I will

 

 

 

                                     pick up the pen
                                     nothing to write
                                     almost the end of term
                                     arguing with people
                                     in my mind I come
                                     to the end of my
                                     full-time career

                                     I will create still
                                     in teaching but I will write
                                     and I will sit I will infuse
                                     my work through
                                     writing and in sitting

                                     I will dwell in
                                          creating
                                          teaching
                                     and only do that

                                           I will not extrapolate
                                           I will not extemporise
                                           I will not extreme
                                     but I will express
                                           I will exist so
                                           I will not expire

                                                       I will create the centre
                                                 I will open the centre
                                           I will centre the centre
                                     the very same centre of
                                     sitting and writing and teaching
                                     and I shall live there where
                                     I have not been living now
                                     for twenty four years

 

 

 

breakdown & career wormholes: pep talk
creation wormhole: wriving

 

the / pyrrhic / play

 

 

 

                      the
                      pyrrhic
                      play

            to be a Big Player is to play
                      a very complicated game
                                selflessly-
                                selfishly
            to know how the game works
                      know when to relinquish my view
                                to obtain the compromise
            to get what I want (as
                      pursuit of the Greater Good)        the Ends

                                                      … chorus?

                      however

            I want to pursue my own self-
                      lessness I want to sit and gain
                                nothing
            but then I become fatally exposed
                      when I try to put some relief
                                found inside myself
                                ‘out there’ persuasive in the world
            and then it becomes part of the Game
                      which I- do-not-want-to-but-have-obliged-myself
                                to Play

                                … chorus?

            my activity should come out of clear naïve response –
                      a totally un-beguiled emptiness –
                                not my success of finding the point
            not my vindication not my self
                      (because then when I am necessarily ignored
                                I become a living death)

            … chorus: don’t
                      don’t ever Play the Game just breathe
            breathe and step
                      one square at a time
                                while the rest of the Game
                                          plays itself

 

 

 

compromise wormhole: the path / no echo
game wormhole: we play a game
naïveté wormhole: inexorable       naïveté
obligation wormhole: p                        o                   i                             n                                                   t                            l                          e                                 s   s                                          n                                                         e                   s                                                                                                  s               all around
pointlessness wormhole: anxiety
society wormhole: holiday
thinking wormhole: anatta
vindication wormhole: poessay V: // writing / as practice while / writing

 

the sea plant

 

 

 

                                                the sea plant
                flourishes in water each move and turn
                                held         almost anticipated
                                                m a n i f  e  s  t   e    d
                                                by the curling fronds
                                leaning and doubting
                                                              like a community

                                                it might want
                all the long while to sit on the surface and
                                flower to the sun
                                                to bathe at last in the light
                                                little realising the completeness of each reach
                                like a beautiful dancer
                                                finishing each move with her
                                                                            fingertips

 

 

 

dancing wormhole: dream 100213
sea wormhole: the bench / on the fourth sister from / Birling Gap before the / wind-brushed scrub and gorse / and the grey-blue sky / smoothed through the / fishtank-blue horizon to / grey-green sea

 

morning / cloud pass

 

 

 

                                                      morning
                                                      cloud pass

                                   how beautiful: sun
                      full through the window as I sit
                      tinting the white radiator blue I suppose
                      from the blanket around my shoulders
                      and there, to the right, a trinket of light
                      reflected from the spangles in the material
                      around the base of the shrine by my knee I suppose
                      jumping with each slow beat of my heart …

                                                      … back to
                                                      the breath

 

 

 

awareness wormhole: the pocket
reflection wormhole: ‘the Buddha statues …’

 

settling

 

 

 

            settling

                        slowly learning
            like a dolt with too much muscle
                        that the practice of
                                    sitting
                                       d
                                       o
                                       w
                                       n
                                  is done so g e n t l y
                      like the wriggling that goes on when
                                  sitting on the cushion
                                              to find the
                                                     st
                                                     il
                                                     lp
                                                     oi
                                                     nt
                                                  within
                                    left right forward back spin sleep breath watcher
                                                                         an
                                                                          i
                                                                          n
                                                                          f
                                                                          i
                                                                          n
                                                                          i
                                                                          t
                                                                          y
                                                            of detachment that
                                                becomes so close to everything it is
                                                                        almost nuclear

 

 

 

stillness wormhole: the bench / on the fourth sister from / Birling Gap before the / wind-brushed scrub and gorse / and the grey-blue sky / smoothed through the / fishtank-blue horizon to / grey-green sea

 

anatta

 

 

 

                                                              anatta

                                     in a world that
                just don’t work right
                           that just don’t work right
                to make sense to me
                           to make sense of me
                there is great comfort
                           in spin-off where
       ideas can be cohesive
                and reach out like tendrils
                           for to grow my own roots and fibre
       where pictures can be composed
                and deepen like open envelopes
                           to structure my walls and windows
       where sounds can be accorded
                and wonder like turns of a breeze
                           there to open doors and
                                     navigate my way
       and all my lifetime leaping (taller than a single building)
                           and running (faster than a speeding bullet) from the
                           very ground I start from
                                     every time

 

 

 

superhero wormhole: preee -senting // en- / senting
Superman wormhole: and no one would know
thinking wormhole: how ironic
world wormhole: brave new world?

 

far too muscular

 

 

 

                finding I am far too muscular sitting down to meditation
                           sitting down to
                           just being there
                           sitting down just
                           that that’s all
                like I’m psyching up to a no nonsense sweaty workout
                           staring and
                           ugly with high
                           weight and
                           low reps
                when all the while I only have a spindly ninety seven pound body
                           sitting on this
                           sandy beach
                           where people
                           call me Mac

                           or Joe or Jack

 

 

 

allowing wormhole: when I sit am the posture

 

how ironic

 

 

 

                                                   how ironic

                                   I was sitting thinking
                      about the early Buddhist Councils
          collecting all the words that the Buddha had said
                                                   and codifying them institutional
                                   sufficient to hold
                                                   whole nations

                                                   what was gained?
                      what was lost …?

                                   return to the

 

                                   breath

 

 

 

Buddha wormhole: ‘the Buddha statues …’
thinking wormhole: a few reflections on / keeping your cow / in a large meadow / while walking round / the streets of Horsham

 

a few reflections on / keeping your cow / in a large meadow / while walking round / the streets of Horsham

 

 

 

                                                   a few reflections on
                                                   keeping your cow
                                                   in a large meadow
                                                   while walking round
                                                   the streets of Horsham

                           don’t stare off to think
                           like Plato in a wonder
                           stare at the things about you
                           sufficient through which to see

                           don’t look through my (varifocal) glasses
                           for the finest point (which everyone else missed)
                           look instead through my eyes
                           to see what I am thinking

                           don’t close your eyes when sitting
                           to concentrate with less distraction
                           open them to include each thought
                           within every breath I take

                           don’t walk along the street
                           flexing your abdomen to be upright
                           and deft lift them all instead
                           poised so that movement flows
                           through them
                                     playfully
                           like a visceral grate

 

“To give your sheep or cow a large spacious meadow is the way to control him.” Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

 

 

Shunryu Suzuki wormhole: “don’t move / just die / over and over … / be true to / yourself / and don’t move” / – Suzuki Roshi
thinking wormhole: ‘I wanted to write a poem’
walking wormhole: A206 / Plumstead Road: / perched on a wall

 

accumulation of wisdom

 

 

 

                                                                                 I can read all I want
                                                                                 and find many fine
                                                                                 phrasings which tip
                                                                                 my mind through
                                                                                 unforeseen openings
                                                                                 but the unglamorous
                                                                                 wisdom of sitting
                                                                                 and facing that I
                                                                                 cannot keep myself
                                                                                 sitting and breathing
                                                                                 for even a few seconds
                                                                                 in twenty minutes time
                                                                                 after time after time is a real
                                                                                 accumulation of wisdom

 

 

 

reading wormhole: Leicester