gentle

Tags

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

 

exactly equal

Tags

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

 

reversing the polarity

Tags

2013, 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

 

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

Tags

2014, 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

 

settling

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