• Bodhisattvacharyavatara
    • Introduction
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    • 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
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    • William Carlos Williams
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mlewisredford

~ may the Supreme and Precious Jewel Bodhichitta take birth where it has not yet done so …

mlewisredford

Tag Archives: contentment

my uncomfortable life

29 Monday Apr 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, reflectionary

≈ 2 Comments

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

 

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wakeoutofadream

10 Wednesday May 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

2013, 6*, career, circular poem, contentment, CPD, defensive, defining, dream, freedom, gap, history, identity, KUE, lesson observation, loneliness, measure, process, professionalism, propaganda, sitting, stillness, struggle, teaching, time, true nature, waking

                                                                                wakeoutofadream
                       both content and free                            where I struggle
                   that is your true self                                         to take the measure
      and inhabit the loneliness                                              of the class I track and train
               and go with neither                                                  brilliant to my design
between define and defend                                                      and told upon inspection
           (nothing to stand on)                                                      I should be engineering them
                        to find the gap                                                   by process
to history or the propaganda                                                and should have been
   moving neither left nor right                                         for years now
                                   keep your seat                            what have I been doing?
                                                              just

 

 

 

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

career & identity wormhole: weight
circular poem: no / thing
dream wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
history wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35
loneliness wormhole: lonely and free
professionalism wormhole: retirement
sitting wormhole: bud
stillness wormhole: still
teaching wormhole: Virginia
time wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything

 

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my seat // now

17 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

2016, 4*, balance, cafe, cars, contentment, doing, giving, grey, hair, Have, identity, joy, listening, mauve, others, Oxfam, patience, pink, red, seat, self-compassion, sitting, sound, speech, talking, vista, walking

                I lost my seat of joy
                in giving, I might have had it yesterday,
                but today I find myself
                gilled by her pink coat to do
                all the talking and irritated by
                the loud-enough heels to do all the walking

                I lost my seat of vista
                when stopping, I might have had it yesterday but
                today I cannot stop hearing
                the all-things-considered voice
                out back of the Oxfam shop wondering if dictatorships aren’t what’s needed in the end, I
                have to leave the shop

                I lost my seat of patience
                in getting, I might have had it yesterday but today
                I clear-the-throat listening to the too-exhaust-[ed] luxury cars
                revving and braking to leave the NCP

                I lost my seat of balance
                when doing, I might have had it yesterday but today I must listen
                to her hold attention with red-mauved hair
                and one greyed temple talk-clear to her back-turned friend,
                from the other side of the crowded room

                `never had a settled seat to miss, that I remember – `still trying to find that one –
                `never lost my seat and been happy about it, until

now

 

 

 

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

balance wormhole: balancing // with a whole lot of deft
cars & pink wormhole: the policies came to nothing
doing wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
giving wormhole: dry rot
grey & identity & sound wormhole: Elektra
hair wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
Have & listening & speech & talking wormhole: listen willya
mauve wormhole: between thoughts
others wormhole: reaching branch
red wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
sitting wormhole: substance
walking wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment

 

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lost self

01 Saturday Mar 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2012, 4*, Bodhisattva, career, contentment, identity, life, love, powerlessness, recognition, self-compassion, superhero

 

 

 

                                     when ignored and powerless I say
                                     nothing and wish I was a superhero
                                              trouble is
                                     I am ever invisible and by-the-way which
                                     then tips me to wish I was a titanic bodhisattva

                                              if only
                                     I could get all my acts
                                     together and stop feeling sorry for my constant
                                              lost self
                                     I would feel more comfortable in the love
                                     I have rather than awkward in the recognition
                                              I don’t

 

 

 

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

career & recognition wormhole: I don’t think I could do it anymore
identity wormhole: tag cloud poem III – the journey to BEING and back again
life wormhole: transition
love wormhole: again
superhero wormhole: inverse superhero

 

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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

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