distance

                long retired from land, unable to
                keep soil from his boots, continues
                working, earth and life, picking up

                branches and stones; the blades
                cut clean, men in the meadows
                sway to the rhythm of scythes,

                stems fall graceful to swathe and
                green aroma, the diminishing island
                cut to the last, magnified by

                silence, a lark high above the
                dust; the breezes will dry the
                stalks to rustle and the distant

                woods will echo – cuckoo; it is
                then the child places the building
                block on the nursery floor when

                there will be no time, day after
                day, save for forks of pitch and
                hands that burn pink and stalk

                of shirt and sweat, constant under
                minds of approaching storm cloud
                before the last journey home; old

                George had removed his jacket
                picking out fluff from the corners
                of a pocket, “…used to be my brother’s;

                lived in Shropshire … didn’t
                find no pound notes in it, just fluff,
                a few hay seeds,” flung them

                to the Essex wind – scattered
                poems and stacked essays,
                typed up and waiting to behold

read the collected work as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay

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

branches wormhole: presence
breeze wormhole: chuckling
child wormhole: next unexpected step
clouds wormhole: that
echo wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay
green wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
hands & life & retirement wormhole: beguiled / desire
mind & writing wormhole: scintillating to mind’s content
pink & stone wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
silence & speech wormhole: new blue porsche
smell & time wormhole: LOVE SONG by William Carlos Williams
wind wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams

prelude: // travel

01 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2013, 6*, acceptance, castle, coffee, compassion, doing, driving, dust, field, green, Have, mist, motorway, passing, people, progress, self-compassion, sky, steel, stone, sunlight, tarmac, travelling, waking, wood

prelude:

                had a day to myself
                no work to do no family no obligation
                I could have built myself a castle stony to the sky
                but I did nothing to make my mark in the world
                nothing to house
                the sky

and I felt strangely accepting of that
a sort-of love really

travel

                woke-up stupid lack-slept
                but I have a certain love for myself
                and I get on with last-minute packing

                people, slaves in so many ways to Have
                but I have a certain love for myself
                and can accept us all to suffer our own coffees

                there is steel in all the greens and mist in all the sunlight
                the harvester shaves the field to dust and someone
                burns the wood to waft across the motorway

                but I have a certain love for myself and
                I let them all pass and while the rubber turns
                the tarmac I progress to a destination

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

acceptance & sky wormhole: stone
coffee wormhole: magnificent salad
compassion wormhole: so pleased to see you again
doing wormhole: wasted –
field & green wormhole: greedy
Have wormhole: beepbeep
mist wormhole: retirement
motorway wormhole: dawn
passing & travelling wormhole: handsome
people wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show
stone wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything
wood wormhole: the 19th century

Prajnaparamita // Maitreya

01 Tuesday Nov 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2013, 7*, acceptance, anxiety, being, claim, dust, embracing, emptiness, Enlightenment, envelope, fear, labyrinth, leaves, letting go, life, light, living, loss, Maitreya, myth, pointlessness, Prajnaparamita, shadow, smile, stage, true nature, words

Prajnaparamita

                                                                acknowledge
                                                                accept
                                                                embrace
                                                the pointlessness all around
                                                there is nothing to claim
                                there is nothing to gain
                                there is not even anything to lose
                deep within the fear and anxiety
                                cast adrift
                                                soha

Maitreya

                                                                enfold
                                                                enhabit
                                                                ennoble
                                                the props all around
                                in the light in the shadows
                                even the dust and the leaves
                                and smile the tentative labyrinthine myth
                deep within the words and stage sufficient
                                unto itself
                                                soha

the mantra: thaya tha om gate gate paragate parasamgate bodhi soha, is the mantra of Prajnaparamita, the Perfection of Wisdom; it can be somewhat semantically translated as ‘it’s like this: [everything is] gone, gone, completely gone, completely and perfectly gone with no loss, enlightened [dispersed, dispelled] all-right!’, where ‘gate’ means ‘gone’ – it originates from the Heart Sutra wherein Avalokitshvara has just systematically taught that nothing exists intrinsically (including the means to realise this), but not that nothing exists which is why it is possible to attain Enlightenment (‘bodhi’); Maitreya’s mantra is om maitri maitri maha maitri arya maitri soha, wherein ‘maitri’ means ‘loving kindness’; the Prajnaparamita image I found in http://meditationincheshire.org/courses-events/special-events/prajnaparamita-empowerment-saturday-14th-november-2015/; the Maitreya image I found from http://www.alanpeto.com/buddhism/back-to-the-future-buddha/; the poems are mine, trying to make sense of a thousand lives

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

anxiety wormhole: listen willya
accpetance wormhole: magnificent salad
being wormhole: I
emptiness wormhole: Doctor Strange II – … things are the same again
leaves wormhole: the too big moon
letting go wormhole: time
life & light & pointlessness wormhole: beepbeep
living wormhole: even / a second
Maitreya wormhole: quite simply
shadow wormhole: was there a moon / on the alleyway wall / confused in front of / the city skyline?
smile wormhole: passersby
words wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35

220712

25 Saturday Jan 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2012, 3*, buildings, dust, grey, lost, sand, streets, Syria, trees, tv, war

220712

                                there
                      through the trees
                      glimpse of a tank
                      turret gun and sand-coloured
                                before
                      the apartment building
                      followed by grey dust
                      rising filling the street
                                we need
                      to liberate Aleppo
                      can’t see anymore

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

buildings wormhole: dream / 150599
grey wormhole: side / window
streets wormhole: ‘just slip into life …’
trees wormhole: too
tv wormhole: zazen in everyday life
war wormhole: the early morning of the sixties

where to find it

13 Tuesday Aug 2013

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

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2013, 5*, alleys, ankle, blue, Carol, dust, Leicester, living, looking, love, shops, streets, UB40, walking, white

(12 Bar)

                           how high
                     can plethora mount
                     and bridge the shop front
                           door?

                           blue writing
                     on white, will we find what we
                     look for in there, shall we go in or wait
                           now we

                           know
                     where to find it? dust in the streets
                     and alleys blows against
                           our ankles

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

blue wormhole: blue and green / a l l s o r t s
C & Leicester & love wormhole: ‘hand / in hand …’
living wormhole: you fail
looking wormhole: Peeks at Castleton
shops & streets & walking wormhole: to share
white wormhole: promenade

‘our blue soft eyeballs kissed …’

11 Sunday Mar 2012

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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'scape, 1980, 3*, blue, dust, eyes, passing, red, sky, streets, traffic lights, yellow

                      our blue soft eyeballs kissed
                      the cables slapped across the street
                      the melting yellow sky
                      moved across the dome

                      the revolving flashing hub caps turned
                      under the great pipe-worked bellies
                      the gold-bird statues
                      scraped down the street and
                      grazing the horizon with
                      their tongues and tails
                                              caught in the cables

the dust over
the screaming red traffic lights

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

blue & sky & yellow wormhole: stormy sky
eyes wormhole: foreign affairs
passing wormhole: radar-blinking
red wormhole: ‘the open-air …’
streets wormhole: ‘across the street …’
traffic lights wormhole: ‘at the traffic lights …’