• 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: Bowie

the simple prayer // the tattered poem // the bitter lament

14 Saturday May 2022

Posted by m lewis redford in embroidery, poems, reflectionary

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

2022, 8*, action, architecture, balance, black, blindness, Boris Johnson, Bowie, cause and effect, cave, daughter, desert, Donald Trump, female, God, gods, heart, history, internet, invisible, king, land, lies, Life on Mars?, love, male, Manjushri, market, noise, notice, others, people, plateau, Plato, poem, power, prayer, proliferation, propaganda, quiet, resource, rhetorical interrogative, Russia, science, self, serendipity, slave, smile, soap, soap-opera, springs, stranger, sword, throat, time, tragedy, truth, Ukraine, value, Vladimir Putin, war, windows, wisdom

the simple prayer

may quiet springs of
value-in-other always disperse
the black and grimy history
of power-over-other
like soap



—~~~\\\ ” sp ” ///~~~—

                                                                      the tattered poem

                                                  may …

                                        over millennia
                                        between peppered millions
                                        at surprise times and sad

                                        across rolling lands
                                        and conserved desert
                                        and steppèd plateau

                                        quiet springs
                                        everywhere
                                        serendipitous

                                        hand-cupped chin, lipless
                                        smile, no-halt act, surge
                                        `tween heart and throat

                                        unnoticed invisible
                                        daughter stranger slave;
                                        the black and grime of

                                        history of power over other
                                        storeyed and high-
                                        windowed, cacophonous

                                        and market-squared
                                        rhetorically interrogative
                                        aside truth:

                    … may they disperse
                    this impossible tension
                    like soap

—~~~\\\ ” tp ” ///~~~—

the bitter lament

“may” is a petition – to a god, to God or to ‘let it be’, it doesn’t matter as long as it is beyond ‘self’ – a directing of hearts (the only armaments that don’t cost a nation), a massing of resource (as-yet untapped and unexploited), a manoeuvring of cause and effect (the only true use of science), a discernment of love like the sharpest of flaming swords; “other” is anything or anyone which is not “myself” and, like a tragic farce played out on the widest of stages, cast of a thousand-thousand “myself”-s (hurry – for one aeon only; apply for auditions here), proliferates inponentially to the power of blind-folded distinction; “history” – I don’t want to know the history that led up to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, it is a soap-opera that I have seen “ten times or more”, not sure if “I’ve wrote it ten times or more”, “it’s about to be writ again” and I’ve long since abandoned any hope that an original line is to be found anywhere in the entire web of the universe; “power” is male, but male woefully out of balance, to act, to control, to make, to command on the basis of a wobble-board, the king of the castle chanting empty rhymes, unbalanced with respect to “other” and with respect to what-is without blindfolds, a spoilt child who smirks what he wants, a Johnson who dares what he deceives, a Trump who deceives what he wants, a Putin deceived by empty rhymes, so involuted that even before they think to open their mouths have been lying for generations within centuries; “prayer”, “poem”, “lament” is “female”, which is never mentioned, it is “wisdom” (which is never used), it is the balance to male (which is never considered – ‘too impractical’), it is the reference to “other” and the reference to “what-is” (whether “what-is” is blind-folded or not), it is not the replacement of male (that would make it … male), it is the heart-surge of care empty of all self-reference which, unfortunately, has been left in a cave, somewhere, some say in chains, and entertained with flickering lights on the back-wall, for millennia …

 

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: despite all / depiction
balance wormhole: the balance necessary between
black wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
daughter wormhole: looking ahead
history & time & war wormhole: mirror
love wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets…’
others wormhole: ‘the practice &…’
power wormhole: eyes like petals
quiet wormhole: – creak –
resource wormhole: the Apple
smile wormhole: light of all interaction
windows wormhole: YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams

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animus rises – powieview #37

02 Monday Apr 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1971, 2016, 7*, adolescence, Allen Ginsberg, anima, animus, bliss, body, Bowie, broken, business, castration, chair, embarrasment, eyes, finger, genitalia, green, guitar, Howl, identity, music, open, rooftops, sex, touch

                ah, the lick the
                ahh-dolescence
                the rise of anima
                touched and sigh’d

                embodied, oo, I’ve
                got one of those,
                one of these, I’m
                one of them, wav-

                ing genitals to
                eternity from the
                rooftops until,
                embarrassed,

                animus rises
                statuesque to the
                cause, blissfully
                broken across

                open green eyes,
                easy shots from
                the swivel chair
                with cut-off finger

 

sigh‘d from the tumultuous adolescence of Ziggy Stardust, 1971 and Soul Love, 1971

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

 

 

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

Bowie wormhole: loss
eyes wormhole: coagulating
green wormhole: olive trees
guitar wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
identity wormhole: it’s all about…;
music wormhole: quiet river
open wormhole: frame
rooftops wormhole: between

 

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loss

08 Thursday Feb 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2016, 5*, awareness, Birmingham, Bowie, computer games, falling, identity, loss, naked, standing, streets, walking

                “I

                stumble in to town …” on
                endless streets of paviour

                I didn’t notice a kerb and fell
                like an army unit from the

                23rd century, self-contained
                but waiting to rise

                once a cognitive-scan is completed,
                yet it revolves without completion,

                `cannot get a lock, so I stand
                without co-ordinate, beguiled

                by logo-lettering of all regard
                and stagger around with naked physique

                dressed for none to see
                to cover my loss

 

 

 

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

awareness wormhole: ‘still …’
Bowie wormhole: south horizon
identity wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
streets wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
walking wormhole: out

 

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south horizon

10 Friday Feb 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

1959, 1967, 1979, 1993, 1999, 2011, 2012, 7*, abandonment, anger, Bowie, childhood, Dad, discovery, divorce, drum, evening, experience, horizon, light, London, Margaret Thatcher, memory, Mum, Nan, pain, parents, perspective, purple, rhythm, river, saxophone, shift, Shooters Hill, south, texture, Thames, travelling, words, world

                south horizon

                out on the river
                the purple is shifting

                but in the evening-bulb light
                the world-shaping words

                of grown ups
                is shifting uncontrollably

                but,          no; it’s OK          look
                there is rhythm, there is

                a saxophone, a hi-hat – shflpt –
                in the crack there

                where words sift
                where worlds shift

 

I submitted this to an online magazine; they didn’t want it; I’ll publish it here again with the copy that supported it:

about the poem: on my eighth birthday (in 1967) my Dad arrived home late from work; my parents had one of their last arguments; my Dad left home that night; I couldn’t remember much of what happened that night – what was said, how much I heard, how much I understood – but I realised that worlds could change quite quickly that night; years later, in 1993, David Bowie recorded ‘south horizon’ on his ‘Buddha of Suburbia’ album, but I didn’t really get to know the piece until 2011; hearing it etched that experience back into my memory – bevelled it up, almost – but it also supplied textures and chord changes to the memory that allowed me a perspective that held me from being just angry or hurt; (‘the river’ is the river Thames; we lived on Shooters Hill in SE London from where we could hear and breathe the river)

author bio: Mark Redford was born in 1959 and grew up in South East London until he bolted to university (like a bat out of hell) in 1979, hot from Margaret Thatcher’s election victory; London was never the same every time he returned back; his mother, who had brought him up with her mother (his Grandmother), died in 1999; since then he has travelled back to London frequently to find the previous 40 years, but only seems to find them when he writes down what he saw; you can see what he sees (possibly better than he can) at: https://mlewisredford.wordpress.com/; if you bump into him there, give him some directions would you?

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: monument to vainglory
Bowie wormhole: new-found love – poewieview #36
childhood & Thames wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
Dad & divorce & texture wormhole: beepbeep
evening wormhole: alighted
horozon wormhole: 1966
light wormhole: so pleased to see you again
London wormhole: 1967
Mum wormhole: 1967
Nan wormhole: work
purple & river wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
travelling wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
words wormhole: breathing out
world wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show

 

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new-found love – poewieview #36

03 Monday Oct 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

1971, 2016, 5*, amplification, Bowie, clothes, concert, green, identity, love, naked, pose, ritual, self, smile, sound

                there is really very little to cast
                `cept the quiet and clothèd pose

                with primal-screech response
                dampened in amplified arc, which

                I shall wear with naked torso
                paraded along the auditorium-intimate,

                heightening register drawing up
                the flexèd leer, green and sickly, in its

                new-found love

 

I cried sadly, for a love I could not obey; summoned up through the dread rituals of Shadow Man, 1971; Star, 1971; Velvet Goldmine, 1971; Sweet Head, 1971

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

 

 

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

Bowie & identity wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35
green wormhole: magnificent salad
love wormhole: moment
smile wormhole: the 19th century
sound wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?

 

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cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35

13 Tuesday Sep 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1971, 2016, 6*, becoming, being, Bowie, creation, death, dress, found, hidden, history, identity, life, possibility, quotidian, searching, society, story, thread, time, voices, wardrobe, words, writing

            cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread

            in all ongoing history, queasy quotidian iteration,
            of all the plaited threads, this particular will always

            splay without of the weave; strangely aligned with
            aquiline possibility ‘leave them alone and they’ll

            come home’ transgressive tales behind them,
            all dressed-up in words with open collars throaty

            upon a time improbable, hidden in plane site,
            hiding in plain sight but easiest found in wardrobes

 

outertextual in The Bewlay Brothers from 1971; there are more from here, but not now …

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

 

 

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

being & identity wormhole: [once a] dilemminal [always a dilemminal]
Bowie & death wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
history & voices wormhole: and smile / like a bud
life & society wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
searching wormhole: chartless …
time wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – A Sign of the Times
words wormhole: poessay III: jijimuge
writing wormhole: AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!

 

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through the pane – poewieview #34

23 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1971, 2016, 5*, afternoon, being, books, Bowie, death, doing, friends, green, life, listening, looking, love, pipes, questions, quiet, sky, square, stain, step, streets, time, Victorian houses, windows

          spikes in constant
          exchange through the pane
          try in vain to
          puncture the sky; sky

          rising
          but – what – shall – I –
          be; steps upwards, steps
          aside, but – what – is – going – on

          look-away-
          turn-head-to-friend –
          check, with love –
          look-back

          shall I leaf the books,
          shall I lengthen the wick,
          interrogate streets, but –
          will – the – streets – listen …

          exiting languidly in the late green afternoon
          amongst the pipes, back windows and
          soot-stained Victorian houses all about
          the lonely square

 

peered through Eight Line Poem & Changes, 1971, after January 10th 2016

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

 

 

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

afternoon & Bowie & looking wormhole: weight of high sash windows – poewieview #33
being wormhole: travel
books wormhole: Life on Mars? – poewieview #31
death wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – the soft canticle of the gourds:
doing & quiet & windows wormhole: languidly close the portal
green wormhole: fresh destiny
life wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Safe Home
listening wormhole: my seat // now
love wormhole: listen willya
sky wormhole: passing skies
streets wormhole: coagulating
time wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
Victorian houses wormhole: opening

 

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weight of high sash windows – poewieview #33

29 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

1971, 2016, afternoon, air, blue, Bowie, eyes, green, grey, kitchen, lime, looking, piano, shadow, sky, windows

                           weight of high sash windows

                           the under-cupboard shadow
                           hung lime tendrils in daylight

                           air out the corner of my eye
                           without looking it took the

                           whole afternoon to slowly
                           drift across the blue and green

                           kitchen achieving a seamless
                           high grey sky – plant shake on the piano

 

mlred in the dry quick of sand Quicksand, 1971

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

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: Life on Mars? – poewieview #31
air wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
blue & shadow wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – from arm to nature, doing nothing
Bowie wormhole: carpet worn / to the backing – poewieview #30
eyes wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – mmpph’
green & piano wormhole: trellis / and wisteria – poewieview #29
grey & looking wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
kitchen wormhole: what life went on
lime wormhole: the figure “46” / in frosted glass
sky wormhole: Is There / Life on Mars? – poewieview #32
windows wormhole: El Palacio, 1946

 

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carpet worn / to the backing – poewieview #30

22 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2016, 4*, Bowie, breeze, carpet, charcoal, clouds, grey, horizon, life, trees, warp, weft

                                   carpet worn
                                   to the backing

                                   warps and wefts
                                   blew through
                                   leafing trees while

                                   charcoal belly
                                   of cloud hung
                                   below the horizon

 

the continuance of birth: Kooks, 1971

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

 

 

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

Bowie wormhole: trellis / and wisteria – poewieview #29
breeze & trees wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – from arm to nature, doing nothing
carpet wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
clouds & grey & life wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – On Doing Nothing
horizon wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment

 

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Is There / Life on Mars? – poewieview #32

21 Thursday Jul 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

'scape, 1999, 5*, birds, Bowie, branches, chirp, east, grey, growing, leaves, life, Mars, sky, sunset, tin

                                Is There
                                Life on Mars?

                      new leaves
                      on new branches
                      grown

                      sideways and pointing
                      east

                      through the old
                      branches the sun

                      sets
                      polishing the tin sky
                      otherwise

                      seamlessly grey and the birds
                      chirp

 

sky as high as the world – Life on Mars?

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

 

 

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

birds wormhole: the ancient tree
Bowie wormhole: Life on Mars? – poewieview #31
branches wormhole: reaching branch
grey & life wormhole: carpet worn / to the backing – poewieview #30
leaves wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
sky wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – On Doing Nothing
sunset wormhole: “walking …”

 

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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...'
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  • 'I can write ...'
  • like butterflies on / buddleia
  • meanwhile
  • 'hello old friend ...'
  • under the blue and blue sky

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