my uncomfortable life

Tags

2019, 6*, abandonment, activity, anger, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, breakdown, broken, career, closed, compromise, contentment, context, Dad, disappointment, expectation, experience, eyes, feeling sorry for myself, frustration, greed, hope, injustice, laziness, life, management, no voice, people, politicians, powerlessness, Principal, requirement, resentment, self-cherishing, self-confidence, self-doubt, self-esteem, slogans, society, spin, teaching, thought, Tony Blair, turmoil, waiting, words, work

                I did not know contentment
                at work, what was required,
                what I thought, I never wholly
                got my teaching … sorted

                turmoil, and even when not
                outwardly angry, I was
                closed off and unapproachable,
                carrying anger and resentment

                like a thorny bush tied
                to my back since Dad left
                and people were ‘phony’ and
                society was stupid and words

                were insincere and all activity
                was a compromise and my equals cheated
                and laziness was always greedy
                and hope was rude and the politicians

                were tricksters and Tony Bliar
                and managers slogan-shifted like there was no tomorrow
                and the Principals
                wouldn’t know what to do with good practice if it writhed around suggestively on their desk in front of them and made them delicious promises of future dangerous liaison                      

                and by default I am
                at least disappointed, usually frustrated
                and often impotent-angry with them
                when they invariably reference me

                (and they always reference me)
                or when I am actually wronged,
                and then I’ll blow, beyond all immediate context
                because I have already been smouldering,

                waiting for the wrong to happen,
                expecting the wrong to happen,
                experiencing the wrong happening
                even before it has manifested;

                and I am right, it is wrong
                and compromised and greedy and unprincipled
                what they have done, even
                when they haven’t

                given expression to it, in fact
                especially when they haven’t
                given full expression to it
                and are sloganising and spinning

                that what is happening
                is entirely something else;
                and the powerlessness of
                not being able to have a voice

                no appeal to a universal
                right and wrong … built me up
                with no recourse and, I get broken;
                look at my tired eyes – my uncomfortable life

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara VI, 3: A mind which walks with, which harbours, which is in the grip of, which is poisoned with anger and hate can neither establish nor enjoy any state of calm or peace, any sense of well-being or equipoise, any contentment, any resolution, neither can it feel any joy or delight, any sense of kindliness or love, nor can it sleep or rest, when the shard of aversion and hate is stuck and buried deep in one’s heart; but … I have retired now, I, am coming through

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: south horizon
breakdown wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
career wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
compromise wormhole: raised brow
Dad wormhole: the reach turned to love
eyes wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
life & society wormhole: the old man;
management wormhole: how to teach
people wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
teaching wormhole: and … // … sound
thought wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
waiting wormhole: all // are // none
words wormhole: SPRING AND ALL VI by William Carlos Williams
work wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873

 

looking / ridiculous

Tags

2015, 6*, accountability, debate, echo, event, future, history, humanity, injustice, Paris, politicians, politics, rhetoric, Syria, terrorism, time, white elephants

                there is always always a whole
                history behind every event

                never more so as we
                step over rubble into the future

                which we build now; and so much
                of politics has become

                so deft at skipping the history
                to gainsay the outcome

                that it has become flat
                blunt and spade-like for holding, nothing

                to account; history is human
                hurt from any injustice and from any experience which persists despite

                the rhetoric (oh, you weren’t
                reaching for the shelves, were you!);

                responding to Paris by
                bombing Syria was on the table there-it-was

                a rhetorical knee-jerk
                blind to any history

                hoping for crowd-approval
                like the echoes of a playground brawl;

                politics should be sharp and uncomfortable,
                include all difference

                include whatever white elephants are in the room;
                spade (sic) politicians who

                will not respond to the white elephant
                who will not respond to the history

                are left with only the puff of rhetoric
                braying like farmyard animals, looking

                ridiculous; air strikes in Syria are ridiculous

 

there were a number of terrorist attacks in Paris during January 2015; there was debate in the UK about launching an attack on Syria as a response; the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbin, was courting views on the response – I wrote a poem

 

 

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

echo wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
history wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
Paris wormhole: Le Pont Royal, 1909
politics wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
time wormhole: lack of center

 

prayer to my self

Tags

2010, adjustment, anger, breath, care, career, dedication, discovery, dream, injustice, legacy, letting go, life, light, listening, moon, others, prayer, reputation, self, space, talking to myself, tragedy, vindication, work

 

 

 

                                prayer to my self

                                I had my stab at life – obdurate and rarefied –
                                I glimpsed the moon and captured its light
                                but nobody wanted it

                                let the tragedy go, let the injustice go
                                let the anger and indignation go
                                they are not the self

                                let the devastating ripostes before whole crowds go
                                let the overlooking and insignificance go
                                they are not the self

                                let the secret work and its Discovery – the Legacy – go
                                let the live-on-with-open-wounds-and-dejection go
                                let the career and the reputation go
                                they are all not the self

                                let there be the space from where all of this came
                                to let go and adjust, let there be the breath for new dreams
                                and the listening to declare, the pause for resolution
                                and the care to let go

 

 

 

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

breath wormhole: the Conqueror
career wormhole: the stance of Buscema // qualitatively
dedication wormhole: dedication
dream wormhole: dream 260713
letting go wormhole: lo
life wormhole: the endless acts of life
light wormhole: of a sudden // all the time
listening & talking to myself wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting
moon wormhole: up here
others wormhole: good looking
space wormhole: fall
vindication wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
work wormhole: I do

 

first a mishap then clear vision

Tags

'scape, 2014, 6*, age, being, career, centrifugal, centripetal, Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche, circular poem, detail, distraction, doing, elemental, form, glasses, hope, identity, injustice, journey, letting go, life, looking, lost, moment, name, pointlessness, reading, realisation, role, society, tide, time, vague, vulnerable, waves, world, writing

first a mishap then clear vision

                        face it
  let yourself                 there is
 but never                       no point
known it                           no victory
     always                       no justice
  and you’ve                 there never
                          was

                                                        all the effort
                                   again using                           of reading
                        willing to build                                     writing and
                 for the way back                                              accumulation
                 around hopeful                                                   creating hope
                     and looking                                                      of a salvific
                         I am lost                                                       point but it
                        accept that                                                   plateaus ever
                       and I finally                                               as it is made
                             is stumbled                                       and takes in
                                  before a trip                           miles of amble
                                                          and wander

                                                              but

                                              the natural plain of this life’s journey
                                                              is to gaze un
                                attached past the complication and
                                              across the complexity
                                              to see clearly all the detail
                                                              and form in itself
                content to look unfocused and elemental
                                until my age and career
                                required glasses
                                              so that now
                                I react centripetal to the world
                                              that calls my name in shower and wave
                                and I become
                                centrifugal and solidified
                                (vagued and vulnerable) to
                an identity I can never find
                                while the world keeps leaking
                                              and escaping like gas

                                                                                  so

                                                                          (let them all …
                             and no hope of identity                     disperse
                           with no need of hope                              clean into the scene)
 as the energy fans awry and around                                    like a ‘scape until
                                  and slip-slide                                        the next moment
                                                  only                                    which
        and the shift and chirrups of élan                              moves
                                                          just                       both slight and extra
                                            to the roles and tides

 

 

 

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

being & doing & identity wormhole: ‘I come from the brow …’
career wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche wormhole: 25% scaffolding & rope
circular poem 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
distraction wormhole: tag cloud poem V – draft-ness
glasses wormhole: all the while / the flagpole rope / occasionally flaps / the breeze
letting go wormhole: sounds // suddenly / stop
life & society wormhole: they find their life growing together –
looking wormhole: the retriever the daughter and the mother
pointlessness wormhole: letter 080514
reading & realisation & time wormhole: only the Batman realises that he is dead
waves wormhole: gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared
world wormhole: the declensions of constant possibility throughout times
writing wormhole: too cold to sit outside / and write flowers of / individual poems

 

Sunday

Tags

2*, 2012, anxiety, being, injustice, smile, Sunday, talking to myself, work

 

 

 

                                   Sunday

                                   back to work
                                   tomorrow
                                   I shall lose the
                                   relax‘n’perspective
                                   that I gained;

                                   well then watch
                                   it label it “there it
                                   goes!” work the day
                                   encounter the
                                   injustice smile
                                   slightly then
                                   come home

 

 

 

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

anxiety wormhole: exercise
being wormhole: patient
smile wormhole: let
Sunday wormhole: but there …
talking to myself wormhole: the / Woolworth / Building
work wormhole: compromised