• 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: gravity

at Kreukenhof

18 Sunday Aug 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2019, 5*, air, Amsterdam, breeze, clouds, compassion, curtains, fashion, fire, flowers, gravity, growth, Kreukenhof, letting go, photograph, retirement, river, role, samsara, sky, sound, traffic

                gravity, and river air hold the curtains
                down, breezes and distant traffic make them
                adjust against the sill stiffly, audibly

                but then, my people, I am learning
                not to resent your burning like fire
                when you play your endless roles like fashion

                and I am learning to let clouds fill the sky
                as you take every single photo
                of every single flower at Kreukenhof

 

Kreukenhof is a display garden near Amsterdam sited amid surrounding fields and fields of cultivated tulips, grown in strips of colour across a whole field; when we visited this year, we stayed on the Botel, a converted ship docked on the river Amstel in the IJ bay

 

 

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

air wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
breeze wormhole: threshold to behold
clouds wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
compassion wormhole: light of all interaction
curtains wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
letting go wormhole: mandala offering
retirement & sky wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
river wormhole: boiled spangle with soft centre
samsara wormhole: the Bodhisattva set out / for the Seat of Awakening
sound wormhole: the blessings of the Buddhas

 

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where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …

14 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2017, 7*, austerity, being, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, conscience, conscientiousness, death, doing, effort, fall, gravity, illusion, inspiration, karma, Lucifer, mind, now, practice, self-cherishing, Shantideva, superhero, talking to myself, time, virtue

                where it has taken birth
                may it not decrease … there are

                tiny filaments here and there
                from time to time
                connecting the flexing muscle
                further corridors within the firing mind

                it’s not a whole package
                nicely taped up in cardboard
                and delivered with a smile, a signature
                and a how-might-I-do-better survey

                it … won’t happen like that;
                here’s where if anywhere
                the austerity takes place
                here’s where if anywhere I develop

                gaunt lines of virtue
                in my cheek, after the inspiration
                has gone:
                just keep on keeping on; if I try super-heroically –

                ag-grandiosely – there is nothing
                to let ‘not decrease’,
                if it does not burn it is not fire;
                I am either serious or not

                and if not, I should;
                go back
                calm down and create new filaments
                quietly and accordingly

                anything ethical
                should be conducted … only,
                not become an eater of conscience
                like Lucifer’s hapless fool

                simply bargaining
                with illusion is the loss of its finding … out,
                the gravity of the flailing fall
                exponential

                to each and every action
                where it will take a long time to gain ground; death
                affords time to practise
                now, all the time now, not

                later, not I-did-have-it-but-
                now-I’ve-lost-it … NOW

 

right-angled out of chapter IV of Shantideva’s Bodhisattvacharyavatara … or in

 

 

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

being & doing & talking to myself wormhole: six paramitas
death wormhole: ‘never look up’?
mind wormhole: moment
practice wormhole: just saying, is all VI: // accountable / for my own outbreath / …
superhero wormhole: passersby
time wormhole: the bench

 

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so pleased to see you again

16 Monday Jan 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

2017, 8*, Bodhichitta, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, compassion, desire, doing, echo, eyes, faces, gravity, lifetimes, light, love, memory, mother sentient beings, others, seeing, Shantideva, sky, space, speech, true nature, vanity, will

                oh, my loves, who look at me
                with eyes that dull-echo from

                lifetimes back “don’t I love you,
                don’t you owe me?” but cannot

                remember; yes, yes you do, yes
                I do, with so much real interest;

                I will love, I will do, what needs
                to be done, and short-circuit all

                this vanity and indifference;
                enough of peripatetic desire and

                unsustainable will, I owe your
                dear sweet faces (so much to

                account, so much to invest) a
                truer nature to acknowledge,

                a current in to which to plug,
                a circuit around which to light –

                exponential to the bursting sky –
                space-walking gloriously around

                the gravity of our own true natures,
                so pleased to see you again

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara I, 17-19

 

 

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

Bodhichitta wormhole: inbreath
compassion wormhole: transmuted
doing wormhole: everwhile
echo wormhole: open window
eyes & lifetimes & sky wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
faces wormhole: Sylvia
light & love wormhole: writing: // in turn
others wormhole: ‘field of corn …’
seeing wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
space wormhole: within
speech wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance

 

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my life / of others

11 Thursday Jun 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

2012, Allen Ginsberg, allowing, America, awkward, being, bittersweet, breathing, community, decades, desert, doing, echo, eyes, family, fog, giving, gravity, horizon, identity, inclusion, ink, life, lifetimes, listening, loneliness, love, management, marble, mauve, meaning, others, planet, pointlessness, purpose, radiation, relationship, secret, silence, sitting, society, talking to myself, time, twilight

 

y’know; sometimes you’ve just got to have a rambling, indulgent, pig-headed, why-is-no-one-listening-to-me, pathetic, awkward (don’t forget the ‘awkward’), poor-me whiiine to realise just how rambling, indulgent, pig-headed, why-is-no-one-listening-to-me-ie, pathetic, and awkward you can be; sigh – but there’s still some poetry in it, so I’ll share the self-pity about (caution: this is quite a high-pitched whiiine; it is strongly urged that you wear ear-protection – or at least stick your fingers in your ear reciting la-la-la – if you undertake to read this; you have been warned)

 

 

                my life
                                of others

                                how long has this been going on
                how long this has been going on

demands in their eyes pull me to them like a planet
                pull on me to contain them
                                pull deep in me through the latest casual orbit

                                I give because I can
                learnt silently over decades
                                              I have lived to allow ever wider
                                in order to include
                                              to neutralise my gravity in order to listen
                and let them breathe enough
                                              to find their own solution –
decades of leaning a hundred awkward ways
                                              to be with others
                                decades of privately finding ways
                to re-collect my own gravity –
                                                              shiny marbles with petrified ink –
                                              and decades having to let them go
                                                              one by one
                                              tearfully
                                eventually

                                              all under the great broad horizon
                                lost before the hills on the great broad horizon
                the beautiful-twilight mauve desert
                                              and the radiation presence of another close planet they
                cannot do the same for me
                                                              they will not do the same for me:

                                the squalls and foreclosures,
                                              they are of my own making
                an audience extends only so far as to conclude that it is all my own awkwardness – all I have to do is fit –
                                              before I have even finished explaining
                usually I don’t bother to finish
                                or even start
                                              the solution is ready-made
                                                              (with a few ‘hmm’s to make it look kindly)
                or just kept to themself
                                echoing loudly behind their eyes

                                              like sharing secrets with the fog
                                                              I find myself alone
                each one of them was the last person I could turn to in the world
                                but they all uncannily agree with each other
                                              they are the Company Man

                                I have done my bit for the family
                                I have done my bit for the team
                                I have done my bit for the community
                                                              all by not being there
                                              all by not getting in the way
                I cried when I was acknowledged once
                                                                                 it never happened again

                                I suppose
                                it’s just
                                              they need to keep from shattering in a thousand pieces
                they need to hold the whole damn thing together
so I give because I can
                                because it is right
                                                              but cannot expect return
                                                              they cannot give
                                                              what they expect
                                                              in return
                                for sure things are done things may be organised
                                                              (sometimes even when I want them)
                                              but for some greater good
                                                              for some greater career
                                                              for some greater legacy
                                                                                 not mine
                                              certainly not mine (‘America I have given you all
                                                              and now I am nothing’)

                                              when I work it is all about them
                when I stop it is all about how they performed
                                all that I do and don’t do
                                              is how it sits as support or burden
                                                              to them
                                conclusion: it is only them who do the work
                                              the thinking the organising
                                                              I seem to do nothing
                                                              really
                and do it annoyingly and awkwardly and thinkingly – roll of eyes – I
                                have to be managed to be of any competence
                                              (that’s meant affectionately) I
                                              am just the recipient of their
                                                              good work
                                                              (what do they call them these days – ‘clients’)
                                              my value
                                              my contribution
                                              what I am
                                                              are the price I pay to receive

                so I don’t say anything much – what’s the point?
                                I’ll put a few things out
                                              tentatively
                                (where I might be patronised at best – if I’m lucky,
                                                                                 if the planets are lined up right)
                                                              told it’s cute
                                              or individual
                                or much too clever to understand
                or it’s not what was needed
                                              or sorry, Mark, did you say something
                                                              and the audience will move deftly on
                                to what it wanted to talk about anyway
                or what it wanted to be doing
                                              all along

                                I mostly keep it to myself
                                                              here
                                              in the place I claim
                                              each day – time to myself bittersweet
                                                              (at siege from service and compliance)
                to ‘indulge’ myself ‘stay up too late’ ‘contemplate my navel’
                                                              otherwise I get ‘grumpy’
                                              I talk to
                                              myself
                                                              I am not the Company Man
                                                                                 no one
                                                                                 to share
                                                                                 me with
                no one beyond the managed obliged corporate return
                                              oh yes I return to myself
                                                              find my own meaningpurposeaudiencelove
                                              safe in the fifty year relationship
                                which is good for only one

                                decades whittled away
                                              here and there
                                                              chips and shavings on the floor
                                leaving a petrified face
                eyes wide mouth open
                                              bas-relief out from being

 

 

 

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

Allen Ginsberg & giving wormhole: tag cloud poem VIII – growth
allowing & loneliness wormhole: letters to Mum VI – Years / after you have gone. Still.
being & breathing & sitting wormhole: the art of sit and follow
doing & identity wormhole: my beauty
echo wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
eyes & time wormhole: ambling around / the garden centre
family wormhole: sometimes
fog homework: tag cloud poem VII – form new freedom:
horizon wormhole: To my Mum
life & love wormhole: I love with all the history and lack of perfections at our command
lifetimes & others & pointlessness & society wormhole: Totnes
listening wormhole: before // writing?
management wormhole: poessay VIII: / educational behaviourism
mauve wormhole: ‘green post …’
meaning & talking to myself wormhole: the stance of Buscema // qualitatively
twilight wormhole: the four whores of the apocalypse

 

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my life / of others

06 Tuesday Nov 2012

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

2012, 8*, acceptance, Allen Ginsberg, being, breathing, career, Company Man, eyes, fog, gravity, growth, horizon, life, lifetimes, mauve, others, planets, society, teaching, work

I hesitate before publishing stuff like this – it looks like I’m whining for sympathy – I am not; but if writing cannot be candid – warts and all – it is already damned, so I will publish AND be damned

 

 

 

                                my lives
                                of others

                                how long has this been going on
                how long this has been going on

demands in their eyes pulling me to them like a planet
                pulling on me to contain them
                                pulling deep in me through the latest orbit

                                I give because I can
                learnt silently in the decades
                                I have lived to allow
                yet ever wider in order to include
                                              to neutralise my gravity in order to listen
                                and let them breathe enough
                                              to find their own solution
                decades of leaning a hundred ways
                                                              to be with others
                                decades of privately finding ways
                to rebuild my own gravity
                                                              shiny marbles with petrified ink
                                              then having to let them go
                                tearfully each time
                                                              eventually

                                              all under the great broad horizon
                                lost before the hills on the great broad horizon
                the beautiful twilight-mauve desert
                                and the radiation presence of the close planet
                they cannot do the same for me
                                they will not do the same for me:

                                the stalls and foreclosures are my own making
                my audience extends only as far to conclude
                                that it is all about my awkwardness
                                                              all I have to do is fit in
                                              before I have even finished explaining
                usually I don’t bother to finish
                                or even start
                                              the solution is ready-made
                                                              with a few ‘hmm’s to make it look kindly
                or it is kept to themself
                                echoing loudly in their brains through their eyes

                                              like sharing secrets with the fog
                                                              I find myself alone
                each of them was the last person I could turn to in the world
                                but they all agree with each other
                                              they are the Company Man

                                I have done my bit for the family
                                I have done my bit for the team
                                I have done my bit for the community
                                                                      all by not being there
                                              all by not getting in the way
                I cried when I was acknowledged once
                                                                      it never happened again

                                it’s just
                                              they need to keep from shattering in a thousand pieces
                they need to hold the whole damn thing together
so I give because I can
                                              because it is right
                                                                      but I cannot expect the return
                                                              they cannot give
                                what they expect in return
                for sure things are done
                                              things may be organised
                                                                      sometimes even when I want them
                                              but they are done for some greater good
                for the greater good of a career
                                                              for the greater good of legacy
                                              not mine
                                certainly not mine
                                                              (‘America I have given you all
                                                                      and now I am nothing’)
                                              when I work it is all about them
                when I stop it is all about how they performed
                                all that I do and don’t do
                                              is how it sits as support or burden
                                                              to them
                                conclusion: it is only them who do the work
                                              the thinking the organising
                                                                      I seem to do nothing really
                and do it annoyingly and awkwardly and thinkingly – roll eyes exasperation
                                I have to be managed to be of any competence
                                                              that’s meant affectionately
I am just the recipient of their good work
                                                              what do they call them these days – ‘clients’
                                              my value my contribution what I am
                                                                                 are the price I pay to receive

                so I don’t say anything – what’s the point?
                                I’ll put a few things out
                                              tentatively
                                but I would be patronised at best     if I’m lucky
                                                                                 if the planets are lined up right
                                                              told it’s cute
                or individual
                                              or much too clever to understand
                                                                      or it’s not what was needed
                                              or sorry, Mark, did you say something
                                                              and the audience will move swiftly on
                                to what it wanted to talk about anyway
                                                              or what it wanted to be doing all along
I mostly keep it to myself

                here
                                                                      in the place I claim each day
                                              time to myself bittersweet
                                                                                 at siege from service and compliance
                                to ‘indulge’ myself ‘stay up too late’ ‘contemplate my navel’
                                                              otherwise I get ‘grumpy’
                                              I talk to myself
                                                                      I am not the Company Man
                                                              no one
                                                              to share
                                                              me with
                no one interested beyond the managed
                                obliged
                                              corporate return
                                oh yes I return to myself
                                                              find my own meaning purpose audience love
                                                              safe in the fifty year relationship
                                              which is good for only one

                                the weekends holidays and days off get whittled away
                                                              here and there
                                                                      chips and shavings on the floor
                                              leaving a petrified face
                eyes wide mouth open
                                                              a bas-relief out from being

 

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: Big Mind
(hidden) Allen Ginsberg & life wormhole: guileless naïveté – / a biographical / manifest -oh!
being & breathing wormhole: honest
career wormhole: sit. / In. / g …
eyes wormhole: awayday / update
horizon wormhole: poessay IV
fog wormhole: my struggle
lifetimes & mauve wormhole: the spectre
society wormhole: 20th century
teaching wormhole: there is
work wormhole: song

 

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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 …

  • “…and may the great elements…”
  • paisley // implicitly
  • this pocketed being
  • the inevitable tock // when we close our eyes
  • time
  • the simple prayer // the tattered poem // the bitter lament
  • taking birth
  • mirror
  • long / road
  • ‘in my car I pass…’

Uncanny Tops

  • me
  • Moebius strip
  • YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams
  • 'in my car I pass...'
  • 'the practice ...'
  • 'I can write ...'
  • like butterflies on / buddleia
  • meanwhile
  • 'hello old friend ...'
  • under the blue and blue sky

category sky

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tag skyline

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