‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’

Tags

2018, 8*, achievement, anger, ants, arrogance, beauty, Big Issue, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, books, buying, Carol, cat, cause and effect, chrome, comics, conception, conditioned existence, dark, doing, evening, eyes, giving, glass, Hulk, human, identity, insight, isolation, kids, life, lightning, marbles, mind, modesty, night, offering, patience, perfect human rebirth, quality, shrine, standing, strangers, talking to myself, teaching, teeth, time, tin, white

                … and yet I think I am so modest:
                      I think I have gathered such quality and beauty in life,

                      all the coloured glass and marbles I offer to the shrine,
                all the Big Issues I generously buy

                all the time given to Carol and the kids,
                      to abandoned strangers, all the vistas I gave at school,

                      all the insights from comics and books, I think I
                know what’s what; I stand colossal

                      on the paving slab, so much more and in so many ways
                than the ants that circle across it,

                so much more, even, than the cat
                      that comes and uselessly rubs about my legs, I stand

                      human to the height of all achievement; all of this
                I have already destroyed

                      a thousand times over in a thousand different ways
                with even the most slight

                      annoyance (and the thing is I am always annoyed), let alone
                the hulked, mindblanked and white-eyed

                teeth and howls; when this dent,
                      this sudden crease in what looks like flimsy tin (from

                this axe from some other side) that
                      holds the calm and flow of all the cause and conditionality,

                      everything bent sharp over a refusal, that creates me adverse
                and isolated; I won’t

                      become human again for so long I’ll need
                another, far-future,

                flash of lightning
                      in the darkest of darkest nights before I’ll

                ever get another chance
                      to even conceive what’s happening to me; let’s

                ease out all these creases, let’s
                      polish all that chrome, before evening comes again

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara, Chapter VI, beginning verses

 

 

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

beauty & books & identity wormhole: ‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’
Carol wormhole: we held cold hands
cat wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
comics wormhole: letting them go
doing wormhole: the moon, the moon
evening & eyes & white wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
giving wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
glass & life & mind & time wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
lightning wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
night wormhole: THE GREAT FIGURE by William Carlos Williams
talking to myself wormhole: blister on me thumb
teaching wormhole: how to teach

 

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redundant

Tags

2013, 6*, achievement, answers, awareness, being, letting go, questioning, quote, thinking, writing

                                              the penultimate
                page of this notebook, do I fill it up
                                in order to let there be

                                              no waste
                or do I leave it bare because that’s where
                                I finished anyway

                                              to almost-
                full or fallen-short, achieved or not
                                achieved, that

                                              is the question,
                whether thinking makes it so or not
                                is the answer,

                                              but that
                awareness accompanies all            and
                                the writing

                                              of it
                makes either – to be or not to be –
                                redundant

 

 

 

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

awareness wormhole: passing below
being wormhole: where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …
letting go wormhole: reading // unstirred
thinking wormhole: was there a moon / on the alleyway wall / confused in front of / the city skyline?
writing wormhole: handsome

 

when / ever

Tags

2013, achievement, being, Coleridge, doing, Kubla Khan, practice, significance, writing

 

 

 

                                                                                when
                                                                                ever

                                                                I get a sense
                                                of getting somewhere
                                                of achieving something
                                                a sense of significance
                                                that I am arriving and that
                                I could decree a pleasure dome
                                be built in caverns measureless
                                to man

                it’s time
                for a fall

 

 

 

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

being & writing wormhole: my way
doing wormhole: left alone
practice wormhole: sit / and move

 

nothing // matters

Tags

2011, acceptance, achievement, agenda, consistency, doing, emptiness, expectation, hearing, identity, meaning, nothing, purpose, significance, thinking, values, world

 

 

 

                                              nothing

                nothing (that I thought matters)
                matters (in a world which juggles agendas)

                nothing (that I thought important)
                is important (in a world which is value-bled)

                nothing (that I had created)
                is significant (in a world that clings to consistency)

                nothing (I say)
                is heard (in a world that only expects)

                nothing (I do)
                is achieved (in a world with no manner)

                I came out of nothing
                tried hard to achieve something

                heard only the noise of my own effort
                                – no echo –

                maybe I should accept that
                there    –    is    –    nothing

                and as the texts then say
                everything happens and everything matters

 

 

 

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

accpetance wormhole: that
doing wormhole: is that so!
emptiness wormhole: start where / you are II
identity wormhole: you can only smell the candles / when they have been snuffed out
meaning wormhole: my life / of others
thinking wormhole: up here
values wormhole: Totnes
world wormhole: the stance of Buscema // qualitatively

 

nu’ink, / that’s what

Tags

2013, achievement, ambition, being, doing, existence, feeling, illusion, life, LoJong, non-doing, non-striving, practice, sitting, world

 

 

 

                nu’ink,
                that’s what

                                   I sit doing nothing
                                    achieving nothing
                                     evading anything which comes along and tries
                                     to feel something
                                     or to be anything
                                          it is not –

                or not –

            I shouldn’t even be doing it well
       or at least not try to be doing it well
                           or if I do anything well it is to give up all plan and ambition
            because I need to be trained well so that when I get up from sitting I’ll be limbered and loose to continue life in the unreal world
                                                         well

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: H e a v e
doing wormhole: Dr Strange VII – the madness of Mordo
life wormhole: Desolation Angels
practice wormhole: I am a solid block of stone
sitting wormhole: gently straighten
world wormhole: darkness

 

that

Tags

2013, 4*, acceptance, achievement, anatta, awkward, being, doing, embarrassment, embracing, emptiness, identity, realisation

 

 

 

                      that

                                          the more I find myself
                                          awkward and embarrassed
                                          about what I have not done
                                          or achieved the measure

                                          the more I can embrace
                                          the emptiness of there
                                          being anything to be done
                                          or achieved in the first place

 

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: HPB
being & doing wormhole: Matildenplatz / & Luisen
emptiness wormhole: Dr Strange II – … things are the same again
identity wormhole: there are patient listeners
realisation wormhole: a maturity

 

should is good when / too used to cruise

Tags

2013, 6*, achievement, anxiety, balance, doing, doubt, posture, practice, relaxing, settling, sitting, voices

 

 

 

                                should is good when
                                too used to cruise

                                                      don’t like anxiety
                                                      don’t like doubt
                                                      can’t sit with it
                                                      and feel comfortable
                always want to get
                get up off the floor
                and sit on a sofa
                relaxed and cushioned
                                                      but there is bad posture
                                                      can’t think what to do
                                                      strong need to get up
                                                      and achieve something
                but I should sit with anxiety
                sit with the doubt and
                sit with good posture
                and ‘be thankful for it’
                                                      and leave what I like and leave
                                                      what I don’t on the sofa
                                                      slipped down the sides and lost
                                                      with the crumbs and pennies

 

 

 

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

anxiety & doing & settling & sitting wormhole: stuck free to move within
balance wormhole: Peeks at Castleton
doubt wormhole: tag cloud poem V – draft-ness
posture wormhole: contemplating my painted copy / of Vallejo’s Conan
practice wormhole: anti-depressants
voices wormhole: tune up // baton taptaptap

 

just saying, is all – III

Tags

2012, 2014, 3*, accountability, achievement, assessment for learning, career, CPD, dialogue, education, funding, GCSE, inclusion, intervention, love, measure, National Curriculum, nurture, outcome-led education, planning, politics, process, professionalism, public service cuts, pupils, results-led education, school, slogans, statistics, subjects, targets, teachers, teaching, vocation

 

 

 

                                                                                    just saying, is all – III

                                              I watched the first generation of pupils sit their GCSEs

                                              then I watched the National Curriculum
                                find a gear
                and crunch-jerk launch the level system of attainment
                                across all the subjects
                                              then I watched the whole dialogue –
                political and educational
                                and the funding that went with it –
                                              shift from process and nurture
                to outcomes and statistics

                                and then I felt the reform of teaching professionalism
                and watched the proliferation
of endless sheets of planning, four – part lessons, Assessment for Learning, Ready for Learning, Every Child Matters, Inclusion, Continuing Professional Development, targetting, intervention, Boulders into Pebbles, Investors in People, accountability, Achieving Together, Be a Part of It, G₂O                      
                                the unforgettable 2 As & 2 Bs
                the Freedom to All Think Along the Same Lines (glorious times)
(and I’m really looking forward to the innovative work to be launched soon by Professor Cobbly from the prestigious University of Fisc’ut, Corporateshire, (not least of all because he happens to be my uncle))

                                              and all the while
                                those who work hard achieve well
                                              in the wash
                those who don’t don’t whether they are intelligent or not
                                if they are going to be angry or lazy
                they will find a way to be so
                                              whether you teach them to their very marrow
                                or just let them alone

                                              most teachers
                                just get through their career
                all of them measured to within an inch of their vocation
                                some keep their love
                                some make a difference
                                              sometimes
                                when no one is … measuring

                                              all kids
                                just get through school
                                most kids do OK
                                some kids thrive

 

 

 

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

career wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
education & results-led education wormhole: poessay VIII: / educational behaviourism
love wormhole: plethora: the Dark Knight Strikes Again (2002)
politics wormhole: my life is not your market
professionalism wormhole: the Lamp
teaching wormhole: which is worse

 

achieving good-enough living

Tags

'scape, 2012, 5*, achievement, bedroom, being, curtains, doing, finding, green, living, searching, streetlight, windows

 

 

 

                                achieving good-enough living but
                                stuck hoping for an achievement wanting
                                to rediscover the gasp-colour of newfind
                                and the release of wayforward

                                the streetlight
                shining in through the bedroom window and impossibly illumining
                                the dark green sheen
                                              of the velvet curtains
                                                              on the inside

 

 

 

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

bedroom wormhole: tag cloud poem III – the journey to BEING and back again
being & doing wormhole: “I think I’ll have a nice sandwich”
curtains wormhole: Love Me Do
green & living wormhole: plethora: the Dark Knight Strikes Again (2002)
searching wormhole: 1966
streetlight wormhole: star / through the kitchen / window
windows wormhole: axis: bold as love