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PORTFOLIOS:
ZY 0 SUNDIAL ZEN Rome+T'ang ordo
(2 Images)
ZY 1 ATRIUM PERISTYLE TRICLINIUM
(15 Images)
ZY 2 SUNDIAL ZEN series in toto
(10 Images)
ZY 3 HOUSE OF THE SMALL FOUNTAIN fresco
(10 Images)
ZY 4 EX. VILLA OF THE MYSTERIES Pompey
(20 Images)
ZY 5 POMPEY BY LUCIANO
(26 Images)
ZY 6 A SPRING, or PRIMAVERA: quasi-fresco
(10 Images)
ZY 7 ZEN ZERO Greenwich Park
(30 Images)
ZY 8 VILLA LINE ART SELECTIO
(15 Images)
ZY 9 VILLA LINE ART DUPLEX QUADRA
(12 Images)
ZY 10 VILLA LINE ART Long Day+
(12 Images)
ZY 11 from SWITZERLAND to SICILY introit Cf. The Grand Tour
(4 Images)
ZY 12 LA RIVIERA VAUDOISE; MURREN
(26 Images)
ZY 13 ITALIAN LAKES+
(7 Images)
ZY 14 MILAN LUX IN TENEBRAE
(10 Images)
ZY 15 MILAN 2 LUX
(12 Images)
ZY 16 MILAN CASTELLO SFORZESCO
(20 Images)
ZY 17 ROME INTRODUCTORIUS
(20 Images)
ZY 18 ROME ARCUS TRIUMPHALIS
(20 Images)
ZY 19 ROME FORI PALATIUM
(20 Images)
ZY 20 ROME FUTURA IMAGO
(20 Images)
ZY 21 ROMA ABSTRACTUS SUBLIMIS
(10 Images)
ZY 22 NAPLES NAPOLI INFERNUS
(18 Images)
ZY 23 PAESTUM POSEIDONIA GRAECO-ITALY
(40 Images)
ZY 24 PAESTUM REDUX GLORIA
(7 Images)
ZY 25 A SICILY or, SICILIANE X2Z
(4 Images)
ZY 25 B SICIILIANE 1 INTRODUCTIO
(20 Images)
ZY 26 SICILIANE 2 SEGESTA AURORA
(15 Images)
ZY 27 SICILIANE 3 MONS ARKADIA
(12 Images)
ZY 28 SICILIANE 4 AD ERICE ET TRAPANI
(20 Images)
ZY 29 SICILIANE 5 AD AGRIGENTO CENTRALE
(20 Images)
ZY 30 SICILIANE 6 INTERIOR ENNA DIES UNUS
(18 Images)
ZY 31 SICILIANE 7 CENTRUM LENTE DIES DUO
(30 Images)
ZY 32 SICILIANE 8 VILLAS BAGHERIA
(15 Images)
ZY 33 SICILIANE 9 PALAZZO BAGHERIA VISTA
(22 Images)
ZY 34 SICILIANE 10 AD PALERMO RUINA
(14 Images)
ZY 35 SICILIANE 11 ENNA MONS PANORAMA AD ETNA
(22 Images)
ZY 36 SICILIANE 12 SIRACUSA NOTO AD DONNAFUGATA
(26 Images)
ZY 37 TEXTS ITALIANATE ROKEBY PARK+
(22 Images)
ZY 38 ROKEBY PARK EXTENDED JOURNAL
(27 Images)
ZY 39 THE GRAND TOUR BIGNOR ROMAN VILLA
(30 Images)
ZY 40 FISHBOURNE ROMAN PALACE
(15 Images)
ZY 41 JOURNEY FROM BRABANTIA TEXTS++
(10 Images)
ZY 42 BRABANTINE GROWL INTERLUDES
(15 Images)
ZY 43 WILD MARBLE 2005 Lake Orta
(6 Images)
ZY 44 THE RISING IL SORGERE 2006 Lake Orta
(21 Images)
ZY 45 PALERMO NIGHT CITY 2007 Orta
(12 Images)
ZY 46 ROMAN FRAGMENTS 2016 TEXTS
(10 Images)
ZY 47 MARSALA WINE 2004 ATTILIO BERTOLUCCI 1994
(12 Images)
ZY 48 JACQUES DUPIN JEAN-JACQUES CELLY 93-95 REVIEWS
(14 Images)
ZY 49 ARDECHE LE MIDI PROVENCE TEXTS
(20 Images)
ZY 50 DELOS DELPHIC CORINTH TEXTS
(15 Images)
ZY 51 SHOLA IN AZURE+ TEXTS
(15 Images)
ZY 52 TINTED OFFICE CELLO MOON IN TRANSIT TEXTS
(12 Images)
ZY 53 AT THE WINDOW PBL TEXTS
(12 Images)
ZY 54 AGNUS DEI QUI
(0 Images)
ZY 55 SUND 1 COUPLETS 2019+
(0 Images)
ZY 56 SUND 2 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 57 SUND 3 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 58 SUND 4 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 59 SUND 5 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 60 SUND 6 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 61 SUND 7 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 62 SUND 8 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 63 SUND 9 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 64 SUND 10 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 65 SUND 11 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 66 SUND 12 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 67 SUND 13 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 68 SUND 14 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 69 SUND 15 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 70 SUND 16 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 71 SUND 17 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 72 SUND 18 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 73 SUND 19 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 74 SUND 20 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 75 SUND 21 COUPLETS
(0 Images)
ZY 76 SUND 22 COUPLETS then empty numbers Portfolios
(0 Images)
ZY 100+ BACK STORY INTERFACE TEXTS Image text due Indexing
(0 Images)
ZY 101 Lunch with John Wain proem+ photo the 1970s
(15 Images)
ZY 102 At Oxford Baudelaire+ T.S. Eliot
(5 Images)
ZY 103 Internal Unrest Oxford '75 ref. Jenifer Hart
(0 Images)
ZY 104 Caroline Erskine and Cathryn Truman 1972
(0 Images)
ZY 105 The Ice Age (1977) by Drabble
(0 Images)
ZY 106 Open Air Lessons with Henryk Szews Poland late 1989
(4 Images)
ZY 107 Silesia Over Dinner with Henryk Szews 1990
(4 Images)
ZY 108 Interface with The Falklands The Sinking 1982
(1 Images)
ZY 109 Interface with Leipzig 1982 pbl. Orbis 1989
(1 Images)
ZY 110 Interface with Khalvati 'Christopher On Foot 1994
(0 Images)
ZY 111 Performance pbl. by Agenda in 1995
(1 Images)
ZY 112 poems pbl. by John Rety Hearing Eye 2003
(5 Images)
ZY 113 Role Model ex. my father 2015 scan
(0 Images)
ZY 114 The Red Room Sunspots The Shorewatcher's House 1995
(6 Images)
ZY 115 Armitage & Weldon Kees Acumen Feature May 1996
(6 Images)
ZY 116 Curfew for MK pbl. Agenda Vol. 30 1994-1995
(1 Images)
ZY 117 Interface Helen aka HG Hackney Greenwich Park 2000+
(12 Images)
ZY 118 Atrium Dawn in memorian Fiona Hobkirk
(1 Images)
ZY 119 Camden Lock Bridge Grace Livingstone 1999
(0 Images)
ZY 120 Galaxy Fire in memoriam William Cookson cf. Pound
(1 Images)
ZY 121 For Mimi Khalvati Plant Care 2004
(5 Images)
ZY 122 Estuary Mouth+ Flood for Littoral of Southend-on-Sea
(1 Images)
ZY 123 Erith Blues+ Harvest 2005+ intended for Littoral
(3 Images)
ZY 124 Interface Dantza Hirian Bayonne September 2007
(0 Images)
ZY 125 Reviews Lynne Wycherley+Pauline Stainer 2007+2009
(6 Images)
ZY 126 Eden Water anthol. 2009+ White Cup 2005 (held Littoral)
(3 Images)
ZY 127 Interface Littoral+ Line art + web Press launch 2005
(2 Images)
ZY 128 Interface Gosta Agren and the screen lyric 1995+
(2 Images)
ZY 129 Zenith, nadir text 2005+
(0 Images)
ZY 130 Dune text 2009
(0 Images)
ZY 131 Chute Arcade+ Sea-reach 1 to 3 texts 2005-2019
(4 Images)
ZY 132 Canary Water+ Wharf Heights Haiku c.2009
(0 Images)
ZY 133 Hunger Creek for Andrea Arnold of Fish Tank 5 to 17
(0 Images)
ZY 134 The Ninth Day for Littoral 2005-2017
(0 Images)
ZY 135 Engraving Autumn pbl. 2008+ 2009 Dark Glasses '90s
(3 Images)
ZY 136 Sofia Khalvati Review June 2012
(1 Images)
ZY 137 Interface Martina Evans Departed The Kingdom '90s+
(1 Images)
ZY 138 Interface Invocation for Patricia Oxley pbl. 2011
(0 Images)
ZY 139 Interface Guy Bourdin Rencontre D'Arles 2013
(0 Images)
ZY 140 Interface Eternity (La Louvesc) restart Sept. 2014
(0 Images)
ZY 141 Interface with Celly (the Ardeche) reaction to review
(0 Images)
ZY 142 Dawn Rose variants 2014
(0 Images)
ZY 143 Crossharbour August 2003+ two words 2017 H text
(3 Images)
ZY 144 Interface Helen folded paper edit HG scan 2011
(0 Images)
ZY 145 Interface Lull (1997) Helen Fine Art Degree Show was in 1997
(0 Images)
ZY 146 Composition with Cabins HG 2002
(0 Images)
ZY 147 Departure III with Smoke May 15th 2015
(0 Images)
ZY 148 Lines for Close and Cold by HG July 7th 2003
(0 Images)
ZY 149 From Above Atlantis March 31st 2014
(0 Images)
ZY 150 Zen Nine The Interface April 18th 2014
(0 Images)
ZY 151 HG or, Helen on Traces of Sleep Dust Bar Exhibition invitation
(0 Images)
ZY 152 Interface Lull I May 5th 2015
(0 Images)
ZY 153 Outside the Inside Vinnie Mahtani+ HG March 2001 postcard
(0 Images)
ZY 154 Christopher Truman Ascot summer 1966
(0 Images)
ZY 155 Scala Coelestis A4 print 1997-2014 pbl. by Sofia
(0 Images)
ZY 156 Aphoristic 1 image text May 2014
(0 Images)
ZY 157 Aphoristic 11 May 2014
(0 Images)
ZY 158 'There is nowhere to hide...' image text March 3rd 2014
(0 Images)
ZY 159 Zombie City+ Grain Life I text March 2015
(0 Images)
ZY 160 'Apocalypse for you now...' image text February 24th 2014
(0 Images)
ZY 161 Defence Posture for Mixit February 2nd 2016
(0 Images)
ZY 162 HS2 Reborn Fort William to Bordeaux by TGV image text
(0 Images)
ZY 163 Project for a Canine Dog House image text March 4th 2014
(0 Images)
ZY 164 Global warming: Sunspots Framed November 2019
(0 Images)
ZY 165 From Above Atlantis 2 March 31st 2016 base 1967
(0 Images)
ZY 166 From Above Atlantis 3 March 31st 2014 base 1967
(0 Images)
ZY 167 0 Gate Sunlight 1 October 24th 2016 June 1st 2021
(0 Images)
ZY 168 Interface Inverforth Port Sunlight October 26th 2016
(0 Images)
ZY 169 Gate Sunlight II November 29th 2019 June 2nd 2021
(0 Images)
ZY 170 View ex. grounds of Villa Valguarnera Bagheria Sicily
(0 Images)
ZY 171 Metaplaisir from texts for HK (1995 revised 2019)
(0 Images)
ZY 172 Missing Cabins HG 2002+ Library in Villa due repair in Sicily
(0 Images)
ZY 173 Labyrinth (after Borges) January 25th 2000 (finis 2019)
(0 Images)
ZY 174 At the Villa Valguarmera Bagheria Sicily 2004
(0 Images)
ZY 175 The Vantage July 10th 2019
(0 Images)
ZY 176 Villa Gate View Towards Palermo
(0 Images)
ZY 177 Travel July 10th 2019 start 1995 for HK
(0 Images)
ZY 178 The Terrace at Rodez finis July 15th 2016. For HG
(0 Images)
ZY 179 Back story Light over Dark 1970 restored 2014
(0 Images)
ZY 180 Caroline Erskine again 1972 2 2015 'Caroline's Knee'
(0 Images)
ZX 181 Portfolios created in sundialzen for zenspacia moved on
(0 Images)


Introductory Observation :

my 4 web sites (in alphabetical order) are all
copyright reserved as per parties listed below.
All the images therein are Art copyright CT.
However, good photographs may be
 taken.

Portfolio coding letters : W, X, X, and Y.
Notionally the Jpeg files making up the sites
could be run end to end in slideshow format.

June 4th 2024  note by Christopher Truman


    SCULPTURE PAGES

photo-poetry exploration
in slow film format+ line art
and hyper text+ meta text

Agnus Dei Qui 
(unus poema)

Walled sundial time is slower
than heart-beat clock time -

unum apricus post meridiem
sed mihi tristis tristis tristis!

Tempus fugit. Carpe alienus 
diem a tune in rapt sunlight

Agnus Dei qui tollis...calor
heard from the nunnery to zen

for     tristis Soror Jane
==================

SUNDIAL COUPLETS

after Alexander Pope
ex. summer school 2019

The Tabula

By a sunlit Venus, rasa
a tablet flaunts a tabula

Dune

A swallow flew though a zero
and on, to the nadir of none

For Socrates

You said: the life unexamined
is not worth living, to a death

The Crossing  (after Koko)

Cold moon, the last river ferry
smoky, bats wheeling: a cry

Sundial

Time is etched on a sundial
to a form of concentration

Late Summer

Sun on the marsh valerian
I became a lotus flower

Graeco-Roman

The spirit of Palladio
was Graeco, not concrete Roman

La Louvesc

A Jesuit Seminary
and sparrows flaunting in rafter


Prime Mover

Who first entered sundial zen?
The one Ornamental Hermit

Dry Mezzogiorno

Sunlit annihilation
with blue blaze all intensity

Angled Shade

We need a bench in a corner
to watch time on a sundial

Programming (after A. Pope)

Manners, deportment and proper
elocution need to be taught

Secular Society (for H. Bosch)

No grace, before eating: the pride
in gluttony before a fall

Subliminal (after Simone Weil)

Beauty in creation, sublime
as our God in a lit beauty

Dystopian Fall (after Spengler)

The advance of the zombie, fish-
eyed, lacking reason and language

Lunar Eclipse (for Robert Lowell)

I drank a full moon with vodka
last night, shining dim golden-white

Lacking Summer

rather, she said, after pale days
but, then, whatever did she mean?

Benediction Exposition

The monstrance, and ciborium
can flare the soul with a wafer

Eternal War with AI

Where, the spirit-lock in AI?
the Sanctus? the Trinitatis?

Internet Mass Projection

We can chant the Agnus Dei
and 'wine is spiritual drink'

For Alexander Pope

There is a fluidity quick
in Pope, taking us by surprise

Parody of Pope (after Juvenal)

The white, elegant colonnade
is no place to eat marmalade

Stuccoed Portico (after Browning)

Have we, dear sir, been here before?
and the pose of that femme fatale?

After Ode Horace

The golden-glow evening sunlight
on leaf, and girl, will not last

Probatum Est

Lettuce and cowslip wine, for rest
and a quieting of passion

The Birth of Venus

Ode Horace kept a scallop shell
for their twirl to Primavera

Cadence of The Dawn

In the inner ear, a fine tune
to a fresh dawn wind can violin

On the Promontory

Out at sea, a marine murmur
of dry celestial music 

Chapel In The Pines

Moonlit, to the hum of the wind
through an open door, descanting

By The Tumbled Graves

Is the early dawn roseate
rose-pink, a sky flush with longing?


The Twickenham Villa

Alexander, keen on marble
saw Palladian in sylvan

His Augustan Grotto

An underground spring seen spurting
he walled a grotto, wanted nymphs

Summer Pastoral

Come, lovely Nymph, Alexander
wrote, near in Elysium delight

The Harmless Grove

Though no viper hid, Alexa
felt the Serpent Love in his breast

The Crystal Tide

Is the River Thames a mirror?
gliding glassy past a Villa

Invitation Declined (for C)

I did once propose sipping Earl
Grey Tea, in a green rotunda

To The Bordello

Pope found embarking by water
easier for reaching Soho

Inundation 1 (after Swinburne)

The rain is thinning, and petals
from a frail rose lie around

Inundation 2 (after Eliot)

The rain now thinning, and petals
off a frail rose lie around

Summer Night

The cypress mourns in the palace
walk, Tennyson, and does not wave

Preserve of Citrus Fruit

Latin: melimelum, from Greek
melimelon: honey apple

Landing Latin

Marine, marinus; mariner,
nauta; conubialis, love


Ex. Roman Fragments (hic)

After a young woman singing
in ecstasy for an hour

Loeb Lingua Franca 

In Berlin, Germany, Ovid
read in English for the Latin


Cutting Ivy For Lucy

The tendrils did long perturb her
clinging over her panel fence

Epistle for Lucy (after Pope)

Lucy, the high ivy tendrils
have been removed, and you are free

Rose Garden (after Pound)

The Elizabethan roses
have gone a deep rich pink: blazon

Arkadia, Poland (near Nieborow)

English landscape park, with a lake,
a Roman Aqueduct, Temple


Duino Castle 1947

My parents given a master
bedroom. Rilke walked a rampart

'Le silence eternel de ces espaces'

L' abime est moi  threatened Pascal
French master of the glacial


Baudelaire (for T.S. Eliot)

Feared the bat-wing of insanity
flapping around a room, cloud-free

Edited From Swinburne

He, of the hounds of spring, running
for the Thracian ships: vigil


Ex. Swinburne 2

A hoof-ed heal of a satyr

and Pan by noon, Bacchus by night

The Nikita Chute (for Nikita)

A hole in the floor, down you go
and which way for Sara Paco


Chatham PA (lent for the night)

I like women young in nipple-
firming muslin, and faint jean-cloth
 
The Davos Conspiracy

Paving the way for the ski-rich,
the uber over the unter

The Sicilian Muses (Hybla)           

Theocritus, the first writer
of pastoral Sicilian

On Mount Hybla (for Virgil)       

Honey and thyme on the mountain
gave succour to the wry shepherd


Piled High                 

Lovely, the cumuli, as if
on The Cornish Riviera

Ithaca                       

Pale, the Nereids in a cavern
at their altars, river sea-foam


For 'fantastisko skonio' Rita 

You fry roundels of cut garlic
chopped carrot lying alongside

Minority Report              

Beneath glass, someone is clipping
a rare plant, one of the few left

New Armageddon    

Wild boar, entering old Rome
bite, terrifying the canine


'Le Banquet Celeste' (Messiaen)      

On an abstract plane, to the left
and to the right, a broadening

Dry The Bones      

A wind in the sail, yet low 
on calcium, weevils nibble

Bach Cantatas         

They, the sound of heaven singing
and an ecstasy in Leipzig


Political Prisoner   

Near to death, with scarlet fever
in both hands, he feared a cracking


By The Northern Ramparts   

I, suddenly in Sicily
again, loved the Parish Baroque

In The Lady Side-Chapel   

Christ the open-armed said to me:
treasure your villa and garden

Facing North Africa      

The sea-front bleak at Marsala
and Trapani, a sun blazing

Bright Gela Morning    

In the main square, every man
young at a game of outdoor chess

'As Some Coy Nymph'

Wild corn, in Windsor Forest
is to be found, in the Sylvan

At The Graveside

After the fallen leafy lanes
a robin, her smile, bouquets


Automne

Il y a un peu de soleil
dans le jardin, et les nuages

Sur Le Terre Cuite Terrasse

J'ai eu le plaisir de sieger
avec les chats ce beau matin

Sur le Pont d'Avignon

Fiona a chante cette chanson;
j'ecoute de sa mort sous le pont

Vents Froid

C'est froid ce jour maintenant
et le temps passe lentement

Albion Mort

Tout etre fou en Angleterre
avec pas de culture ou sens

1916: Pour Verdun

Les Rosbifs etaient tres sanglant
dans le grand boueux de La Somme

Nostalgie De La Boue

Pourquoi, pour le poete maudit?
apres les gros rats dans la rue

Bats Mentale

Les chauvre-souris en Baudelaire
battre, attaquant son sante

Surviving Surveillance

Never talk, text or e-mail
and just go for a country walk

The Sortie

You leave the mobile telephone
back at the house, head for thick trees

Encrypting Self

The true you must remain hidden
and think of old East Germany

Liberation De Midi

Le soleil libre de l'arbre
est dans le milieu de l'azur

Angst

Gott! Mein Gott! ist da en Heimat
in die Wald und Thüringen?

Wanderte Ritte

Doenhoff verboten Friedrichstein
trecked zu Hamburg von Ostpreussen

November 11th 2019 or, 11 11

nota bene:

'On every side,/spaces, the bat-wing
of insanity' from Le Gouffre (The Abyss)
by Baudelaire from 'Imitations' (1971)
by Robert Lowell. There are 14 of them
and they are excellent.

============================
all composed by Christopher Truman who has
the persona of a Lord Rokeby on Facebook
and/or The Ornamental Hermit (c. the 18th c.)
for www.sundialzen.com and eventual storage
on Jpeg image files for future generations

=======================

     SUNDIAL TEXT
     EVOCATIONS

Vinegar Vignette

No elbows on the table
or sloping arms, bronzed marching

Combatant

White-plated rhodium
she loved the odium
living in The Fourth Reich.
I said, no: The Fifth Reich 

and the half-track as large
by the flagged podium
to a smart pounding band

The Combed Spun Plumage

will be as fine as that of a pheasant
sunning on the Dome of The Trinity.
Below, the ashen peasant kneeling

Lyric

Her golden hair
a blonde breeze
(sunlit temple)
her lips, a peach
a rivulet
in Sicily:
blood orange
tongue sinewy
lemon olives

At Selinunte

remembering the carnage
of the Punic Wars, grappling
and red dismembering
to the fate of Carthage, I saw
the march of the elephants
and the death of monuments

The Blooded Sheet

Cherry picking, a fruit too far
in the grove of the marauder

the broad balcony of his villa
above the dusty village square

     Inauguration Day 2060

Horseman, interred in the statue!
and carbonised. The Republic
summons to lit screens green 
underground (written on the hoof)
on an epic inauguration day
for a much later President Ike.
Snow is falling like a fatal ash
and the hunger games are over
in too many a wired province.
The disfigured, barbed to caves,
prefiguring a genetic late DNA
disorder are sent to quarantine
by those still able to ration night
from day and find love in the stars.

Dark the 'Cyclonic zero of the Word'

The Quadriga

For the bridles charging ost
sky widening above the chariot
to an epic proportion

blitzed blue in a Preussen mania
despite the cornflower

Deep South Fan

Bourbon in the back porch
afloat on jagged rocks
beats camomile on the lawn
and it is a long way
whistling, to New Orleans

The soldiers had to march
to a drumming, drumming

Umbra, Carpe Diem

The golden evening sunlight
failing on tatty dry leaves
and scaly tree-trunk, given a glow
could be from an Ode by Horace

lamenting a passing, the dawn
like golden-stone maybe the last

Ut Pictura Poesis

'As with the painter's work,
so with the poet's' wrote Horace
and 'Concordia discors'

Atque inter silvas Academi
quaerere verum. Vita summam
brevis. O magna Carthago!


In Schlesien or, Silesia

A curvy figurine, her pert breasts
scorched in the spring of rapine
and pillage, sashays blackened
by a mown carriage drive verge
and now, a summer grandeur lawn
open with two banded deck chairs
ready as for a county tea in England
opens you into a novel by V. Woolf
yet, here you are far away in Silesia
and in a late afternoon laurel shade
they linger and bark, like ravenous
stray dogs and there can be amnesia
in a sunlit Poland and East Germany.
Where is lithe cartwheeling Sashen?
Was she born in Austria-Hungary?
A terrible beauty, and flaking roses
and you wonder: was there croquet
ever, on the lawn, to Earl Grey tea?

Ypres Wipers Ypres Jeepers Creepers

Dulce decorum...The futility of war?
With all Flanders taken, the enemy
Siege Guns could be firing on Kent,
our merchant shipping in the Channel.
The Krupp 'Lange Max' gun can fire
an HE shell up to thirty-five miles,
and thus threaten The Port of London


At The Menin Gate

They trumpet for eternity
at eight every evening
the coffered vault echoing

to the summit of heaven,
with every angel listening

Again At Duino Castle Trieste

At the long war's end, my father
became aide-de-camp to General
Airey at our Duino Castle
where Rilke had walked the parapet
composing a wrought Elegy
and they both studied Tito
the Marshal threatening Stalin
with Yugoslavia. Earlier,

in British Military Intelligence,
examining a ruined villa
my father found an Italian girl
in hiding in the basement.
They embarked on a love affair
and she even came out to Malaya

My Father, Dick

Both of his parents dead, their mansion
'Thornthwaite' in Shanghai long gone
to hoodlums playing billiards
in his father Regie's favourite room
when not entertaining in the dining
room, on an elaborate scale
for The International Settlement

saw his adored 'spy' sister Nancy
found dead one morning by her cook
in World War Two, after playing tennis
the day before near to Fleet Lido
with an Officer or three in Hampshire
at her Brook Cottage, her cause of death
uncertain, and then subject to inquiry;

my sad father, rather alone, had but
his one sister Kit, working at Blenheim
in league with Bletchley Park, filing
as one from a 'reliable' background
and his brother Hugh could not be found

My Shanghai Trust 'Aunt Kit'

who loved her dog 'Buster' so
later went living in partitioning 
India, until forced back home
to her dividends in Hampshire
with Digby, who later left her
for one Sharon of Basildon
then a boat pram in the hall;
Digby worked in advertising
alcoholic with a head wound
though rejected by every Officer
in his old Anglo-Indian Army
Cavalry Regiment, and Sharon
was his sexy secretary living low
in cute Basildon, Essex; Kit
cried for a month at Brookside
after his unwelcome departure
but in bed, she had never tried.
My father and Kit went to see her

What Of Electric Blue

Basildon Bond writing paper?
What of an oral by Sharon,
Catullus, and was Kit with Lesbia?
and terrified of childbirth, yes

The Shuttleworths India 1947

Major Digby Shuttleworth MC
King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry
owned a bungalow in Deolali.
Did they, once back home, go doolally?
and spent every Saturday beagling.
Their ship left India from Bombay

Divorced Fiddlers Green

The Guardian Royal Exchange
would keep Kit in clover
many lonely years later,
estranged far from Shanghai
lamenting the loss of Nancy

Joan Barbed

She detested, outright
the lounge lizard, the pansy
and no doubt thought
cottaging to be a flogging
matter, so to speak
and laughed at 'the hippy'.

She offered me a one-way
ticket to New Zealand

The 100 Club London

With my Godmother Katherine Studd
Kit's preferred Night Club, from '42
was The Feldman Jazz Club, just opened
in a deep basement in Oxford Street.
Their promotional jingle ran thus:

Forget the Doodle bug-
Come and Jitterbug-
At the Feldman Club

soon a haunt of the American 
GI, and the affluent Officer.
She tried not to get the last train back.
The Club did not go the way

of the smarter Café de Paris
in Coventry Street, bombed in March 1941

Papyrus Scroll Delivery

The read poem is horizontal
but deep text online is vertical
though either at a slight angle.
Catullus can be a wall of Latin:
for Horace, the chariot road
for delivery to the Roman villa

President Macron

wants to reinvent a Franconia
incorporating Lotharingia
in a remembering of Verdun
as reparation from Preussen
with one Treasury, in Frankfurt

The Jealous Reich

Of Toronto to New Delhi
and Hong Kong, which is why Berlin

Question For Oxford Union Debate

Should the practice of cottaging,
vile in the public convenience,
be made a criminal offence, again?
one might add. Oscar Wilde, a pink
threat to our vital Empire, which
saved Europe from Nazi Germany
deserved to be punished. The sub-text.
In this respect, I stand with V. Putin
rather than the former PM, Cameron

A Second Coming (In 587)

A salmon-pink dawn, and I think
of St. Augustine approaching Kent
to land on the Isle of Thanet
and proceed to Canterbury, a mission
initiated by Pope Gregory.
The Roman liturgy was in Latin

Variants For Alison

Ides (Girl)  

Eall-wealdend, eall-gylden
se ides of se grain ond sie grene

From Low German or Low Saxon
out of Old Saxon near Hamburg
though the Weald is part-Sussex
and the girl Saschen has flaxen
hair, and, she, named after Saxony
butter-yellow and sunlit golden...
I am writing in Middlesex

Brim-fugel (Seagull)

Brim-fugel, brim-cald in brim-bliss
haefst bitre breost-cearo, ceald

Variants for Alison 2

Haerfest Rip Sang

Somor sunne for sunn-beam ond sun-
bearo, to rip ond rip-tima

Medo-heall Medo (Mead)

Se wudu-fugel in se weald
haefst song for se ceorl drincan

Seaxe Hus

G-timbrian mid bolttimber
for aeppeltun, blostm, bloma

Bleo Heofon

A dun-land se lamb, wudu-rose
in sceo und heafonbeacon

Albion Catastrophe 2020+

The lying political class brain dead
for a drear people largely unread
rarely wanting to get out of bed
and the starving many go unfed
a multitude paralysed with dread
to the sound of dark wings overhead
leaving rats to do the unexpected
running riot where most fear to tread
in a land with far too many ill-bred

The Normans

Where are The Normans, to re-order?
and for A Fourth Coming of Rome.
They, who rescued us from the Saxon
and brought us the Romanesque arch 

Mansion Report

Admiring the weather with Lady
Bingham, the red-eyed scavengers off
her tennis court, sunny with scudding
cumuli, a clothed statue blowing
a pan pipe or horn, we went indoors
to hear a secret harpsichord keyed
for the few in an ochre-dun room
by bare Bach, a Louis Marchand

Brandenburg Jingle Jangle

Her harpsichord was of a batch
once pleasuring the King of Prussia
in 1769, over time
with a unique plectrum sonority.
He much wanted to conquer Saxony

after Silesia, his Bavaria, for which
Prussia had to win a third war
and defeat the whorl of Vienna

In July 1866

Prussia, armed with a faster loading
rifle, at The Battle of Koniggratz
beat Austria and Saxony
in one day. Forty thousand died
despite the Austrian cavalry.
Prussia won control of Germania

a torch passed from Vienna to Berlin
deciding the fate of Europa. Did
they laugh in the clubs of London?
when not worrying about India

The Radetzky March

To be a honed cavalry officer
mounted, the smart way of life
at The Empire's very frontier;
and the novels of Joseph Roth

Club Talk

There may be another Mutiny
and a further Lucknow. We may
need to order troops for Calcutta
in a tremendous hurry. We need

a submarine telegraph cable route
Bombay-Aden-Suez, for the 1870
British-Indian Cable on to Malta
and then to Gibraltar for Cornwall
beneath the hazardous Bay of Biscay

In July 1870

The Viceroy of India, being at Simla
for the summer, linked by telegraph
with the President of the USA
a message taking but forty minutes.

Lord Mayo engaged with his wife
in Piccadilly London in nine minutes
from the Himalayas in our hot Raj
after a laying of the submarine cable

making it easier to guide Singapore

The Law of St. Dominic's

Albion is still a Province of Rome
(Shakespeare, a closet Catholick)

Mynster Maesse

Se halga gast a se altare,
Anticrist hel-dor. Wundor

Ende
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Christopher Truman and sundial zen


His work has principally be seen as creating Zen narratives, loci or aids for meditation, a metaphysical 'storyboard' even. Finding a zen at Selinunte, Cathay can venn the neo-Platonic. In a group of prints, he mediates certain motifs in Vermeer; with another, creates a parallel parallel world to explore. A virtual infinity is quested.


Christopher Truman
started his groups of prints with experimental Image Text arrays. The work now lives much in counterpoint to his poetry, reflective of many journeys
 
                                       















               

 
        




   
 

© CHRISTOPHER TRUMAN.  FolioLink © Kodexio ™ 2024