far

music: laurie anderson "kokoku"

back window

photograph by alfred stieglitz "back window"

i'm missing

-

the sense of immediacy

that clings to me

as closely as my shadow

is hiding

in the corner

perhaps

like me

it has no defence

against

a summer

that scattershots days and nights

into the sky

like so many stars

music: elvin jones p.p. phoenix

lying on my back looking at the sky

i lay on the grass today and watched the sky.

i'm so unused to emptiness.

i don't know what to do with it.

- fill it i suppose -

but isn't that the antithesis

of what i should do?

perhaps i should take the message of the sky

and empty myself.

and perhaps i should

allow the clouds that pass overhead

to gather

and disperse

... fall as they may

and simply be

right there

between the richly-veined leaves

scattered with sunshine

music by: morton feldman the rothko chapel

forgiving yourself

you can be forgiven

for thinking those things of yourself

by acknowledging

what rests in your own heart

the very presence

of forgiveness

is its own miracle

_

music: sheila chandra - the enchantment

i know

i know

that

in all the quiet suffering

a tenderness

an opportunity to sense

awareness

will arise

it can feel

like an opening

as if a doorway has come ajar

and revealed a room

in which the window has been left open

letting in a breeze

a breeze with cool fingers

that move quickly

across the room

as if given

the wish

to express in their soft touch

the words "i know"

and when i feel

that soft touch

i know

held

touch her light

with your eyes

she is so round

so pure

bright

when the night

describes her

each flower

what would change

if you knew

that every flower

holds everything

in constant

contemplation

_ _ _

piano played by keith jarrett

cloud-islands

i like to imagine that i

am moving across the sky

stopping to rest

on little cloud-islands

and watching the earth move

beneath my feet

bird cloud

winging across

the hot sky

above the cool

cloud sea

the holy entirety

i fear and treasure those days

that are filled with the presence of the holy entirety

most of all

i can feel it enveloping

wrapping

enlarging

and leaving me behind

within a moment of waking

in the soft voices

that ask me kindly

and knowingly

to be all or nothing

of what i have become

and knowing that so much of what i am has been stolen or borrowed

ownership forgotten

source material buried in the passage of time

the unforgiving erasure of time

the first defence

anxiety

i am left wondering what will be left of me

when the stripping bare

is completed and yet

i sense

in that sense

beyond all senses

that it is right and good

to allow for the possibility

that no matter the suffering

God knows

i am good with that

good at that

good for that

my body

my body

is

so thin

long ago

i wished for something else

and so

no matter that

it learned my dissatisfaction

at an early age

it evolved into

my unwillingness

to leave work

undone

my comfort

with being

undone

by my self

my body hurts

so often

through my unwillingness

to honour

its limits

its restrictions

and yet it sustains

itself

as all good animals do

through whatever means

are available

food

love

kindness

care

i trace its bones

and feel the history of me

in its fragile strengths

that's how it's meant to be

it's fascinating to me that i can pass through my days and be transformed in the blink of an eye.

that a few words can soften a stance that i hadn't really considered i held so dearly, so tightly as to almost be protective of it. as if it would somehow shield me from that which is not simply right before my face but is my face and all else that i am.

i read your words and find myself adrift.

reconsidering.

rebuilding.

so it was when i read these words.

i have held for the longest time the idea that the flaw in my presence is my very human nature.

my being human.

that the true value of my presence here is everything else beyond that state.

so, i was so excited when i read these words because suddenly the face of my presence and its necessity became crystal clear to me and not something to be ashamed of.

. . .

inside the huge romanesque church the tourists jostled in the half darkness.

vault gaped behind vault, no complete view.

a few candle flames flickered.

an angel with no face embraced me

and whispered through my whole body:

“don’t be ashamed of being human, be proud!

inside you vault opens behind vault endlessly.

you will never be complete, that’s how it’s meant to be.”

italicized words excerpted from "romanesque arches" by tomas tranströmer

dusk

cool grey-tongued shadows

lick the violet face of dusk

birds and fish hover

on either side of the water-skin

wrapped in ribbons of moonlight

it's like that

there are people i meet

who i have never met before

and yet i know them

as deeply

as they know me

like the perfect handclap:

air compressing

inside a rapidly narrowing space

skin on skin

from light to lightlessness.

it's just like that

when we recognize each other

their own quiet prayers

i hold my hand

and trace the soft mapping

of its threaded sinews

the small birdlike bones

the pale blue tracings of veins

so very near the finely wrinkled

summer-browned surface

i remember a photograph

my father took

of his hand

and i wondered at that time

about all

that his hand had known

now

in reading the topography

of my own hand

i can see the story

of the whole

in stuttering

and fragmented still shots

like so many conjoined cells

spread across the smooth space

of my entirety

the sacred space

arnold böcklin the sacred wood

time

has no words

with which to comfort itself

when we leave the whispered essence

of our earthliness

dancing and turning

like so many pieces of paper

caught up

in the currents

of our passage

the ribboned vortices calm

and settle

until there is nothing to suggest we

ever were

but for the tiny soundless ridges and

drifts of dust-covered words

that gather at the feet

of the consecrated fullness

of the knowing trees

the great fish

my pale-bellied body

flicks

watery tremors

across the skin

of this dark prism

starlight

the only form

the only colour

my hungry eyes

my hungry mouth

sensitive

to the slightest movement

the faintest light

senses taut

and drawing in

the holy slightness

-

so bear with me, and if I thrash and groan

in those throes of sleep, believe me that i saw

the great fish tunneling the purple sea

excerpted from "night piece" stanley kunitz

music played by marilyn crispell: "one dark night i left my silent house"

all that we leave behind

alexander ivanov "a tree branch"

sleep

wraps its dark arms around me

and i find myself

standing very still

on the side

of an impossibly steep slope

lifting my head

i see that

several women

are also standing

on the side of this slope

each wrapped in soft white muslin

that wavers slightly

in the breeze

they are looking across

the hills to the west

each is holding

a root ball

some are small

and cupped

in soft hands

some are large

and held close to their bodies

inside each root ball are

mirrors, ribbons,

torn pages,

feathers,

and the fingers of each woman

entwined within the roots and the soil

but for the movement

of their clothes

the moment holds

entirely still

and completely silent

-

i lie on the bed with my arms outstretched

i am an anchor that has dug itself down and holds steady the huge shadow floating up there

the great unknown that i am a part of and which is certainly more important than me.

italicized words excerpted from "carillon" by tomas transtromer

i can see your tracks

for as long as i have known my self i have hovered on the fringe of whatever i am doing.

wherever i am.

i like the distance!

but it's lonely at times.

so i'm grateful for the gentle and good centre of my living as i have come to know it as a pre-mature man.

in fact i am very very grateful.

the golden fish tells something of my relationship with that special place.

i'm grateful to have the opportunity to not only have a means by which to share this relationship, but to have incredible, smart, creative, lovely, loving, clever, insightful, talented, motivating, supportive people

along for the journey.

please

look in the mirror of your knowing of yourself - you are a blessing!

as i fly across the face of this digitized experiencing of

people who are riding the same sort of train while travelling in a kazillion different directions and exchanging riffs and glyphs and signs and signifiers

i realize - well i've known from the start - that i couldn't have anticipated or even dreamed this up.

i really couldn't - and i'm an imaginative person.

so thankyou.

each and every one of you.

i would wish to tell each of you how you are in my life and how that presence is so unlikely and extraordinary and especially how it has given me the courage to express more of myself - again as never before -

but i'll let my work here and the work you don't see - yet - speak for that special relationship.

~

i really admire laura veirs for her ability to create intimate small spaces with enough edginess

to make me sit up and listen.

the video alone - well it's charming and disarming . . . . .

turbulent

written in the cross torn pages of birth to death

this earthly emptiness

quickly fills

with the clouds

of dream and ambition

tumbling and roiling forms

that are driven together

around

through

beside

and despite each other

and as we hide

in doorways

when the first drops

of rain

drive us away from the street

so we learn

that dreams are the rain

that draws the clothes of our ambition

closer

to the skin of our lives

another green world

much more

henri rousseau promenade in the forest

you could call it serendipitous or you could be truthful and call it divine intervention, so go there for a moment. consider the possibility that in the wholeness of your day there's a sort of opening that arrives and either you're available to it - or you're not.

if you are available to it, then an otherworldly quality overtakes your day and you come face-to-face with something that very clearly has depths to it that step outside the norm.

a moment that expands in the manner that only an unexpected insight can take, draws you away from this place in almost every way.

and that moment appears to have no parameters that you could draw lines of time or space on or inside and so you go with it even though the moment has long since passed, by the terms of this world.

and this fully expanding moment travels alongside your unfolding day - not by the terms of its own reality - but simply by virtue of the fact that you are able to look outward or inward or otherward every so often

and there it is.

there it is - whole and unsullied - one little ever-expanding moment that is there solely to share with you the possibility that there is just that - a possibility of something much more detailed, much more refined, something much more - that there is, much more to each and every detail of this world - something that opens so like a narrow path through dark trees into an opening ... a pool .... silvered and cool ... a place of feather petalled rustlings ... the soft sighs of purposeful passings ... the quick and knowing eyes that blink and close in understanding.

and you know that while you are not alone, you are very much on your own with the entirety of everything outside and entirely inside that moment.

unopened parcels

william hatherell the quiet spot

the yearning for days that are long and filled with quiet sun

transmutes into the comfort of complacency . . .

in the fevered transition from anticipation to actual,

summer's dance follows a disjointed rhythm that is accompanied by harmonies that seem distanced

and arrive in colourful parcels that beg to be opened and yet,

with the scissors of perception carefully stored somewhere out of reach,

they remain as they arrive and slowly pile up in the corners of my mind.

subtle bodies

loving . . . for all of time and out of time

i am a loving person, bound by conditions that flare like late night fireworks off the surface of this world, and yet i have learned to accept love without condition ... in part ... not quite in whole ...

the subtleties of distractions and expectations are like so many flowers in a garden, like so many swans in a river ... beautiful distractions ...

in this iteration of my presence, i live in a man's body

i live on many levels in layers that unfold and come with entirely distinct mappings and soundings of the whole of my physical existence ....

the details, the practicalities and deliquescent realities and then ...

and then i am also sensitive to the whole of my non-material existence ...

which calls for work in order to be welcomed and to move in its own rendering ...

work that draws me into the subtle body of my self

and then into the entirety of selflessness

flat sea

john prentiss benson dhow

a wind-filled skin

of salted cloth

pulls my body

across the cloud-mirror

i am pinned

to this place

by the sea-anchor

that is

my gauzy shadow

dark flowers

where does this compulsion come from

that arrives unbidden each and every day

like birdsong

sweet, gentle, insistent

begging to be heard

articulating territories of understanding

singing of joys and fears

under skies

that already know

all that there is to know

dancing

over seas

that have danced their dances

through every living thing

that ever was

what can i add

to the music

that has been playing

i rest the eyes of my weary joy

in the shadowed petals of sun-shy flowers

the writing process

so when i write, what’s going on?

a while back, dan thought there might be a need for an answer.

i know how i set the process in motion and i know that when i write, it’s a very happy place for me.

i also know that there’s much i don’t write about.

that’s a choice i make for now.

i don't know how to put much into words.

those words will arrive at the right time.

for now, i try and resolve or throw things out into the world to see what i see. to know what i know.

so how do i set the process in motion?

well, i have several pathways into that world of worlds.

1) i free-associate, writing whatever comes into my mind and then organize it later. and again. and again. until it feels as close to “right” as “right” feels at the time i push the publish button. then when the piece is live, i edit it some more because i have a better feeling then for how you might read it, and sometimes even how it might make you feel or think.

2) i hear a phrase in my head. it either pushes me to search out a painting or a photograph that can not only stand on its own, but can dance with the words. i have lots of phrases banked, waiting for the right accompaniment, the right partner. the painting or photograph usually tells a story and it’s part of my work to hear it. i find that part easy, but the retelling is very difficult for me. i miss details, i cut out parts of the story. then the piece needs to be a certain length because i know that longer pieces of writing intrude on the reader’s inclination to stick around.

3) the whole piece appears in my head while i’m walking or biking. the trick is to remember it all. same thing for waking in the middle of the night. i am usually awake enough to hear all the words but not so awake as to get up, turn a light on, and write it all down.

4) i read poetry written by ancient japanese, chinese, persian, and modern scandinavian authors. sometimes a phrase or a thought or even something associated with their words will enter the moment and if i lay it down on one of the pathways i’ve already mentioned, it opens up the vista that was previously undefined and misted over. .

5) for a little while i used a tool called n+7 which helped me reorganize my phrases more-or-less randomly. very occasionally something would come up that came close to what i was looking for. more often i focussed on associating outwards from the random phrases generated.

the writing seems to pass through phases. i’m trying to figure out how things might work. little things and big things. because really, they’re telling stories about each other aren’t they! i also like to write about beauty and love from the skin-deep to those features of the entirety of everything that i can conceive of

and place into words.

i’m so deeply grateful to all the people who come here because they often leave comments that bring me to think about my thinking.

in one model, that moves me along the helix.

in another model, it pushes me deeper into myself and so, further away.

in another it connects us in a special way as we share a moment that arrived from the creative energy that emerges from the love that connects everything.

i value that above all!

steven

this little space

the child

cries with outrage

his mother calls

in her own voice

"cry my child"

his father calls

"be strong my child"

and i whisper soft encouragement

and quiet assurances

that i don't wish anything more

than to share this little space

lagoon

listening to my own music

i have danced

the timeless

movements

of a world

long distanced

from the calls and cries

of the marketplace

a dance redolent with the comings and goings

of angels and magi,

my arms and legs

forming

the whispered knowledge

of the shaman,

my eyes framing the portals

of the oracle,

my heart

a lagoon

holding what i am

of God

music by alberto mesirca

the image was graciously provided by reya

the subtle body

only you

can hold

the subtleties

that define

the entirety

and the otherness of you

in this place

that holds

nothing

and everything

of itself