in deed

Tags

2019, 8*, Arya Lalitavistara, austerity, being, birth, black, Buddha, children, consumerism, death, doing, ears, fear, grin, hate, identity, infrastructure, investment, karma, letting go, lifetimes, love, mother, nirmanakaya, nose, samadhi, shame, skeleton, society, son, thought, war, womb, world

                                I

                gave birth to you, I
                held you deep within my very womb,
                the very kernel of all the labour of all my life’s beings and I

                gave you up to being
                with all the love of whole investment
                placed in care of self in state, you cannot,

                                just
                                die

                                __O—

                … she addressed her son

                who sat unmoved
                to the whole world’s reach
                that only his bones leaned together
                dry and upright

                who sat unconsumed
                to the whole world’s glut
                that to feel his stomach
                was to grasp his spine

                who sat unloved
                to the whole world’s reflection that
                children poked grass in his ear ‘till it
                came out his nose

                who sat unknown
                to the whole world’s shame
                that he was dust-black as a
                tree stump hideously grinning

                                __O—

                and know, mother, I do not die;
                I embroiled with the world to show
                the terrible wake of uncoupling
                her greasy mechinations,

                                in deed

 

honnnnnnnned like the string from a lute, not too tight not too loose, from chapter 17 of the Arya Lalitavistara Sutra in which the Prince’s mother (who had died and gone to heaven) came to see her son after he had been practising austerities for six years and was on the point of dying; she feared he was taking his quest to extremes, but he calmly told her that (the point of the whole Sutra being called ‘Lalita’, a ‘play’) that he had to show, in human form, what the two extremes of living in life were, in order to then show the way between to two extremes to liberation

 

 

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

being & war wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
black wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
Buddha wormhole: the old man;
death wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
doing wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
identity wormhole: threshold to behold
letting go wormhole: the reach turned to love
lifetimes wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
love wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
mother wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
society & thought wormhole: my uncomfortable life
war wormhole: on facing the Have

 

Advertisement

you

Tags

2018, 3*, consumerism, credit, emptiness, Have, identity, need, realisation

                                you

                take stuff away,
                you realise how
                much you don’t
                need it, as long as

                you don’t mind
                facing the void a bit
                while your credit
                is being checked

 

 

 

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

emptiness wormhole: scintillating to mind’s content
Have wormhole: so / do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or … / Rumplestiltskin
identity wormhole: getting fat in me old age
realisation wormhole: all the low clouds keeping pace / through the train window, / always arriving, whether fast or / slow, but never actually moving

 

written relief to / creeping anaesthesia / through palimpsest / and crankled page

Tags

2013, 6*, being, buying, centre, consumerism, driving, Have, identity, living, page, passing, progress, self, texture, travelling, writing

                written relief to
                creeping anaesthesia
                through palimpsest
                and crankled page

                driving soaks you into
                the process of passing
                inexorable to progress
                oblivious to a      centre

                here comes a service station
                let me choose a centre to buy
                inevitable to consume and then
                obliged to define myself     through

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards / with the forelegs hanging down obscene / reaching some height blindly to connect / out from the long-stalk tri-separating up- / to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what / is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know- / what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and- / it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”
Have wormhole: 20th century
identity wormhole: wakeoutofadream
living wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
passing wormhole: municipal garden
texture wormhole: darkness
travelling wormhole: too much in arrival
writing wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey

 

darkness

Tags

2015, 7*, Alan Moore, construction, consumerism, dark, Eddie Campbell, edge, eyes, From Hell, life, light, perspective, sleep, society, stasis, texture, time, violence

                the darkness
is always gathering, the light
                only picks edge and selected texture

                it is hard
to tell the age we are in – scarcity
                of perspective, rolled-up eyes – it is

                the sudden
violence releases it, throws
                absorbing stasis to scatter

                but why bother
for when light is digested complete
                it shines through all the click-construction

                and neon
nevertheless; it has been millennia digesting
                and it

                                                will …
                                be …
                con
sumed; the world cannot let light just be,
                sleep now is just

                darkness

 

a little snippet from askance From Hell, askance from chapter ten of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, gwn’n’avvalook

 

 

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

Alan Moore wormhole: hinged – From Hell ch. V
eyes & life wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
light & texture wormhole: south horizon
sleep wormhole: sleep now
society wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show
time wormhole: breathing out

 

Doctor Strange II – … things are the same again

Tags

2012, 20th century, age, anatta, beauty, belief, chaos, consolidation, consumerism, Dormammu, Dr Strange, emptiness, Have, health, heart, life, power, society, thought, wealth, world

 

the last few lines from Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street without which the title [and the poem] of Doctor Strange II … will not make much sense; I post these works in anticipation of the Doctor Strange movie which is due to be released this November/October …

                                                                                 the face in the orb implied                
                                that everything had changed and that
                                                              things
                would never be the same again

 

 

                                                              II

                                … things are the same again
                                              always have
                                              always had
                                                              the second half of the twentieth century
                                incorporated it
                                                              you either had it or you wanted it
                                              either way it fed the corporation
                                              everyone fed the corporation
                                                                                 by wealth by health
                                                                                                            by belief
                                                              this is the way things are
                                                                                 dwelt at the very heart of the world
                                                                                                            turning growing fiery
                                there comes a time
                                              when the power and the beauty
                                                                                 become elliptical
                                                                                 to each other
                                                              to themselves
                                                                                                            then chaos will come                
                                              you mark my words
                                thinks the aged Genghis high on the edge of the world
                                                              aged enough in life
                                              to see beyond the self:                                there is nothing there
                there is nothing there

 

Anyhoo, I wrote a series of poems tracking Doctor Strange through a key set of issues written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Gene Colan; (Dr Strange #6-13 (Feb 1975-April 1976)); these issues are some of the best comics I have ever read; they were also seminal in shaping me to become the significantly un-noticeable writer I have become to this day; I posted them in 2012 and then re-posted them again in 2014 because I thought the film was immanent – it wasn’t; but, dammitall, I like these babies so I’m going to post them again, spread out until November 4th …

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
beauty wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
Dr Strange wormhole: my / superpower
emptiness wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
Have wormhole: my seat // now
life wormhole: tiling
power wormhole: tired
society wormhole: the / bright yellow / world
thought & world wormhole: Elektra

 

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,

 

Dr Strange III – the needs of billions

Tags

2012, 6*, Clea, consumerism, Dormammu, Dr Strange, father, Gene Colan, generation, Have, head, humanity, life, mother, society, son, Steely Dan, Steve Englehart, time, words, world, yellow

 

sequel to Dr Strange II – … things are the same again and Dr Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street respectively; Dr Strange appears in this episode, but at a receding measure of size rather than distance; what ever is ‘strange’ about the character is that he plays an infinitesimal part in the build-up of events, but is nonetheless the essential hinge in the whole business for the events to not matter: an ersatz-ordinary human in an en-maddening world who is nevertheless the only sanity in the whole experience when he sees through his own ersatz

 

 

                                              a colossus
                strides effortlessly across canyons and generation
                                fed by the needs of billions
                                              engorged enough to consume
                                              itself nucleic
                                it speaks with flaming head
unstable
                                too much
                                                              too much that
                                              it will disperse itself even as it reaches,
                the needs of billions
                                              flooded through a world of veins
                                                              like pumped yellow fat
                the mother is bound the father is blind
                                              and only all the words of worlds
                                                                                 will speak
                                                              all while Strange and Devotion
                                              expand through dimensions
                grown alarmingly through the stages of their lives
                                              quick for to get there

                                                              wanting
                                                              it      all
                                                              the son
                                sits ‘by the blackened wall
                                              he does it all, he thinks he’s died
                                                              and gone to heaven’*

 

askance from: Dr Strange #6-13 (Feb 1975-April 1976); Marvel; writer: Steve Englehart; artist: Gene Colan
* Steely Dan, The Royal Scam, The Royal Scam, 1976

 

 

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

Dr Strange & Gene Colan & society & world wormhole: Dr Strange II – … things are the same again
father wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
Have & life wormhole: Matildenplatz / & Luisen
mother wormhole: letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love
time & yellow wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
words wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate

 

poessay VIII: / educational behaviourism

Tags

2012, 4*, behaviourism, communication, compromise, consultation, consumerism, creativity, dialogue, education, educational behaviourism, giving, Have, identity, learning, management, managerialism, measure, mechanism, opening, poessay, results-led education, teaching, vocation

                                poessay VIII:
                                educational behaviourism

                     teaching is a
                                conversation
                                          between teacher and pupil between school and teacher

                     management of education
                                has shifted from collegiate sharing to hierarchical interview
                                          without consultation

                     a velvet coup deep into the Heartland of Vocation – the desire to give Opening of Mind –                
                                          which has nullified teacher creativity and reduced learning to                
                                                      controlled behaviour, which you can Have

                                dialogue is dissipated
                                communication devolves to
                                demand and consumption
                                there is no interaction
                                there is no communication
                                only mechanism
                                because mechanism is easily switched
                                and mechanism is easily measured

                     the more that communication is systemic and systematic
                                the more it provides springboard for pupils to define themselves            
                                          against

                     the inverse norm of behaviour in which individuals site themselves            
                                and against which education must then try to            
                                          work

 

 

 

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

communication wormhole: sunny day
compromise wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
creativity wormhole: I don’t think I could do it anymore
education wormhole: Put service back into people rather than productivity
giving & Have wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
identity & teaching wormhole: “I think I’ll have a nice sandwich”
learning wormhole: Assessment for Learning: the Lamp
management & results-led education wormhole: … just saying is all I
managerialism wormhole: that’s me / in the corner that’s me in the spot light / losing my religion*
poessay wormhole: poessay VI: // truth

 

multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)

Tags

1930s, 2014, 9*, age, Allen Ginsberg, architecture, avenue, Batman, being, birds, buildings, choice, city, collective unconscious, consumerism, death, doing, doors, earrings, emptiness, faces, Frank Miller, giving, grey, Have, identity, Joker, letting go, life, lightning, lime, magazine, mother of pearl, night, olive, option, red, Shantideva, silhouette, sky, society, sound, space, speech, statue, steam, Superman, talking, talking to myself, thunder, topaz, tv, vindication, walls, wisdom

 

The Dark Knight Returns (1986); writer: Frank Miller; artist: Frank Miller & Lynn Varley

 

 

 

                earrings: left then right
                static square and upright obelisk

                steam across every avenue
                before the silhouette architecture with grizzly coat of ornamentation

                earrings: lime-olive horizontal
                and block full-stop

                the rabbit-chase fall below
                is sudden guttural and city-wide

RMMBL
                ‘a flash of lightning in the dark of night’*
                                                                                 KRAKK

                all the effortless intelligence beyond the door
                beyond the wall        with bat-darts

                earrings: mother of pearl
                pause and equals

and there he is jumping taller than a building across the only spaces left now:
                the sky and the ante-room before preconception (a cowardly and superstitious lot)

                the spires stand clean
                in the grey-wash sky

                where gothic statues acknowledge
                the impossible pinion and swing

                “… I have to know”**
                and stone manes splay when he sees “a reflection”***

                earrings: topaz pennies
                one and three-dangling

                and while the gently-cornered squares
                talk the Worm the Bluff and the Dribble

                others take the space down in the dump
                where a position cannot be found

                where the position cannot be resisted
                no matter how young you are

                no matter how strong you are in the realistic world
                in all the floorboard rooms the TVs and magazines

                stack positions on shelves and in refrigerators
                and in wrappers multifarious in choice and option

                any space here
                would make everything all the more ugly

                no
                no

                the move needs to come from
space of no choice and it can never be obvious it can never be choice

                Bat-signal
                bright on the side of Moloch****

                stone birds from the 1930s
                earrings: gone

                ah, but the world grows [not] up
                rather it folds over itself and regenerates

                with billowed ruffles
                atop old buildings

                “so many smiles / so many faces / all the same”*****
                “every year they grow smaller”******

                earrings: vampyre’s teeth soaked
                serious faces        all the same

                when you break too many of the important rules
                you’ve acted to define yourself vindicated

                you haven’t given    anything
                it doesn’t count

                death happens by itself without design
                all you have to do is let it all go –

                the purpose and the self –
                and you could live clean for a hundred years

 

* Bodhisattvacharyavatara I, 5, Shantideva (translated Stephen Batchelor): ‘Just as a flash of lightning on a dark, cloudy night / For an instant brightly illuminates all, / Likewise in this world, through the might of Buddha, / A wholesome thought rarely and briefly appears’
** Book I, P.43 & 45
*** Book I, P.47
**** Howl
***** Book III, P.25
****** Book III, P.25

 

 

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

Allen Ginsberg wormhole: poetry
architecture wormhole: stranger / if we met
Batman wormhole: tag cloud poem III – the journey to BEING and back again
being & vindication wormhole: heavy load
birds & talking wormhole: sunny day
buildings wormhole: the edges of my reach
city wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
death & life & night & sky wormhole: … sshhh
doing wormhole: the meaning is the moment all day long
doors wormhole: walking / right into the side of the very door left / open for me
emptiness & space wormhole: wha’
faces wormhole: quest in brown
giving wormhole: practise what you doing / give what you having / breathe what you remember
grey & lime & olive wormhole: Hever
Have wormhole: shared anxiety
identity wormhole: prologue
letting go & talking to myself wormhole: … and
lightning wormhole: jagged panel
red wormhole: that’s me / in the corner that’s me in the spot light / losing my religion*
Shantideva wormhole: walking
silhouette wormhole: clouds
society wormhole: the sounds the difficulty and the long long strands of liquorice
sound wormhole: someone called Frank
speech wormhole: mlewisredford introductory complete life audit confessional
Superman wormhole: inverse superhero
tv wormhole: Love Me Do
walls wormhole: Knapps