• Bodhisattvacharyavatara
    • Introduction
    • Chapter 1
    • Chapter 2
    • Chapter 3
    • Chapter 4
    • Chapter 5
    • Chapter 6
    • Chapter 7
    • Chapter 8
    • Chapter 9
    • Chapter 10
  • collected works
    • 25th August 1981 – count Up
    • askance From Hell
    • Batman
    • The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford
    • Bob 1995-2012
    • Edward Hopper: Poems at an Exhibition
    • David Bowie Movements in Suite Major
    • Eglinton Hill
    • FLOORBOARDS
    • Granada
    • in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …
    • Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters]
    • Miller’s Batman
    • mum
    • nan
    • Portsmouth – Southsea
    • Spring Warwick breezes / over Bacharach fieldwork and boroughs with / the occasional shift and chirp of David / in the pastel-long morning of the sixties
    • through the crash
  • index
    • #A-E see!
    • F–K, wha’ th’
    • L-P 33 1/3 rpm
    • Q-T pie
    • U-Z together forever
  • me
  • others
    • William Carlos Williams
  • poemics
  • poeviews
  • teaching matters
  • wormholes

mlewisredford

~ may the Supreme and Precious Jewel Bodhichitta take birth where it has not yet done so …

mlewisredford

Tag Archives: 6*

mirror

08 Friday Apr 2022

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2022, 6*, being, British Museum, enslavement, Greece, Have, history, identity, inner-self, mirror, outside, samsara, society, time, tragedy, war, woman

greek mirror

                                mirror

                        we lift
                whole armies of chariot, arm and thigh –
        scalloped handle either side –
                        to nichèd or columned view
                                asymmetrical
                                        grotesquery

                and for
        thousands of years now
                we see through eyes
                        polished and weighty above our heads
the extent of all our
                inwardly estate

 

I was struck by a caption by a mirror from the ancient Greek section of the British Museum which explained that rich women were not able to own any land, but that they could display their wealth in their own domestic environment and self-presentation

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

being & identity wormhole: ‘the practice …’
Have & samsara wormhole: travel // when I die
history wormhole: ‘from the cathedral window two stories / high …’
mirror wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
society wormhole: Candaka
time wormhole: ‘‘in my car I pass…’
war wormhole: riders of the night
woman wormhole: YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams

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long / road

26 Saturday Mar 2022

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

1977, 6*, Abbeywood, cars, distance, horizontal, road, sound, sunlight, telegraph poles, telephone lines, vertical

                                        long
                                        road

        the bright sunlight splash-splsshd
        across the street perched

        on telegraph poles
        across telephone wires as

            cars
            ebbed
            away

 

the warp and weft of ebb from the days when some cars were painted ochre and road-traffic was already acquiring its own saturation of speed all amidst the hatching of verticals and horizontals, a heady mixture for a gazing teenager wondering not only what it was he has to do but also within which direction

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

cars wormhole: ‘in my car I pass…’
sound wormhole: Journey

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‘in my car I pass…’

Featured

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

2021, 6*, afternoon, billboard, Birmingham, cars, digital, gaze, grey, industry, motorway, passing, sky, smoke, steel, streetlight, sun, sunset, thinking, time, travelling, velcro, William Turner

          in my car I pass
          vehicles and lamps
          under adjoining grey skies

          after neon billboards
          hook my gaze like
          passing velcro

          I lower the blind
          to the afternoon sun
          (although it stays just left),

          no matter, there was
          a single rising twist
          of industry which

          would never conjoin
          with the steely sunset
          as Turner might have it

driving up through Birmingham on the M6 to see my daughter…

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

afternoon & travelling wormhole: meanwhile
cars wormhole: riders of the night
grey & smoke wormhole: ‘‘she shook the sweets…’
motorway wormhole: prelude: // travel
passing & sky & sun wormhole: under the blue and blue sky
streetlight wormhole: ‘not sure …’
sunset wormhole: http://boiled spangle with soft centre
thinking wormhole: a far grander / Sangha
time wormhole: Journey

 

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‘the practice …’

25 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

2017, 6*, arm in arm, being, blossom, Bodhisattva Vow, colour, compassion, finding, growth, identity, journey, others, practice, requires chewing, root, Sangha, sharing, true nature, weaving, writing

                the practice
                of writing

                to weave
                myself between

                the threads, to
                thread myself

                between the
                fibres to form

                tiny root hairs
                to form the root

                to reach deep
                and to reach

                high and wide
                to glory in the

                synthesis of
                all the light

                to be found
                to be found

                colourful and
                blossoming to

                my own true
                nature; and that

                others, sibling
                to my reach

                and wonder,
                might find the

                growth to
                journey too

 

lookit: `found this one in my notes; possibly four years old; forgotten I’d had it; found stuck like a leaf between BCA I,3; not sure if it reminds me of the quote, top left of the web page, that I put there to remind myself … sure, on reflection, it does; how can I not: offer it up, and out

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

being wormhole: sweet chestnut
blossom wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
compassion wormhole: eyes like petals
identity wormhole: under the blue and blue sky
others wormhole: silence
practice wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
writing wormhole: ‘not sure …’

 

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under the blue and blue sky

13 Tuesday Oct 2020

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

1930s, 2020, 6*, blue, city, dome, horizon, identity, interdependet origination, London, lost, Ludgate Circus, morning, passing, pavement, seeing, sky, space, St. Paul's, stopped, sun, thought, time, traffic, work

                I stopped short
                caught on the kerb-

                side, traffic past,
                crawling from the morning

                sun; there was space
                before me here, but a

                city all about as far
                as I could see uphill until

                the consoling dome
                of St. Paul’s, deep behind any

                horizon, confirmed,
                yes, yes, it has come to this

                that you are found
                dressed dark and sober for work

                and lost
                under the blue and blue sky

 

 

who is it, who is it: that noticed or wrote or snapped or talked or stopped or dressed or read …?

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

blue & horizon wormhole: meanwhile
city wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
identity & time wormhole: sweet chestnut
London & sky wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets …’
morning wormhole: riders of the night
passing wormhole: YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams
seeing wormhole: ‘not sure …’
space wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
sun wormhole: silence
thought wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
work wormhole: slight sneer

 

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sweet chestnut

29 Tuesday Sep 2020

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

2015, 6*, ageing, air, being, buttress, chestnut tree, compromise, earth, generations, grass, growth, identity, leaf, letting go, life, reaching, time, trees, trunk

                     sweet chestnut

                     I have
                     long
                     since
                shifted the earth apart
                imperceptible for grass to grow,
                now, unknowing, so new;

                     I have
                     forgotten
                what it’s like to emerge
                without design, and have
                grown buttresses for so long
                they have twisted to comprise;

                     the trunk
                     of upward
                     direction
                that I reach from
                aimlessly with diminishing wisdom
                to a top leaf shifting

                     this way
                     and that
                     between air

 

{there is some anger and sulk that I do not write anymore: not sure if I couldn’t keep up the hi-octane perception or that ‘I was only seeking attention’ explains it all; I still don’t know, but maybe I don’t need to hold such stoic upper lips about it all, arms crossed, turned away; maybe just a bit of compassion wafting this way and that …}

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

air wormhole: ‘from the cathedral window two stories / high …’
being wormhole: silence
compromise & letting go wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
grass wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
identity wormhole: a far grander / Sangha
life wormhole: looking hard enough
time wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets …’
trees wormhole: ‘and is there homage …’

 

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‘she shook the sweets …’

05 Saturday Sep 2020

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

'scape, 1981, 6*, bed, blog, buildings, Carol, clouds, green, grey, lightning, London, love, marriage, Plumstead, red, seagull, Shooters Hill, silence, sky, smoke, Thames, time, wind

she shook the sweets
onto the bed

the grey sky
washed clean

metal smoke rose
then right-angled

a seagull
flew between the buildings

then

 

lightning

{the sweets were Lindt chocolates, individually wrapped in deep-red; the made bed was covered by a deep-green candlewick bed-spread; she was Carol, shortly before or after we were married, staying in what had been my bedroom, halfway up Shooters Hill, overlooking the Thames basin; this was the first poem I published on this blog, almost exactly ten years ago, and, in those early days, she got very little … no views; I think she deserves more than that; want a sweet?}

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

buildings & red & Thames wormhole: travel // when I die
Carol wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
clouds wormhole: here today and …
green & sky & time wormhole: meanwhile
grey wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
lightning wormhole: a crack of lightning / in the dark of night
London wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – tenderness
love wormhole: IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS by William Carlos Williams
Plumstead wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
seagull wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
silence wormhole: silence
wind wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley

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meanwhile

13 Wednesday May 2020

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ 18 Comments

Tags

2020, 6*, afternoon, angle, binoculars, blue, cranes, curtains, Eiffel Tower, flags, gorge, green, hope, horizon, mankind, moon, night, rite, rooftops, sea, seagulls, shape, ships, sitting room, sky, sound, stone, time, Tintin, travelling, walking, warehouses, water

                the seagulls, they glide about the
                cranes and warehouse rooftops

                they wheel above the pacing and fro,
                cut between pulleys and raised pennants

                oblivious to distant headland through
                studied binocular pointing out to sea, back in the day

                when the skies were afternoon-blue
                and the sea still sitting-room-green

                then, when there was dare to hope
                and ships anchored on the horizon

                under curtain-drapes of nightest sky
                while the moon snagged in line from

                fore-mast to prow; nevertheless, they
                trekked over crag and gorge, they walked

                through water and pushed through
                trapezoids – slab! – into rooms of stone

                locked and immovable despite
                horizon, fit or ninety degree angle

                oblivious to mankind’s rite and dress;
                meanwhile the twins climbed the tower

 

c’mon, now: a gold-plated no-prize to the first reader who can tell me which book this piece came from to celebrate my return to writing; perception – knowing what’s going on – is never as linear as it might seem to be in a story; already given that there is breadth and depth, even in the scant of depiction, there is usually a time (and a space, and we know how relative those two can be) during which something happens, but let’s not think that these are the only dimensions – there is always a right-angle to be taken that paisley-swirls to a far-wider cauldron than could have initially never been conceived but of which there were pre-echoes if listening askance intently-enough

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

afternoon & horizon & sky wormhole: travelling,
blue wormhole: silence
cranes wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
Eiffel Tower wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
green wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – tenderness
moon wormhole: ‘not sure …’
night & water wormhole: riders of the night
rooftops wormhole: travel // when I die
sea wormhole: then
seagulls wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
sitting room wormhole: the sitting room
sound wormhole: Four Noble Truths
stone wormhole: looking hard enough
time wormhole: travel // when I die
travelling wormhole: IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS by William Carlos Williams
walking wormhole: breakfast

 

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a far grander / Sangha

08 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 9 Comments

Tags

2019, 6*, identity, mother sentient beings, Priory, Sangha, self, self-image, Swarthmore Hall, thinking

                went to Swarthmore Hall
                brandishing my fragile self
                to open up to all beings

                went back to the Priory
                with rising grandeurs
                of delusion; shall I

                relinquish this flaw
                of expecting I am so much
                more than I appear if only

                I were understood …;
                then perhaps I could be
                more than I could ever

                understand and recognise
                these beings as already
                my own and take

                my one and lonely
                place with a far grander
                Sangha than I could ever have allowed

 

‘Swarthmore Hall’ is where the Quakers began, Carol did a course there; it is in Ulverston in South Cumbria where we lived soon after we married and started our family, we were aware of the place at the time, but not as students; ‘the Priory’ just outside Ulverston is the Manjushri Institute, a Buddhist college that we lived in; this was the first time I’d been back to visit in 32 years; and … this is the last poem I wrote – 4th September 2019 – I haven’t written one since, not seized to, not tipped towards; I have been letting a lot of things go during these beginning years of my retirement, even my Batman comics … maybe more a spiral than a circle …

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

identity wormhole: ‘not sure …’
thinking wormhole: silence

 

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‘and is there homage …’

20 Monday Jan 2020

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2019, 6*, being, doing, equipoise, fields, geranium, immanence, leaves, mantra, rain, river, sitting, sound, Tara, trees, words

                and is there homage to the
                Venerable Arya Tara who sits whole

                within the river crucible one
                and severally to behold; her

                laughter of TUTTARE always
                through those trees, her huge knee

                bent graceful in a thousand diminutive equipoises,
                her right leg stretching out and out

                over rolling fields and far away;
                does she hum with

                proximate mass, does she remain
                when words have stopped –

                no, shh, listen to the fluvial rains,
blink, look at the geranium leaves

 

this is the running couplet to here today and …

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

being & trees wormhole: here today and …
leaves wormhole: looking hard enough
rain & sound wormhole: travel // when I die
river wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
sitting wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
Tara wormhole: Tara mantras
words wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields

 

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← Older posts

… Mark; remember …

"... the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful; it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe to find ashes." ~ Annie Dillard

pages coagulating like yogurt

  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara
    • Chapter 1
    • Chapter 10
    • Chapter 2
    • Chapter 3
    • Chapter 4
    • Chapter 5
    • Chapter 6
    • Chapter 7
    • Chapter 8
    • Chapter 9
    • Introduction
  • collected works
    • 25th August 1981 – count Up
    • askance From Hell
    • Batman
    • Bob 1995-2012
    • David Bowie Movements in Suite Major
    • Edward Hopper: Poems at an Exhibition
    • Eglinton Hill
    • FLOORBOARDS
    • Granada
    • in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …
    • Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters]
    • Miller’s Batman
    • mum
    • nan
    • Portsmouth – Southsea
    • Spring Warwick breezes / over Bacharach fieldwork and boroughs with / the occasional shift and chirp of David / in the pastel-long morning of the sixties
    • The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford
    • through the crash
  • index
    • #A-E see!
    • F–K, wha’ th’
    • L-P 33 1/3 rpm
    • Q-T pie
    • U-Z together forever
  • me
  • others
  • poemics
  • poeviews
  • teaching matters
  • William Carlos Williams
  • wormholes

recent leaks …

  • “…and may the great elements…”
  • paisley // implicitly
  • this pocketed being
  • the inevitable tock // when we close our eyes
  • time
  • the simple prayer // the tattered poem // the bitter lament
  • taking birth
  • mirror
  • long / road
  • ‘in my car I pass…’

Uncanny Tops

  • me
  • Moebius strip
  • YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams
  • 'in my car I pass...'
  • 'the practice ...'
  • 'I can write ...'
  • like butterflies on / buddleia
  • meanwhile
  • 'hello old friend ...'
  • under the blue and blue sky

category sky

announcements awards embroidery poems poeviews reflectionary teaching

tag skyline

'scape 2* 3* 4* 5* 6* 7* 8* 20th century 1967 1979 1980 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 acceptance afternoon air Allen Ginsberg anxiety architecture arm in arm attention awareness Batman beach beauty bedroom being birds birdsong black blue Bodhisattvacharyavatara books Bowie branches breakdown breathing breeze brown Buddha buildings career Carol cars change child childhood children city clouds coffee shop colour combe end comics communication compassion compromise crane creativity curtains dancing dark death distraction divorce doing doors dream Dr Strange earth echo Edward Hopper Eglinton Hill emergence emptiness evening eyes faces family father feet field floorboards garden Genesta Road girl giving glass gold grass green grey growth haiku hair hands Have hedge hill hills history holiday hope horizon house houses identity kitchen leaf leaves lemon letting go life lifetimes light lime listening living London looking lost love management managerialism mauve meaning mind mist moon morning mother mouth movement Mum muse music night notice open openness orange others park passing pavement people performance management pink Plumstead poetry pointlessness politics portrait posture power practice professionalism purple purpose quiet rain reaching reading realisation reality red requires chewing river roads roof rooftops samsara sea searching seeing settling shadow shops silence silhouette silver sitting sky skyline sleep smell smile snow society sound space speech step stone streetlight streets sun sunlight superhero table talking talking to myself teaching teaching craft Thames thinking thought time train travelling trees true nature university voices walking walls water waves white William Carlos Williams wind windows wood Woolwich words work world writing years yellow zazen

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