breathing through hypnagogia

Tags

2014, 5*, breath, breathing, care, career, dream, hypnagogia, illusion, letting go, observing, passing, waking, work

                breathing through hypnagogia

                                rousing
                into congealed injustice
                                                career of my 40s
                                                all sticky
                                between breaths, under fingernails
                I can know   longer   care

                                observe
                                it will pass
                                breathe

                                                                let it disperse by itself
                                and just do the work with
strong sense of illusion

 

 

 

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

breath wormhole: the quiet whale
breathing wormhole: do I
career wormhole: just saying, is all VIII: keeping up toxic appearences
dream wormhole: I turn to wake up
letting go wormhole: I keep / waiting to be discovered and get lost in anticipation
passing wormhole: this time
work wormhole: work

 

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while

Tags

2015, 5*, care, career, chair, conservatory, professionalism, sunlight, table, teaching

                marking books
                during the holiday –

                                because I’m a professional, I suppose –
because I give a care nevertheless

                while sunlight breaks through
                like chalk over the upturned chair legs

                and the folded table top
                in the conservatory

 

retirement #5: written, of course, before I retired, but only now does the significance break through the clouds and the smokey grey perspex roof

 

 

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

career & teaching wormhole: what wounds have you got?
conservatory wormhole: balance
professionalism wormhole: listen willya
table wormhole: returning home handsome

 

listen willya

Tags

2012, 7*, allowing, anxiety, budget, buildings, business, care, communication, consumerism, creativity, David Cameron, education, evaluation, exploration, extension, flag, Have, history, inclusion, innovation, investment, justice, knowledge, learning, lesson, life, listening, love, management, Margaret Thatcher, market, money, nurture, ownership, politics, privatisation, professionalism, prospect, public service, public service cuts, reform, slogans, society, speech, statistics, status, talking, teaching, time, tolerance, Tony Blair, understanding, value-bled education, value-led education, values, vision, wisdom

                                listen willya

                David Cameron, Tony stupid Blair, Margaret bloody Thatcher,
                and all your snivelling Secretaries of Career, and learn this, now –

                                                   don’t go!__
                                business ) education

                you’ve created a RIGHT MESS trying to make it go
                and you’ve spent a QUARTER CENTURY trying to make it go

                trying to work it out with long division, taking everything apart
                to make it go; it just has no value anymore

                nothing has any value anymore, no one cares anymore, we are
                all just anxious; dy’know

                you said KUE* every lesson, I said don’t be so silly,
                I spent five years making it work, I said I’ve made it work

                you said don’t be so silly – it doesn’t influence the statistics;
                I have to go to school now and pretend I’m a professional

                in all sorts of ways to make it look like it goes,
                but it just doesn’t; y’know we’re going to have

                to start all over again if we want anything like education in society again,
                right back to the drawing board; and no history; let’s see –

                                                           _creativity_
                                              nurture ) education

                                               exploration_
                                listening ) education

                                                          _wisdom__
                                              tenure ) education

                           _inclusion_
                vision ) education

                                                                    _innovation_
                                              management ) education

                                                    _extension_
                                exploration ) education

                                 _allowing_
                creativity ) education

                                                            _tolerance_
                                              wisdom ) education

                                                       ___love___
                                              care ) education

                                   _prospect_
                investment ) education

                                        __justice_
                                love ) education

                oh I could go on and on; and – no offence – but stuff your statistics
                and your statuses and your budgets and your slogans

                and your privatisation and your reform, screw them up
                into one huge ball and throw them

                in the bin, and let’s just have some
                honest communication now; you, all of you, went wrong

                as soon as you thought that public service should be value for money,
                (should save money, should make money), but no –

                                               ___don’t go!___
                                business ) public service

                a society that is alive, and rugged, makes money
                to build public service, not own it, to run public service,

                not demand of it, gives service to the public, not a market,
                gives life to society, not just consuming it

                you lot don’t know the first thing about big society, none of you,
                public service should absorb money, it should be

                soaked with money, it should lose money: the only reason
                money should exist is for public service,

                because the service it gives is always far more important
                than a big building and a flag;

                so, stop playing your endless games of balance and measure –
                you’re wasting far too much human –

                and start saying something alive, start doing something truthful;
                c’mon now, you look ridiculous

 

* Knowledge Understanding Evaluation

                                                   don’t go!__
                                business ) education

it might well be that the above format won’t make any sense if you are anywhere under the age of 45: it is the revered and ancient way of setting out division calculations in Mathematics; it ‘reads’, “business [divided into] education [=] don’t go”, where you might more readily have “5 [divided into] 60 [=] 12” … the result appears ‘on top’, leaving the space below to do the working out of long division (“17 [divided into] 43.6299 [=] 2.56646470588”; ‘show your working-out, boy’ thwackk)

I first wrote this in 2012 when there was industrial action over teachers’ pay and conditions – just about the time I started completely losing my emotional marbles at work; I have slightly reconfigured the piece and re-posted it on the day that the NUT is taking industrial action over teachers’ workload, pay and budget cuts: what does the government respond: ‘we are spending more than ever on education’!? … ‘show your working-out, girl’ thwackk!!!

 

 

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

allowing wormhole: need
anxiety wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
buildings wormhole: the policies came to nothing
communication & politics wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
creativity & life & love & society & teaching & time wormhole: ashramas
education wormhole: the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford
evaluation & understanding wormhole: the Apple
Have wormhole: Jericho
history wormhole: currency of generations
justice wormhole: dedication
knowledge wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – introdepthion
learning 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 …
listening wormhole: plop!
management wormhole: dry rot
money wormhole: tired
professionalism wormhole: dash
speech wormhole: a crack of lightning / in the dark of night
talking wormhole: “Darling” – poewieview #28
value-led education wormhole: Totnes
values wormhole: Dear Sir/Madam,

 

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

 

when writing // stay

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

 

prayer to my self

Tags

2010, adjustment, anger, breath, care, career, dedication, discovery, dream, injustice, legacy, letting go, life, light, listening, moon, others, prayer, reputation, self, space, talking to myself, tragedy, vindication, work

 

 

 

                                prayer to my self

                                I had my stab at life – obdurate and rarefied –
                                I glimpsed the moon and captured its light
                                but nobody wanted it

                                let the tragedy go, let the injustice go
                                let the anger and indignation go
                                they are not the self

                                let the devastating ripostes before whole crowds go
                                let the overlooking and insignificance go
                                they are not the self

                                let the secret work and its Discovery – the Legacy – go
                                let the live-on-with-open-wounds-and-dejection go
                                let the career and the reputation go
                                they are all not the self

                                let there be the space from where all of this came
                                to let go and adjust, let there be the breath for new dreams
                                and the listening to declare, the pause for resolution
                                and the care to let go

 

 

 

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

breath wormhole: the Conqueror
career wormhole: the stance of Buscema // qualitatively
dedication wormhole: dedication
dream wormhole: dream 260713
letting go wormhole: lo
life wormhole: the endless acts of life
light wormhole: of a sudden // all the time
listening & talking to myself wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting
moon wormhole: up here
others wormhole: good looking
space wormhole: fall
vindication wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
work wormhole: I do