my uncomfortable life

Tags

2019, 6*, abandonment, activity, anger, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, breakdown, broken, career, closed, compromise, contentment, context, Dad, disappointment, expectation, experience, eyes, feeling sorry for myself, frustration, greed, hope, injustice, laziness, life, management, no voice, people, politicians, powerlessness, Principal, requirement, resentment, self-cherishing, self-confidence, self-doubt, self-esteem, slogans, society, spin, teaching, thought, Tony Blair, turmoil, waiting, words, work

                I did not know contentment
                at work, what was required,
                what I thought, I never wholly
                got my teaching … sorted

                turmoil, and even when not
                outwardly angry, I was
                closed off and unapproachable,
                carrying anger and resentment

                like a thorny bush tied
                to my back since Dad left
                and people were ‘phony’ and
                society was stupid and words

                were insincere and all activity
                was a compromise and my equals cheated
                and laziness was always greedy
                and hope was rude and the politicians

                were tricksters and Tony Bliar
                and managers slogan-shifted like there was no tomorrow
                and the Principals
                wouldn’t know what to do with good practice if it writhed around suggestively on their desk in front of them and made them delicious promises of future dangerous liaison                      

                and by default I am
                at least disappointed, usually frustrated
                and often impotent-angry with them
                when they invariably reference me

                (and they always reference me)
                or when I am actually wronged,
                and then I’ll blow, beyond all immediate context
                because I have already been smouldering,

                waiting for the wrong to happen,
                expecting the wrong to happen,
                experiencing the wrong happening
                even before it has manifested;

                and I am right, it is wrong
                and compromised and greedy and unprincipled
                what they have done, even
                when they haven’t

                given expression to it, in fact
                especially when they haven’t
                given full expression to it
                and are sloganising and spinning

                that what is happening
                is entirely something else;
                and the powerlessness of
                not being able to have a voice

                no appeal to a universal
                right and wrong … built me up
                with no recourse and, I get broken;
                look at my tired eyes – my uncomfortable life

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara VI, 3: A mind which walks with, which harbours, which is in the grip of, which is poisoned with anger and hate can neither establish nor enjoy any state of calm or peace, any sense of well-being or equipoise, any contentment, any resolution, neither can it feel any joy or delight, any sense of kindliness or love, nor can it sleep or rest, when the shard of aversion and hate is stuck and buried deep in one’s heart; but … I have retired now, I, am coming through

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: south horizon
breakdown wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
career wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
compromise wormhole: raised brow
Dad wormhole: the reach turned to love
eyes wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
life & society wormhole: the old man;
management wormhole: how to teach
people wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
teaching wormhole: and … // … sound
thought wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
waiting wormhole: all // are // none
words wormhole: SPRING AND ALL VI by William Carlos Williams
work wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873

 

animus rises – powieview #37

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

 

nothing significant

Tags

2013, being, broken, doing, living

                pulled my back doing
                nothing significant

                so now I am a baby
                to the world

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: redundant
doing wormhole: bud
living wormhole: Open – All – Ours

 

just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …

Tags

2013, 2016, 6*, accountability, air, breathing, broken, career, dialectic, encounter, experience, fantasy, oxymoronic, pavement, practice, Principal, recognition, results-led education, sidelined, skill, slogans, staring, talking, teaching, time, voices, words

                just saying, is all VI

                agh; the Principal
                walking this way
                can’t avoid it have
                to talk to him; ‘how

                ARE you?’; and to
                my reclacitrant ‘OK’
                he tells me my
                experience and skill

                count for a lot and
                I walk away staring
                at the edge of the
                pavement trying to

                fit the words to
                decades of sideline;
                why didn’t I just
                scream in his face

                that his word and
                his breathing are
                oxymoronic to each
                other as I so often

                fantasise doing; but
                I am broken by this
                place in which these
                OK-spores are air,

                I have no leverage
                of dialectic from
                which to speak, so
                easy to evade my lob

                and practice by
                referring the Briefings:
                ‘a little precious’, ‘not
                a team player’, ‘ask him

                about his children’,
                ‘doesn’t affect results’,
                ‘doesn’t make sense’;
                smile and shift-agenda,

                endear by using his
                own name, slip in a
                Slogan and, there,
                a free and frank

                exchange which
                has left me accountable
                for my own outbreath
                …

 

as of September 2016 I am retired early from teaching – without prejudice – because I could no longer find any more inbreaths to keep practising; the encounter happened about three years previously, the humanomanagerialasphyxia virus took hold about 2001 beginning an odyssey with no resolve; now I teach myself to breathe again by embracing … no resolve; the next ‘just saying, is all’ will be about life inside the plastic bag over my head, I know it, I’ve written in, I’ve breathed it

 

 

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

air & teaching wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy
breathing wormhole: sleep now
career wormhole: travel
practice & time wormhole: interim
recognition wormhole: happen//ing
results-led education wormhole: teached / in the ass
talking wormhole: familiasyncopation
voices wormhole: did I get old?
words wormhole: Prajnaparamita // Maitreya

 

travel

Tags

2013, being, broken, career, fracture, holiday, identity, leisure, poem, seeing, travelling, work, world

                                                travel

                I can’t get a comfortable seat
                to see the poem, even though

                I am in newplace on holiday,
                I cannot see I cannot see

                in this world of leisure and elasticity
                because of a dream that

                delivers me broken unto the world,
                then because I cannot

                tolerate the break, I fracture from sight
     to the world

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: even / a second
career wormhole: chartless …
holiday & seeing wormhole: too late:
identity wormhole: the purple mist between
travelling wormhole: gone black
work wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Safe Home
world wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?

 

dry rot

Tags

2012, anger, breakdown, broken, care, career, creation, culture, decision, disregard, giving, growth, illness, management, managerialism, resentment, speech, survival, teaching, thought, work

 

 

 

                                dry rot

                                still

                resentment sets in
                                I go to work anyway
                but the resentment is always there
                                I create resources I mark books
                                I teach lessons
                but the resentment is always there
                                I do my fucking duty
                                I do an extra parent’s evening
                but the resentment is always there
                                some manager asks how I am
                                I tell them I survive
                                              (but I don’t tell them
                                               I don’t thrive –
                                               `not quick enough)
                but the resentment is always there

                I offered my thought
                               my creation
                               my care
                because I nurtured growth
                              I cultured way
                              I wanted to give

                                AND YOU PAUSED
                IN YOUR BUSY-NESS AND PRESSURE
                JUST LONG ENOUGH TO GET ON
                                WITH YOUR BUSINESS AND PRESSURE TO COMPENSATE THE OH, SO, ANXIETY OF
                                MAKING THOSE TOUGH DECISIONS FOR THE SAKE OF PROGRESS (PROFIT?)
                                TO OVERLOOK

                                what I continue to think
                                what is still on the table
                                              unopened
                                but which has lost the will
                                              to project anymore

                                              you

                                              make

                                              me

                                              sick

                you made me sick
                                you created a sick teacher
                even while I attend each day
                                for the sake of absence management
                even while I create and mark
                                for the sake of growth
                even while I sit through a meeting
                                which dribbles on about ‘good to outstanding’ until it is running down your neck
                still the resentment is always there
                                sticky invisible and malignant

 

I know: we’ve heard it all before; just indulge this little toddler for a little while longer, will you; it has only slightly altered since I wrote it a good four years ago, like being in a boat on the sea, buffeted and brûlée’d, looking for where the sky becomes screen and the prow rips through it (c’mon, film buffs, what am I talking about?)

 

 

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

breakdown & management wormhole: Dear Sir/Madam,
career wormhole: need
giving wormhole: tong len / the inauguration of another – timely – butter fly effect / taking and giving
managerialism wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
speech wormhole: fine
teaching wormhole: aghh – we’ve been infected / it’s spreading through the system / we’re losing our files … / it’s taken out the processor … / I, I can’t open with this program anymore … / it’s scanning me – / I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program / from it …
thought wormhole: the both passive and transitive / non-presumptive pre-conceptualist attenuation of being
work wormhole: work

 

obituary

Tags

2012, 7*, breakdown, broken, career, death, kitchen, life, lifetimes, managerialism, speech, teaching

 

 

 

                                   obituary

my career – teaching minds to follow through their own thought –
died on the morning of 121212.   It was twenty five years old.

it had been suffering from the degenerative effects of the
humanomanagerialasphyxia virus for at least eleven years

it fought the illness bravely in frozen anger up to the very last minute
but succumbed while getting ready for work when the kettle came to the boil

it came undignified in long hiccupped lines of “I can’t do this anymore”
a few battered heads against the cupboards in anger that it should come to this

and finally crouching foetal in the corner by the sink face
cracked heartbeat held until the next inhalationnnn____________________________

                           ______________

                I am in mourning now – lost seconds where I realise
                I will not breathe in the same way anymore

                I will not lob the thought or fence the field
                or hold the bridge or improvise vision or applaud

                or note or remember or give a new world
                or hold the eyes looking out of the cave

                with a slight smile
                anymore

 

 

 

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

breakdown wormhole: the Mark Redford Problem
career wormhole: really?
death wormhole: slipstream
kitchen wormhole: ‘my Dot …’
life wormhole: realisation
lifetimes wormhole: zen against / the window
managerialism & teaching wormhole: ‘if you want to rely on me …’
speech wormhole: so lonely