• 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: awkward

travelling // arrival

05 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2016, 9*, arrival, attention, awkward, black, blue, breathing, calves, Carol, clouds, co-ordinate, ears, eye, fields, groundlessness, hedge, horizon, identity, karma, leaves, letting go, notice, passing, sky, smell, teeth, thread, time, travelling, white, wind, wind turbines

                travelling – no theme

                when the wind blows
                leaves turn and follow like
                dislocated jazz-hands

                everything is parting
                and passing all around
                … me (is that the theme?)

                I can’t find what to
                think or notice; in the
                corner of my eye a

                small black creature
                keeps pace, stretched in
                leap over field, through

                hedge, unspite, imhindered,
                depossibly, gathering
                everything in disregard;

                bit between molars (for
                weeks, for days?
) wedging
                teeth slightly awkward

                has just worked loose;
                there are skies, there,
                certainly, high, silky

                and whipped, and then
                blue-coagulated drifting
                like a fleet, like calves

                crossing fields ears
                waving, as wind blades
                heave beyond hill horizon

                I conjeal            myself
                in notice, relieved with a
                thread and co-ordinate

                where for to breathe
                again but having lost
                so much more that I

                never had; Carol shuts
                the Kindle and leans; I
                smell her warm head

                for miles – arrival

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: before any writing
black & blue wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
breathing & groundlessness wormhole: is this it // all the time
Carol & clouds & sky wormhole: Christmas 2015
hedge wormhole: free
horizon & white wormhole: looking ahead
identity wormhole: without any buffet at all
leaves wormhole: Batgirl –
letting go wormhole: “I need help”
passing wormhole: I am not yet ready
smell wormhole: St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton
time wormhole: looking / ridiculous
travelling wormhole: Tara mantras
wind wormhole: after all

 

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ashramas

04 Monday Jul 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2012, 6*, ageing, ashramas, awkward, childhood, children, creativity, identity, inauthentic, lesson, life, love, means, outcome-led education, parent, recognition, role, society, study, talking to myself, teaching, time, vague, value-bled education, wisdom, work

                ashramas

     I was a child vague in society
                only noticed the pretty wrappings of society
     as a teenager I was made awkward by society
                didn’t understand how to make the play

     later I sussed how the play was made
                saw it inauthentic and facile
     as a student I studied alternative to society
                found that there was love – wisdom – creativity

     as a parent I got all grown-up with myself –
                ‘make practical use of my studies’ –
     became a teacher to bring up all my children
                play My Part in the society I despaired of, practical and ends-focussed

     made the mistake to Make me Mark [groan] instead in society:
                influence the means to seek engagement
     to find recognition and found myself
                ignored and unnoticed

                Twenty Five Years

     now I must return to myself ‘these things that
                you and I suppressed’
     carry the wounds as lesson to myself
                whether I continue to work or not, as lesson to me

                love – wisdom – creativity

 

An Ashrama (āśrama) in Hinduism is one of four age-based life stages discussed in ancient and medieval era Indian texts. The four asramas are: Brahmacharya (student), Grihastha (householder), Vanaprastha (retired) and Sannyasa (renunciation). The Ashramas system is one facet of the Dharma concept in Hinduism. (from Wikipedia)

‘these things that you and I suppressed’ is from Joni Mitchell‘s ‘Hejira‘

 

 

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

childhood & life & time wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
creativity wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – the soft canticle of the gourds:
identity & society wormhole: “Darling” – poewieview #28
love & talking to myself wormhole: with endless love
recognition wormhole: bloogying
teaching wormhole: dry rot
work wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – introdepthion

 

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quite … / … yet – poewieview #12

23 Tuesday Feb 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1968, 2016, awkward, being, Bowie, childhood, doing, face, growing, identity, life, living, meaning, resolution, rhyme, rhythm, speech, talking to myself, warp, weft, words

                                                              `snot good enough cos I
                                                              `mnot old enough t`see                           `ow
                                              th’ wryme ‘n’ th’ whrythm’s wrought
                                              `tween `scend ing warp ‘n’
                                mended weft with
                                me errant word or me gloonfy face

                quite …
… yet

 

I don’t know how to what saying … London Bye Ta-Ta, 1968; When I’m Five, 1968; Ching A Ling, 1968; The Mask, 1968 … yet?

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

being & living & meaning wormhole: seventy two, perhaps – poewieview #9
Bowie wormhole: organ / sunlight in all our eyes – poewieview #11
childhood wormhole: 1963
doing wormhole: crescendoeing cascade of chordage – poewieview #10
identity wormhole: ‘my best writing happens …’
life wormhole: 1966 … actually sic // of it allllll-bsssssssh – poewieview #8
speech wormhole: really
talking to myself wormhole: when writing // stay
words wormhole: London Hearts – poewieview #4

 

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when writing // stay

15 Tuesday Dec 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

2013, awkward, breathing, care, children, embarrassment, expression, feeling, hidden, letting go, name, poem, sitting, smell, staying, talking to myself, taste, words, writing

 

 

 

                when writing

                when writing a poem
                write the words down that come
                of themselves without stopping them
                without editing them even if you don’t like them
                and stay with them let them sit there in all their awkwardness
                in all their unfitting-ness in all their un-cleverness and crassness embarrassing
                to behold, let their uncomfortable – ness be, breathe their unfitting – ness, explore how they don’t fit, find how something is being hidden or explained away in their expression that makes them uncomfortable, probe it, become intimate with it, don’t turn away from it, smell its armpits, feel its hideous contours, run your tongue over its acrid bits and find the words which call them their own names, name them, and care for them like your own new born children                

 

 

 

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

breathing & talking to myself & writing wormhole: grrr
letting go wormhole: sit / and move
sitting wormhole: Chop Suey, 1929
words wormhole: open window

 

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good looking

14 Tuesday Jul 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2012, awkward, being, identity, looking, others

 

 

 

                                good looking

                are you looking at me
                or looking at me being

                if you only look at me
                I’m quite gawky-looking

                but if you look at me being
                … actually, still gawky

 

 

 

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

being & identity & others wormhole: wriving
looking wormhole: before // writing?

 

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my life / of others

11 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2012, Allen Ginsberg, allowing, America, awkward, being, bittersweet, breathing, community, decades, desert, doing, echo, eyes, family, fog, giving, gravity, horizon, identity, inclusion, ink, life, lifetimes, listening, loneliness, love, management, marble, mauve, meaning, others, planet, pointlessness, purpose, radiation, relationship, secret, silence, sitting, society, talking to myself, time, twilight

 

y’know; sometimes you’ve just got to have a rambling, indulgent, pig-headed, why-is-no-one-listening-to-me, pathetic, awkward (don’t forget the ‘awkward’), poor-me whiiine to realise just how rambling, indulgent, pig-headed, why-is-no-one-listening-to-me-ie, pathetic, and awkward you can be; sigh – but there’s still some poetry in it, so I’ll share the self-pity about (caution: this is quite a high-pitched whiiine; it is strongly urged that you wear ear-protection – or at least stick your fingers in your ear reciting la-la-la – if you undertake to read this; you have been warned)

 

 

                my life
                                of others

                                how long has this been going on
                how long this has been going on

demands in their eyes pull me to them like a planet
                pull on me to contain them
                                pull deep in me through the latest casual orbit

                                I give because I can
                learnt silently over decades
                                              I have lived to allow ever wider
                                in order to include
                                              to neutralise my gravity in order to listen
                and let them breathe enough
                                              to find their own solution –
decades of leaning a hundred awkward ways
                                              to be with others
                                decades of privately finding ways
                to re-collect my own gravity –
                                                              shiny marbles with petrified ink –
                                              and decades having to let them go
                                                              one by one
                                              tearfully
                                eventually

                                              all under the great broad horizon
                                lost before the hills on the great broad horizon
                the beautiful-twilight mauve desert
                                              and the radiation presence of another close planet they
                cannot do the same for me
                                                              they will not do the same for me:

                                the squalls and foreclosures,
                                              they are of my own making
                an audience extends only so far as to conclude that it is all my own awkwardness – all I have to do is fit –
                                              before I have even finished explaining
                usually I don’t bother to finish
                                or even start
                                              the solution is ready-made
                                                              (with a few ‘hmm’s to make it look kindly)
                or just kept to themself
                                echoing loudly behind their eyes

                                              like sharing secrets with the fog
                                                              I find myself alone
                each one of them was the last person I could turn to in the world
                                but they all uncannily agree with each other
                                              they are the Company Man

                                I have done my bit for the family
                                I have done my bit for the team
                                I have done my bit for the community
                                                              all by not being there
                                              all by not getting in the way
                I cried when I was acknowledged once
                                                                                 it never happened again

                                I suppose
                                it’s just
                                              they need to keep from shattering in a thousand pieces
                they need to hold the whole damn thing together
so I give because I can
                                because it is right
                                                              but cannot expect return
                                                              they cannot give
                                                              what they expect
                                                              in return
                                for sure things are done things may be organised
                                                              (sometimes even when I want them)
                                              but for some greater good
                                                              for some greater career
                                                              for some greater legacy
                                                                                 not mine
                                              certainly not mine (‘America I have given you all
                                                              and now I am nothing’)

                                              when I work it is all about them
                when I stop it is all about how they performed
                                all that I do and don’t do
                                              is how it sits as support or burden
                                                              to them
                                conclusion: it is only them who do the work
                                              the thinking the organising
                                                              I seem to do nothing
                                                              really
                and do it annoyingly and awkwardly and thinkingly – roll of eyes – I
                                have to be managed to be of any competence
                                              (that’s meant affectionately) I
                                              am just the recipient of their
                                                              good work
                                                              (what do they call them these days – ‘clients’)
                                              my value
                                              my contribution
                                              what I am
                                                              are the price I pay to receive

                so I don’t say anything much – what’s the point?
                                I’ll put a few things out
                                              tentatively
                                (where I might be patronised at best – if I’m lucky,
                                                                                 if the planets are lined up right)
                                                              told it’s cute
                                              or individual
                                or much too clever to understand
                or it’s not what was needed
                                              or sorry, Mark, did you say something
                                                              and the audience will move deftly on
                                to what it wanted to talk about anyway
                or what it wanted to be doing
                                              all along

                                I mostly keep it to myself
                                                              here
                                              in the place I claim
                                              each day – time to myself bittersweet
                                                              (at siege from service and compliance)
                to ‘indulge’ myself ‘stay up too late’ ‘contemplate my navel’
                                                              otherwise I get ‘grumpy’
                                              I talk to
                                              myself
                                                              I am not the Company Man
                                                                                 no one
                                                                                 to share
                                                                                 me with
                no one beyond the managed obliged corporate return
                                              oh yes I return to myself
                                                              find my own meaningpurposeaudiencelove
                                              safe in the fifty year relationship
                                which is good for only one

                                decades whittled away
                                              here and there
                                                              chips and shavings on the floor
                                leaving a petrified face
                eyes wide mouth open
                                              bas-relief out from being

 

 

 

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

Allen Ginsberg & giving wormhole: tag cloud poem VIII – growth
allowing & loneliness wormhole: letters to Mum VI – Years / after you have gone. Still.
being & breathing & sitting wormhole: the art of sit and follow
doing & identity wormhole: my beauty
echo wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
eyes & time wormhole: ambling around / the garden centre
family wormhole: sometimes
fog homework: tag cloud poem VII – form new freedom:
horizon wormhole: To my Mum
life & love wormhole: I love with all the history and lack of perfections at our command
lifetimes & others & pointlessness & society wormhole: Totnes
listening wormhole: before // writing?
management wormhole: poessay VIII: / educational behaviourism
mauve wormhole: ‘green post …’
meaning & talking to myself wormhole: the stance of Buscema // qualitatively
twilight wormhole: the four whores of the apocalypse

 

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step

02 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2013, 5*, awareness, awkward, books, Carol, feet, growth, leaf, life, living, London, notice, reaching, reading, step, streets, thinking, travelling, walking

 

 

 

I keep on finding bits in this
book, she said, which –

become the earth from which
my life currently grows, I completed,
awkward and reaching, although

I think more that
her awareness of her life
was unfurling like a leaf, that

the book she reads becomes
the streets we walk through
travelling up to London

that enables me to notice the
curl-down-toe foot in the open sandal

step

 

 

 

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

awareness wormhole: I need to keep my eyes open / in meditation
books & Carol & London wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
feet wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
life wormhole: Dr Strange VI – to hold my face to the world
living wormhole: ‘the walking stick …’
reading wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II
streets wormhole: lobby
thinking wormhole: living mystery / murder theatre
trevelling wormhole: “out of step is useful because / that means you get to notice / what others have missed; out / of line is no use to anyone”
walking wormhole: ‘never a dull moment …’

 

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that

11 Tuesday Nov 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 6 Comments

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

 

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… 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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