• Bodhisattvacharyavatara
    • Introduction
    • Chapter 1
    • 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
  • others
    • William Carlos Williams
  • poemics
  • poeviews
  • teaching matters
  • wormholes

mlewisredford

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

mlewisredford

Tag Archives: gods

the simple prayer // the tattered poem // the bitter lament

14 Saturday May 2022

Posted by m lewis redford in embroidery, poems, reflectionary

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

2022, 8*, action, architecture, balance, black, blindness, Boris Johnson, Bowie, cause and effect, cave, daughter, desert, Donald Trump, female, God, gods, heart, history, internet, invisible, king, land, lies, Life on Mars?, love, male, Manjushri, market, noise, notice, others, people, plateau, Plato, poem, power, prayer, proliferation, propaganda, quiet, resource, rhetorical interrogative, Russia, science, self, serendipity, slave, smile, soap, soap-opera, springs, stranger, sword, throat, time, tragedy, truth, Ukraine, value, Vladimir Putin, war, windows, wisdom

the simple prayer

may quiet springs of
value-in-other always disperse
the black and grimy history
of power-over-other
like soap



—~~~\\\ ” sp ” ///~~~—

                                                                      the tattered poem

                                                  may …

                                        over millennia
                                        between peppered millions
                                        at surprise times and sad

                                        across rolling lands
                                        and conserved desert
                                        and steppèd plateau

                                        quiet springs
                                        everywhere
                                        serendipitous

                                        hand-cupped chin, lipless
                                        smile, no-halt act, surge
                                        `tween heart and throat

                                        unnoticed invisible
                                        daughter stranger slave;
                                        the black and grime of

                                        history of power over other
                                        storeyed and high-
                                        windowed, cacophonous

                                        and market-squared
                                        rhetorically interrogative
                                        aside truth:

                    … may they disperse
                    this impossible tension
                    like soap

—~~~\\\ ” tp ” ///~~~—

the bitter lament

“may” is a petition – to a god, to God or to ‘let it be’, it doesn’t matter as long as it is beyond ‘self’ – a directing of hearts (the only armaments that don’t cost a nation), a massing of resource (as-yet untapped and unexploited), a manoeuvring of cause and effect (the only true use of science), a discernment of love like the sharpest of flaming swords; “other” is anything or anyone which is not “myself” and, like a tragic farce played out on the widest of stages, cast of a thousand-thousand “myself”-s (hurry – for one aeon only; apply for auditions here), proliferates inponentially to the power of blind-folded distinction; “history” – I don’t want to know the history that led up to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, it is a soap-opera that I have seen “ten times or more”, not sure if “I’ve wrote it ten times or more”, “it’s about to be writ again” and I’ve long since abandoned any hope that an original line is to be found anywhere in the entire web of the universe; “power” is male, but male woefully out of balance, to act, to control, to make, to command on the basis of a wobble-board, the king of the castle chanting empty rhymes, unbalanced with respect to “other” and with respect to what-is without blindfolds, a spoilt child who smirks what he wants, a Johnson who dares what he deceives, a Trump who deceives what he wants, a Putin deceived by empty rhymes, so involuted that even before they think to open their mouths have been lying for generations within centuries; “prayer”, “poem”, “lament” is “female”, which is never mentioned, it is “wisdom” (which is never used), it is the balance to male (which is never considered – ‘too impractical’), it is the reference to “other” and the reference to “what-is” (whether “what-is” is blind-folded or not), it is not the replacement of male (that would make it … male), it is the heart-surge of care empty of all self-reference which, unfortunately, has been left in a cave, somewhere, some say in chains, and entertained with flickering lights on the back-wall, for millennia …

 

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: despite all / depiction
balance wormhole: the balance necessary between
black wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
daughter wormhole: looking ahead
history & time & war wormhole: mirror
love wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets…’
others wormhole: ‘the practice &…’
power wormhole: eyes like petals
quiet wormhole: – creak –
resource wormhole: the Apple
smile wormhole: light of all interaction
windows wormhole: YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams

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Candaka

24 Wednesday Jul 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2019, 6*, Arya Lalitavistara, Buddha, Candaka, dharma, dream, gazing, gods, horizon, Kanthaka, meaning, renunciation, role, society, step, sword, the Four Signs, trees, yesterday

                Candaka

                out from the trees
                he emerged but was bedraggled

                he stared just under
                ahead, no longer to triumphant horizons

                his jaw hung as if forgot to locate
                no further to commend

                and his sword listed, tinny and tarnished,
                unsure to hand;

                just yesterday
                was a dream where he played the part

                of losing each part that he had played
                step by tired step

                and out of step with Kanthaka’s step;
                he had lost the Prince

 

etching, from the Arya Lalita Vistara Nama Mahayana Sutra; Chandaka was the charioteer and the groom for the Prince, Siddhartha Gautama, his chauffeur, in a way, but also a confidant, to some extent; it was Chandaka who led the Prince out of palace-life where the Prince encountered the Four Signs (four features of life which he hadn’t taken into account in his privileged life – old age, illness, death and living outside of society and social role); Kanthaka was the Prince’s magnificent horse, worthy of bearing a sovereign, the epitome of beauty, strength and transport; despite society and role obliging the Prince to remain in the palace and fulfil his dharma as king, his urge to get to the bottom of purpose and life was strong from previous lifetimes of vows … he had to leave; the gods themselves helped the Prince escape – it was only Chandaka who did not fall into a deep sleep; Kanthaka’s hooves did not strike the ground, the gates flew open by themselves – because they wanted someone to get to the bottom of purpose and life as well; both Chandaka and Kanthaka were devoted to the Prince but could not fully appreciate the gravity of the Prince’s quest, they played their roles – their dharma – but without full agency: all they could appreciate was the challenge to role and society that they had participated in, and no means to understand beyond that …

 

 

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

Buddha & renunciation wormhole: light of all interaction
dreams wormhole: “And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”
horizon wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
meaning wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
society wormhole: looking for the right exit
trees wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain

 

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om muni muni maha muniye soha

11 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2015, 6*, beach, body, bones, Buddha, feet, fruit, gods, Gran Canaria, heat, identity, ink, knuckles, leisure, mantra, salt, Shakyamuni, sound, Spanish, stone, story, swimming, toes, water

                hola de nuevo Gran Canaria
                quiet crucible of dimpled buttock
                and all the beach furniture of recline
                balmy Spanish exchanged – warm water
                poured slappingly on hot languid stone

                om muni muni maha muniye soha

                hola de nuevo Gran Canaria
                with your reveal of dark ink identity
                your candid feet with no guile, each toe
                tells a different story to your tread – painted
                toes and slight bones between knuckles

                om muni muni maha muniye soha

                ah, you bodies you slink
                cool and day-glo all about me
                you bath-robe gods high above
                with your salt-water pools and fruit –
                the headland a giant sitting Buddha

                om muni muni maha muniye soha

 

 

 

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

beach wormhole: is there anything to write?
Buddha wormhole: child
feet wormhole: cinnamon / milkshake
identity & water wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
sound wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
stone 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”

 

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embodying

01 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

'scape, 2016, 6*, Alahambra, cherub, gods, Granada, passing, people, pigeons, shell, sound, stone, talking, walking, water, waterfall

                constant éclat and smack
                from spout of god or shell

                of cherub avec fraças and
                badinage of flowing passersby

                who pause in declaratory
                language among nodding

                pigeons, lap outwards to
                swell the trough, embodying

                under plinth and pillar
                of warm carved stone

 

 

 

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

passing wormhole: passing below
people & walking wormhole: this sodden land
pigeons wormhole: portrait: / two pigeons
sound wormhole: balance
stone wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
talking wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …
water wormhole: happen//ing

 

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pen and ruler

23 Wednesday Nov 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2015, 23rd century, 5*, architecture, city, dock, earth, gods, humanity, river, Thor, time

                stepped to the earth
                a god stood like a man

                brooded on the docks
                by the pillars while a

                city grew and festered
                about the river in the

                twenty third century
                pen and ruler

 

possibly a poeview of ‘thru these architect’s eyes by David Bowie without my even realising it at the time

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy
city wormhole: 1964
river wormhole: industrial estate
Thor wormhole: my / superpower
time wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …

 

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the purple mist between

12 Friday Aug 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ Leave a comment

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1964, 2016, 5*, architecture, becoming, blindness, desire, Dr Strange, gods, identity, inside, light, lunge, middle way, mist, outside, pattern, power, purple, samsara, Sanctum Sanctorum, shadow, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Strange Tales, true nature, windows

                     outside and inside are merely
                     framed by the window and

                     the shadow; where shadow
                     is architectural and ornate,

                     there is the Sanctum Sanctorum;
                     on entering one becomes

                     the patterns of past shadows
                     alternately contrasted with

                     one’s own light, most know not
                     that they have entered already –

                     dim under their own
                     machinations; others take the

                     Bigger Picture and illuminate
                     their own self hideous to

                     their godly desire: both the
                     light and the dark will blind you,

                     tripping you to all manner
                     of lunge, there are few,

                     indeed, who will settle for
                     the purple mist between

 

contrasted out from within ‘Beyond the Purple Veil’ in Strange Tales #119, April 1964; written: Stan Lee; drawn: Steve Ditko

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: Elektra
black wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
Dr Strange wormhole: Doctor Strange III – the needs of billions
identity & light & mist wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
power wormhole: lonely and free
purple wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – moment
samsara wormhole: a crack of lightning / in the dark of night
shadow wormhole: weight of high sash windows – poewieview #33
windows wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs

 

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Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20

22 Tuesday Mar 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

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Tags

2016, abundance, atrophy, bitterness, Bowie, city, cross, curtains, decay, defeat, dockside, earth, gods, hatch, horizon, humanity, love, mortality, mountain, opening, pen, piles, plane, portal, privacy, rage, reverse, river, ruler, sphere, step, tears, wanting, waves

                                reverse
                of usual effulgent horizons opening like shallow waves
                                              logarithmically
                                wanting
                fall-to-knees mortality and tears over abundance, equally
                                              untenable
                                              atrophic

                                stepped to the earth
                                from the mountains
                                a god stood like a man

                                down by the docks, by
                                the piles, while a city grew
                                and festered all about

                                the river: hatch and cross,
                                pen and ruler, private
                                and bitter, sphere and

                                plane, all with woven
                                curtain pulled, defeated,
                                across every portal, and

                                no room for Quiver of
                                Tiffany, only a rage that
                                I cannot control, after all

 

through the lonely portals of The Supermen, 1970; Saviour Machine, 1970; Running Gun Blues, 1970

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

Bowie wormhole: my // shell – poewieview #19
city wormhole: gotcha
curtains wormhole: the art of sit and follow
horizon wormhole: stacked
love wormhole: where the goblins leered – poewieview #14
river wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
tears wormhole: dear clown’s face
waves wormhole: thick thick fog

 

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the sounds of 1969 // [would have] seemed that way – poewieview #13

25 Thursday Feb 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

1969, 2016, accountability, appearance, ascent, becoming, being, Bowie, chords, clouds, coalescence, counting, crescendo, dawn, doing, doors, earth, echo, fall, gods, history, horizon, kitchen, looking, loss, lost, love, neighbourhood, people, possibility, rocket, silence, society, sound, stillness, streets, stumbling, suburbia, travelling, trees, up, variation, warp, weft, wish, years

                                   … oh,

                      here it comes again, between
                      the warp and weft of chording;
                      all the engines of thrust, all
                      the snare of history, all propulsion

                      `round various turnings, trails
                      left vaporising; counting … up
                      to crescendo, looking up to tread,
                      to lacunae; to ascend is to lose,

                      to step through that door: fall/
                      ascent mean nothing off-sphere;
                      tumult of horizon sitting in my
                      kitchen, stumbling on my planet,

                      there’s nothing I can do: there
                      are – so – many – more – chords,
                      variants on a minor, travelling to
                      where we are all along, feeling

                      very still … lost where we all are;
                      the sounds of 1969 looked very
                      different today – loved-up, peopled-
                      up, gods upped be-coming – up;

                                          ~O~~~

                      down the slippey ascension of wish,
                      up to the echoing boroughs of cloud-
                      bank, where the damp damp dawn
                      falls silent to urban horizon, higher

                      for to widen the neighbourhood
                      streets and higher to deepen the road-
                      side trees; none of it didn’t, but it
                      [would have] seemed that way

 

filtered through grill of angst: Space Oddity, 1969, Cygnet Committee, 1969, Memory of a Free Festival, 1969

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

being & Bowie & doing wormhole: quite … / … yet – poewieview #12
clouds wormhole: dog bark
dawn wormhole: now, the verticals go down as well as they go up
doors wormhole: Seven A.M, 1948
echo & looking & people wormhole: 1966 … actually sic // of it allllll-bsssssssh – poewieview #8
history wormhole: London Park in Greenwich town – poewieview #5
horizon wormhole: com- / mute
kitchen wormhole: 1963
love wormhole: Grizedale College
silence wormhole: the open window
society wormhole: bookmark
sound & years wormhole: 1963
stillness wormhole: the windmill
streets wormhole: fine droplets / across the glass
travelling & trees wormhole: Saturday – poewieview #3

 

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the continental stride of trains

18 Sunday Oct 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

'scape, 2013, Belgium, blue, clouds, continent, field, gods, hedge, landscape, passing, power, sky, speed, sun, train, travelling, trees, wind, wind turbines, wires

 

 

 

                                          the continental stride of trains

                                          in the time to traverse the wide field
                                          at 125 mph; one   two   almost three

                                          great turns of the titan blades sending
                                          wires elegaic across the land all tucked

                                          with tree and hedge before the god-
                                          clouds stacked high to low and hovering

                                          impossibly in the blue blue sky with wind-
                                          sculpted indifference and power of sun

 

 

 

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

blue & train wormhole: gre[wh]y / has Daddy left us?
clouds wormhole: Sunday afternoon
field & hedge & passing & travelling wormhole: Eridge – Cowden
power wormhole: The Godfather III: // AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHH …
sky wormhole: three musicians
sun wormhole: along
trees wormhole: Railway Crossing, c. 1922-23
wind wormhole: Evening Wind, 1921

 

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ha ha ha

16 Monday Feb 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2015, 6*, air, Alan Moore, architecture, buildings, columns, earth, Eddie Campbell, From Hell, God, gods, ground, history, life, purpose, reason, sky, skyline, stone, travelling, vision

                                                                                                            ha ha ha

                                   so, there always is purpose
                                   (two men ride on a carriage)
                                   it was all about, everywhere,

                                   locked in stone and resonance
                                   (the gods never disappeared)
                                   reason punctured the skyline,

                                   vision was buried in the ground,
                                   reason made the sky stop
                                   in a line, defined the sky

                                   in our mind, from the earth;
                                   there is a point inevitably
                                   atop every steeple, there is

                                   always only a point, there is
                                   always only one God, above
                                   all columns and pediments …

 

askance from chapter four of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

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________________________________|—–

air wormhole: the edge has come …
architecture & Alan Moore & life wormhole: the four whores of the apocalypse
buildings wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
history wormhole: events happen / through all measure of name
sky wormhole: September – silhouette of leaf // the / inside and the / outside
skyline wormhole: Buddha Amitabha
stone wormhole: I am a solid block of stone
travelling wormhole: step

 

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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

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  • 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
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