a nice grey woollen picnic blanket

Tags

2013, 6*, Ashdown Forest, blanket, bodhisattva, cars, children, driving, feeling, finding, grey, responsibility, roads, safety, sentient beings, sun, talking to myself, teaching, trees, warp, weft, wool

                                              OK
                                I think I get it:
                a nice grey woollen picnic blanket

                                I found the grey
                when crossing the road for the umpteenth time
                                safely

                                I felt the wool
                when I finally allowed that cars will keep driving
                along the road, well where else could they
                                go?

                                I suspect
                that there might be a fascinating check design
                in the warp and the weft but I am too busy
                to explore this now backward and forward across
                                the road

                                there
                are some trees and a sunny glen over there
                I can spread the blanket wide and enjoy
                the meal I carry heavy on my back there
                right after I have crossed my hundred thousand children
                                safely

                                one
                by one as they pop up to the side of the road, w-hupp, here’s
                                another one

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

Ashdown Forest wormhole: memorial
cars wormhole: municipal garden
grey wormhole: every step I take
roads wormhole: 1968
sun & trees wormhole: while
talking to myself wormhole: free
teaching wormhole: ‘let them slide off …’

 

every step I take

Tags

2013, 6*, awareness, climbing, dawn, doors, grey, hope, life, living, nausea, ochre, rock, seeing, step, walking, walls

                there is a wall before me
                gets higher as I walk towards it
                so wide that I cannot turn my head
                footings deep of the rock on which I stand

                I thought there was a door once
                but I can never see where I want to
                I thought to climb it for there was a dawn which crept along its
                battlements but it is featureless it silently radiates grey with ochre stains of nausea

                hopeless
                but that I have come such a long way
                I shall just have to walk through it without
                knowing where to go sure only of every step I take

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

awareness wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
dawn wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
doors & walls wormhole: such such potential
grey wormhole: ‘avenue of wraggled gorse tops …’
life wormhole: divergent // direction
living wormhole: do I
ochre wormhole: “I / am Spartacus”
seeing wormhole: the goldilocks stance
walking wormhole: step

 

divergent // direction

Tags

2013, 6*, attention, being, CGI, control, distraction, echo, film, growth, identity, life, movement, naked, nerve, observing, reputation, self-compassion, self-love, sequel, sitting, society, sound, static, thought, waves

                it’s not just the oh-ho naughty thoughts
                that really shouldn’t but burst through
                ta-dha because you can’t stop them yet
                (secretly don’t want to, yet)

                it’s not even the oops echoes and sequels
                of each sprain and twinch that ached
                and deadened a sense of naked self, no
                it’s the thousand little nerves and waves

                the stylish static of the over-working CGI
                that test and flash the Dolby sound before
                the titles roll and the big names appear it’s
                all of that wide wide widescreen that needs

                      the love of incorporation
                      not the surroundsound of
                      stereo or the left and right
                      eyes watching in divergent

                      direction

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

attention & distraction & sitting & society & sound wormhole: nevertheless
being wormhole: facing the crime section
echo & life wormhole: the quiet whale
film wormhole: spit / spot
identity wormhole: written relief to / creeping anaesthesia / through palimpsest / and crankled page
thought wormhole: Virginia
waves wormhole: do I

 

facing the crime section

Tags

2013, 6*, being, bookshop, finding, notebook, perspective, poem, remembering, wanting, writing

                I’m out
                I’ve remembered my notebook
                I’m sat in the book shop
                (facing the crime section)
                wanting too much to have…
                    …found the lean out|      |from which the
                                or the crevice|      |perspective will…
                                              reveal the poem
                                      to remember where I am enough
                                                                           to find it

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being wormhole: nevertheless
bookshop wormhole: dream / 221297
writing wormhole: written relief to / creeping anaesthesia / through palimpsest / and crankled page

 

too greedy

Tags

2013, 6*, air, ambition, attention, breathing, coffee, distraction, experience, fruit jellies, love, passing, people, poem, sandwich, sitting, smoothie, staying, sugar, talking to myself, town, walking, walls

                you know, mark, you can be
                too greedy, not from the coffee
                or the four DVDs, not from the

                ploughman’s sandwich nor the
                pear and peach smoothie, not even
                from the bag of fruit jellies that

                now you’ve opened you’re
                probably going to have to finish,
                but from wanting to carve a poem

                out of every damn experience you have
                sitting on every damn wall in
                every damn town you visit while

                every damn person walks past thinking
                you’re a bit damn weird … but then,
                nah, I don’t quite think so, as long as

                you seep into the observation and
                don’t ride it through somewhere else,
                and you can check the ambition

                with enough wide-open love to breathe,
                you could sculpt poems out of
                the very air where you stay put …

                … and, besides, I’m getting one
                hell of a sugar-buzz from these
                sugar jellies … will I never learn!

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

air wormhole: retirement
attention wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
breathing wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey
coffee wormhole: too much in arrival
distraction wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
love wormhole: slow enough / to have love
passing wormhole: morning sun
people wormhole: where else
sitting wormhole: the goldilocks stance
talking to myself wormhole: where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …
walking wormhole: ‘avenue of wraggled gorse tops …’
walls wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams

 

where else

Tags

2013, 6*, beige, breeze, circle, green, light, money, morning, music, oblong, other, people, sound, spaceship, square, trees, Uckfield, visit

                                the wide-open
                recreational green in town had beige and bright green
                circles and squares and oblongs obliquely occupying
                                the perimeters

                                and the centre,
                a rattling string-of-lights spaceship had come visit
                variously revolving and blinking, relaying energy
                while its engine idled strange music all wondrous
                                to behold

                                the people came
                and applied hard-earned pieces of metal and one morning
                the ship was gone as if nothing had happened but if you
                listen closely to all the trees standing square around the breezes
                they saw it all, they’ll tell you, where else did those marks
                                come from!

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

beige wormhole: 1963
breeze wormhole: St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards / with the forelegs hanging down obscene / reaching some height blindly to connect / out from the long-stalk tri-separating up- / to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what / is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know- / what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and- / it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”
green wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey
light wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
money wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Olly
morning & trees wormhole: morning sun
music wormhole: strain
people wormhole: prelude: // travel
sound wormhole: ‘quick – she’s gone to pay …’

 

written relief to / creeping anaesthesia / through palimpsest / and crankled page

Tags

2013, 6*, being, buying, centre, consumerism, driving, Have, identity, living, page, passing, progress, self, texture, travelling, writing

                written relief to
                creeping anaesthesia
                through palimpsest
                and crankled page

                driving soaks you into
                the process of passing
                inexorable to progress
                oblivious to a      centre

                here comes a service station
                let me choose a centre to buy
                inevitable to consume and then
                obliged to define myself     through

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

being wormhole: St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards / with the forelegs hanging down obscene / reaching some height blindly to connect / out from the long-stalk tri-separating up- / to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what / is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know- / what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and- / it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”
Have wormhole: 20th century
identity wormhole: wakeoutofadream
living wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
passing wormhole: municipal garden
travelling wormhole: too much in arrival
writing wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey

 

prelude: // travel

Tags

2013, 6*, acceptance, castle, coffee, compassion, doing, driving, dust, field, green, Have, mist, motorway, passing, people, progress, self-compassion, sky, steel, stone, sunlight, tarmac, travelling, waking, wood

                                prelude:

                had a day to myself
                no work to do no family no obligation
                I could have built myself a castle stony to the sky
                but I did nothing to make my mark in the world
                nothing to house
                the sky

                and I felt strangely accepting of that
                a sort-of love really

                                travel

                woke-up stupid lack-slept
                but I have a certain love for myself
                and I get on with last-minute packing

                people, slaves in so many ways to Have
                but I have a certain love for myself
                and can accept us all to suffer our own coffees

                there is steel in all the greens and mist in all the sunlight
                the harvester shaves the field to dust and someone
                burns the wood to waft across the motorway

                but I have a certain love for myself and
                I let them all pass and while the rubber turns
                the tarmac I progress to a destination

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

acceptance & sky wormhole: stone
coffee wormhole: magnificent salad
compassion wormhole: so pleased to see you again
doing wormhole: wasted –
field & green wormhole: greedy
Have wormhole: beepbeep
mist wormhole: retirement
motorway wormhole: dawn
passing & travelling wormhole: handsome
people wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show
stone wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything
wood wormhole: the 19th century

 

wakeoutofadream

Tags

2013, 6*, career, circular poem, contentment, CPD, defensive, defining, dream, freedom, gap, history, identity, KUE, lesson observation, loneliness, measure, process, professionalism, propaganda, sitting, stillness, struggle, teaching, time, true nature, waking

                                                                                wakeoutofadream
                       both content and free                            where I struggle
                   that is your true self                                         to take the measure
      and inhabit the loneliness                                              of the class I track and train
               and go with neither                                                  brilliant to my design
between define and defend                                                      and told upon inspection
           (nothing to stand on)                                                      I should be engineering them
                        to find the gap                                                   by process
to history or the propaganda                                                and should have been
   moving neither left nor right                                         for years now
                                   keep your seat                            what have I been doing?
                                                              just

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

career & identity wormhole: weight
circular poem: no / thing
dream wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
history wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35
loneliness wormhole: lonely and free
professionalism wormhole: retirement
sitting wormhole: bud
stillness wormhole: still
teaching wormhole: Virginia
time wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything

 

brown corduroy shirt / and dark redwine tie

Tags

2017, 6*, breath, brown, eyes, hair, identity, life, neck, nose, portrait, red, retirement, shirt, tie, Virginia Woolf, writing

                                brown corduroy shirt
and dark redwine tie

                finding Virginia
                                              young before gathered and drapèd hair
                                              over enquiring philtrum
                old where sternomastoids meet
                below the whole larynx readying to write properly
                                              and hooded eyes half closed to stolidity
                                                              half open to breath

 

 

read the whole sequence: in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …; I bought myself some new shirts with the no-blame severance pay I accepted to make it all stop – one of the shirts is a mid-brown corduroy that naps a darker brown when stroked because it hasn’t washed worn yet; the tie I bought from a charity shop before I even started teaching – deep burgundy red, slim and tonic in the light; I have been meaning to get in to Virginia Woolf for quite some time, but the afternoon light of the parlour has never been quite right; am I pathetic: oh yes, but at least I can write about it; Carol likes to travel as an instinctive way to comb-through the threads of career and life; we planned a trip to the stones in Wiltshire started with the Avebury stones …

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

breath wormhole: and smile / like a bud
brown wormhole: occa / s / i // o / n / a // l // l // y
eyes wormhole: darkness
hair wormhole: handsome
identity wormhole: bud
life wormhole: somewhere
red wormhole: love and precision
retirement wormhole: retirement
writing wormhole: no / thing