written relief to / creeping anaesthesia / through palimpsest / and crankled page

Tags

2013, 6*, being, buying, centre, consumerism, driving, Have, identity, living, page, passing, progress, self, texture, travelling, writing

                written relief to
                creeping anaesthesia
                through palimpsest
                and crankled page

                driving soaks you into
                the process of passing
                inexorable to progress
                oblivious to a      centre

                here comes a service station
                let me choose a centre to buy
                inevitable to consume and then
                obliged to define myself     through

 

 

 

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

being 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”
Have wormhole: 20th century
identity wormhole: wakeoutofadream
living wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
passing wormhole: municipal garden
travelling wormhole: too much in arrival
writing wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey

 

wakeoutofadream

Tags

2013, 6*, career, circular poem, contentment, CPD, defensive, defining, dream, freedom, gap, history, identity, KUE, lesson observation, loneliness, measure, process, professionalism, propaganda, sitting, stillness, struggle, teaching, time, true nature, waking

                                                                                wakeoutofadream
                       both content and free                            where I struggle
                   that is your true self                                         to take the measure
      and inhabit the loneliness                                              of the class I track and train
               and go with neither                                                  brilliant to my design
between define and defend                                                      and told upon inspection
           (nothing to stand on)                                                      I should be engineering them
                        to find the gap                                                   by process
to history or the propaganda                                                and should have been
   moving neither left nor right                                         for years now
                                   keep your seat                            what have I been doing?
                                                              just

 

 

 

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

career & identity wormhole: weight
circular poem: no / thing
dream wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
history wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35
loneliness wormhole: lonely and free
professionalism wormhole: retirement
sitting wormhole: bud
stillness wormhole: still
teaching wormhole: Virginia
time wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything

 

weight

Tags

2017, 8*, anatta, April, beauty, breeze, career, circle, clouds, countryside, identity, lesson planning, right angle, seeing, stone, stone circles, teaching, thought, time, view, work, world

                                                              April clouds are stone
                                              foreboding over the countryside
                                                                                   placed in circles across the land
                                                                                              over millennia

 

 

                I had wanted
                to follow thought and view

                at right-angle
                to all the world

                to find it beautiful
                in all its stark

                to lose my weight
                in perfect shifting breeze

                but had to work
                and plan the bend

                and case the sight
                and lost my sight

                (and gained some weight)
                I … had to work

 

retirement #8: when you slip out of a career and look back on what was achieved, there is only a quiet and drifting cloud to contemplate although the experience of working through it was of unworkable stone which you knew all the time shouldn’t be the case, but it was, it was; read the whole sequence as it drifts across the skies: in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …

 

 

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

beauty wormhole: Sylvia
breeze wormhole: 1968
career & identity wormhole: strain
clouds wormhole: the // orange rose
seeing wormhole: Day Out
stone wormhole: reprieve
teaching wormhole: seen but not heard
thought wormhole: handsome
time wormhole: time travel
work wormhole: holiday
world wormhole: reading // unstirred

 

strain

Tags

2017, 7*, breakdown, career, identity, music, nude, openness, retirement, sound, vinyl

                I’ve lost the needle that settles
                between grooves and plays the circling music

                on fluff the arm skates across the ridges
                making awful rip of a career

                it skints along a ridge edge – wedges in,
                bounces out – a scratch to repeat

                against all reasonable hope that it might not;
                I cannot hear the pops and crackles,

                the greeting space before the
                opening strain, awaiting nudity

 

retirement #7: Virginia Woolf’s first novel was ‘the Voyage Out’; she wrote much of it as she experienced two breakdowns and a number of stark bereavements; this is not a trip to venture and return, this is a discovery to venture and change; so much changes between generation, within and across lives, the further you travel the deeper you stay where you are; read the whole sequence: in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …

 

 

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

breakdown & retirement wormhole: what wounds have you got?
career wormhole: seen but not heard
identity wormhole: brown corduroy shirt / and dark redwine tie
music wormhole: within
openness wormhole: 1968
sound wormhole: ssreet chak-chak

 

brown corduroy shirt / and dark redwine tie

Tags

2017, 6*, breath, brown, eyes, hair, identity, life, neck, nose, portrait, red, retirement, shirt, tie, Virginia Woolf, writing

                                brown corduroy shirt
and dark redwine tie

                finding Virginia
                                              young before gathered and drapèd hair
                                              over enquiring philtrum
                old where sternomastoids meet
                below the whole larynx readying to write properly
                                              and hooded eyes half closed to stolidity
                                                              half open to breath

 

 

read the whole sequence: in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …; I bought myself some new shirts with the no-blame severance pay I accepted to make it all stop – one of the shirts is a mid-brown corduroy that naps a darker brown when stroked because it hasn’t washed worn yet; the tie I bought from a charity shop before I even started teaching – deep burgundy red, slim and tonic in the light; I have been meaning to get in to Virginia Woolf for quite some time, but the afternoon light of the parlour has never been quite right; am I pathetic: oh yes, but at least I can write about it; Carol likes to travel as an instinctive way to comb-through the threads of career and life; we planned a trip to the stones in Wiltshire started with the Avebury stones …

 

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

breath wormhole: and smile / like a bud
brown wormhole: occa / s / i // o / n / a // l // l // y
eyes wormhole: darkness
hair wormhole: handsome
identity wormhole: bud
life wormhole: somewhere
red wormhole: love and precision
retirement wormhole: retirement
writing wormhole: no / thing

 

bud

Tags

2013, 6*, budding, colour, doing, identity, non-doing, sitting, smile, superhero

                                              bud

                there is nothing that I do that is important –
                                that I do it, that it be done at all, that I do it well
                                              or heroically –

                                but that I do any of it
                                              with all the filament colours
                                                              of a slight smile

 

 

 

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

doing & superhero wormhole: where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …
identity wormhole: seen but not heard
sitting wormhole: breathing
smile wormhole: retirement

 

seen but not heard

Tags

2013, 3*, career, children, creation, identity, managerialism, sidelined, teaching, thought

                                seen but not heard

                I expected to participate and share
                in the discussion and very endeavour
                to which I had offered my thought and creation

                not side-lined off somewhere
                out of the way of the grown-ups
                and told I was valued only if I whinged enough

 

 

 

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

career & identity & managerialism wormhole: retirement
thought wormhole: comfy

 

retirement

Tags

2017, 7*, air, blood, career, face, feeling, identity, managerialism, mist, movement, murder, professionalism, retirement, smile, speech, table, teaching

                           retirement

---

                                     .                                      ,                                           .

                           ,                .                                                                                     ;                                                 ,                                                                                     .                       –                 .

                ,             ,                                                       ,  “                                                                     ,                                 ”,         … there

---

                           had been a murder
                           I could feel it all around me and
                           it wasn’t just because there was

                           mist all about – suggested movement,
                           sudden stop – and there is
                           no body

                           that I can see
                           no speech balloon of blood
                           from a face’s final cry

                           but a gentle air
                           where the table is that I
                           use to pound my fists

                           and a swirly smile
                           that told me so, dispersing and
                           unattributive

 

retirement #6: here it is, the full story in all of its salacious detail; restricted strictly to those over 18 years of age – warning: graphic violence, with scenes of intent unattribularity

 

 

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

air & mist wormhole: 1968
career & teaching wormhole: holiday
identity & smile wormhole: six paramitas
managerialism wormhole: dry rot
professionalism & table wormhole: while
speech wormhole: so pleased to see you again

 

six paramitas

Tags

2017, adjustment, aspiring Bodhichitta, being, doing, eyebrow, feet, giving, identity, joy, Mahayana, morality, patience, sand, seeing, settling, shoulders, sitting, skin, smile, talking to myself, the Six Perfections, true nature, wisdom

six paramitas

give, Mark, like you are peeling and cutting off the
scaley skin that cloys around you obscuring your

pure light; be cool, Mark, shelter from the spikes and
eyes of provocation, the winning curl of enticement;

endure, Mark, and face the walls with due measure
and renewed adjustment across a noble brow; nurture,

Mark, a modest smirk: you have the time to do this
all even when busy; return, Mark, to a settled release,

hung from the point between your shoulders like a
perfect coat-hanger; be, Mark, the eye wide shut,

that sees the further shore is in the very sand you
squelch between your feet, sinking lower into pudding

 

these emerged from the section of Gems of Dharma, Jewels of Freedom by Je Gampopa introducing the Six Perfections: delving into etymology reveals facets and perspectives like walking around a display case at a museum and really having a good look at something fascinating; and then I thought, c’mon, Mark, `about time you started standing on your own two feet; so, I sat down to do so

 

 

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

being wormhole: singsong chant
doing & seeing wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
feet wormhole: sleep now
giving wormhole: my seat // now
identity & talking to myself wormhole: holiday
settling wormhole: moment
sitting wormhole: the bench
smile wormhole: Open – All – Ours

 

holiday

Tags

2015, 5*, career, Herstmonceux Castle, holiday, identity, meaning, public service, talking to myself, teaching, tide, work, writing

                holiday

                OK, pal, you’re on holiday
                you’re supposed to be a sense-r
                making write of the world

                which tends like a tide
                to declare all need made manifest
                through all manner of glossy

                pamphlet and prestige position,
                brokering career by meeting it –
                more or less, more for less –

                you’ve no time to lose at work
                made stupid by my very placement
                and awkward to the very service

                I practise; go on with you, find the sense
                sat there at the tea shop table with
                the plastic tablecloth in the wind

 

first of a four-part triptych – you’ll have to read them all to figure how that works; all set within Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex; while I was still working as a teacher and wondering when I could have the weight of my own communication; I will publish the rest sequentially but not necessarily daily

 

 

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

career wormhole: while
holiday wormhole: magnificent salad
identity & talking to myself wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
meaning wormhole: AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!
teaching wormhole: reading // unstirred
work wormhole: Open – All – Ours
writing wormhole: breathing out