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    • Chapter 10
  • collected works
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mlewisredford

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

mlewisredford

Tag Archives: gentleness

place

02 Monday Oct 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2014, 7*, capitalism, child, doing, doubt, earth, energy, finding, gentleness, groundlessness, hair, hands, hope, leading, letting go, London, lurch, market, placement, precision, seeing, shift, sound, streets, thinking, vindication, waves, weight

                      not seeing
                      the energy
                      shift and wave
                      underneath

                      I flex in all the
                      wrong places to
                      ground my own
                      earth to stand

                      on, there, there
                      is the precision
                      but then I easily
                      despise my hope

                      and put on weight
                      far too quick to
                      judge and lurch
                      toward vindication

                      it’s just ‘thinking’
                      that makes it so
                      a toddler’s head
                      chatters by your side

                      just let them all be
                      let their bouncing hair
                      be gentleness to the
                      palm of the hand but

                      don’t take them by
                      the hand to lead them
                      through the streets
                      of London, there’s

                      nothing to find in found
                      and always there are
                      smiling deals to make,
                      letting go, in the market

                      place

 

 

 

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

capitalism wormhole: miss / ad / venture – poewieview #22
child wormhole: municipal garden
doing wormhole: holiday
groundlessness wormhole: the quiet whale
hair wormhole: and I lose sight of her into memory
hands wormhole: twilight / and parasols down / within minutes
letting go wormhole: woman / has worked in the gym / got a build
London wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey
seeing & thinking wormhole: time
sound wormhole: Tara mantras
streets wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
vindication wormhole: the writing’s on the wall
waves wormhole: concordance

 

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gentle

08 Monday Feb 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2014, being, blindness, breathing, dancing, gentleness, letting go, life, perception, precision, seeing, uncertainty

 

 

 

                           I should be gentle
                           when I alight through life

                           I should see with precision
                           and then dance around it all

                           to cloud the experience
                           of doubt and uncertainty

                           and leave me blind
                           and unable to breathe

 

 

 

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

being & life wormhole: spit / spot
breathing wormhole: when writing // stay
dancing wormhole: I can say / that I do all sorts of dance
letting go wormhole: suddenly fly off again
seeing wormhole: the MagOO Effect Effect

 

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exactly equal

12 Monday Oct 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2013, doing, equilibrium, experience, gentleness, posture, practice, settling, sitting, superhero, superpower, talking to myself, weight

 

 

 

                important to settle gently into sitting
                                              (into doing)
                                not heroically like a superpower but with
                                cold
                                brass
                                weight
                exactly equal to the experience and posture in the cup
                                                                                 on the opposite end
                                                              of the arm

 

 

 

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

doing & practice wormhole: practice
posture wormhole: ambling around / the garden centre
settling & talking to myself wormhole: recovered
sitting wormhole: now, the verticals go down as well as they go up
superhero wormhole: escape from Flat Planet
superpower wormhole: just words wiped across a line

 

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reversing the polarity

18 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2013, 4*, anxiety, being, doing, dwelling, gentleness, identity, pushing, settling, sitting

 

 

 

                                              to have gentleness in what I do
                                to forsake the old anxiety
                that drives me to do different to be better to achieve vindication
                                              to cultivate a dwelling counter to
                                pushing through and defining myself
                by that pushing
                                              and
                                the way to set up home in this all is to just sit
                and to just do whatever I am doing while
                                              reversing the polarity

 

 

 

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

anxiety & doing & settling & sitting wormhole: should is good when / too used to cruise
being wormhole: contemplating my painted copy / of Vallejo’s Conan
identity wormhole: whirlpool

 

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the precision // the gentleness // and / the letting go

06 Wednesday Aug 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

2014, 6*, being, blue, bougainvillea, gentleness, identity, letting go, Manjushri, orange, Pema Chödrön, poetry, precision, quartz, seeing, shadow, sky, stone, thinking, world, writing

 

 

 

preamble:

                                              I suppose
                the clarity and
                                        surprise of the
                                                                 poem
                                is the care to which
                                              you can allow it to be what it becomes
                                                               itself
                                                               quite
                independent of the skills and words and
                                              trammellings
                                that I – the Writer – want to put in it
                                              that I – the Watcher – wanted to
                                                               put it in

gestation:

                                              first
                                the precision of what is around you
                and what is inside you that distorts
                                              to see
                                then the gentleness that includes
                                              the kaleidoscopic stones
                                                               and shadows

labour:

                                (letting each smudge shine clean
                                 between the spinning swords
                                 deepening all the shades of orange like bougainvillea
                                 against the blue quartz-smooth sky)

birth:

                                              and
                                the letting go to
                let it thrive
                                mucoid and clueless
                                              in a New New World

 

 

the title comes from the fourth chapter of ‘The Wisdom of No Escape‘ by Pema Chödrön – teachings so sweet that they are poems from a burgundy robe

 

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

being wormhole: our life
blue wormhole: no hat
identity & letting go wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate
orange wormhole: ‘I can hear it raining / but cannot see it …’
poetry & seeing & writing wormhole: ‘like a piece of ice on a hot stove / the poem must ride on its own melting’
shadow wormhole: on sitting / in front of / a hedge
sky wormhole: introducing / the stranger
stone wormhole: I will eventually drift tectonic
thinking wormhole: the Buddha head in an antique shop
world wormhole: first a mishap then clear vision

 

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settling

19 Friday Apr 2013

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

2013, 7*, being, breathing, gentleness, learning, letting go, relaxing, settling, sitting, stillness

 

 

 

            settling

                        slowly learning
            like a dolt with too much muscle
                        that the practice of
                                    sitting
                                       d
                                       o
                                       w
                                       n
                                  is done so g e n t l y
                      like the wriggling that goes on when
                                  sitting on the cushion
                                              to find the
                                                     st
                                                     il
                                                     lp
                                                     oi
                                                     nt
                                                  within
                                    left right forward back spin sleep breath watcher
                                                                         an
                                                                          i
                                                                          n
                                                                          f
                                                                          i
                                                                          n
                                                                          i
                                                                          t
                                                                          y
                                                            of detachment that
                                                becomes so close to everything it is
                                                                        almost nuclear

 

 

 

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

being & settling wormhole: the pocket
breathing wormhole: nightmare
learning wormhole: the ghost with open wound
letting go wormhole: the discovery of / leaving no trace
sitting wormhole: anatta
stillness wormhole: the bench / on the fourth sister from / Birling Gap before the / wind-brushed scrub and gorse / and the grey-blue sky / smoothed through the / fishtank-blue horizon to / grey-green sea

 

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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

recent leaks …

  • ‘the practice …’
  • under the blue and blue sky
  • sweet chestnut
  • ‘she shook the sweets …’
  • YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams
  • meanwhile
  • a far grander / Sangha
  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VII, Joyous Effort – verse 8; reflectionary
  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VII, Joyous Effort – verse 7; reflectionary
  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VII, Joyous Effort – verse 6; reflectionary & verses 3-6 embroidery

Uncanny Tops

  • Moebius strip
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