“…and may the great elements…”

Tags

2022, 7*, assertion, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, career, death, elements, empire, identity, leaves, life, mother sentient beings, others, pain, prayer, space, statement, trees, twigs

                                        “…and may the great elements…”

                              they lay on me
                    the twigs that grew so wilfully
          asserting a different direction

                              the plethora of leaves
                    endless bickering of state-meant
          and chatter

                              and here and there
                    a fallen tree
          carcass of some vainglorious empire

                              of some untold career to behold
                    (look away, look away);
          they all create new space

                              now their demand and strife
                    are finished
          awaiting the final crunch

                              come, come to me my darlings
                    there is so much more that you could be now that
          you have matured

 

the title is a clip from the prayer of BCA III, 17-22: “And just as the great elements – earth, water and so forth – support the life of sentient beings, so may I too become the foundation of sustenance for all…”

 

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

career wormhole: c’mon – keep up
death & trees wormhole: Journey
identity wormhole: paisley // implicitly
leaves wormhole: ‘and is there homage …’
life & space wormhole: the inevitable tock // when we close our eyes
others wormhole: the simple prayer // the tattered poem // the bitter lament

 

south horizon

Tags

1959, 1967, 1979, 1993, 1999, 2011, 2012, 7*, abandonment, anger, Bowie, childhood, Dad, discovery, divorce, drum, evening, experience, horizon, light, London, Margaret Thatcher, memory, Mum, Nan, pain, parents, perspective, purple, rhythm, river, saxophone, shift, Shooters Hill, south, texture, Thames, travelling, words, world

                south horizon

                out on the river
                the purple is shifting

                but in the evening-bulb light
                the world-shaping words

                of grown ups
                is shifting uncontrollably

                but,          no; it’s OK          look
                there is rhythm, there is

                a saxophone, a hi-hat – shflpt –
                in the crack there

                where words sift
                where worlds shift

 

I submitted this to an online magazine; they didn’t want it; I’ll publish it here again with the copy that supported it:

about the poem: on my eighth birthday (in 1967) my Dad arrived home late from work; my parents had one of their last arguments; my Dad left home that night; I couldn’t remember much of what happened that night – what was said, how much I heard, how much I understood – but I realised that worlds could change quite quickly that night; years later, in 1993, David Bowie recorded ‘south horizon’ on his ‘Buddha of Suburbia’ album, but I didn’t really get to know the piece until 2011; hearing it etched that experience back into my memory – bevelled it up, almost – but it also supplied textures and chord changes to the memory that allowed me a perspective that held me from being just angry or hurt; (‘the river’ is the river Thames; we lived on Shooters Hill in SE London from where we could hear and breathe the river)

author bio: Mark Redford was born in 1959 and grew up in South East London until he bolted to university (like a bat out of hell) in 1979, hot from Margaret Thatcher’s election victory; London was never the same every time he returned back; his mother, who had brought him up with her mother (his Grandmother), died in 1999; since then he has travelled back to London frequently to find the previous 40 years, but only seems to find them when he writes down what he saw; you can see what he sees (possibly better than he can) at: https://mlewisredford.wordpress.com/; if you bump into him there, give him some directions would you?

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: monument to vainglory
Bowie wormhole: new-found love – poewieview #36
childhood & Thames wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
Dad & divorce & texture wormhole: beepbeep
evening wormhole: alighted
horozon wormhole: 1966
light wormhole: so pleased to see you again
London wormhole: 1967
Mum wormhole: 1967
Nan wormhole: work
purple & river wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
travelling wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
words wormhole: breathing out
world wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show

 

Woolwich Central – making life better II

Tags

2012, 9*, city, compassion, fear, identity, life, lifetimes, living room, love, pain, prayer, question, reading, silence, sky, space, superhero, Victorian houses, voices, walls, windows, Woolwich, words

 

 

 

                           Woolwich Central – making life better II

                           passing the gothic Victorian house pointing
                           skywards in all directions partitioned to
                           so many living rooms I know how much

                           I cannot be the superhero to the voice
                           sustained in high-register and edge of fear
                           let alone for the silent voice that sits by the

                           hollow wall under the table; can I rend
                           those walls asunder and pike the onslaught
                           with a single glance deep into the whorl

                           of flinch and recoil of a lifetime of no register?
                           can I scoop up the silence and hold it foetal
                           forever safe from division before the window?

                                          can I?

                                          spell:–

                           may the pain of scream and the silence
                           of numb build the very thirteen floors of
                           open-plan living in the centre of the city that

                           they never quite found when they committed
                           their lives together for life and may all the fear
                           and cower magnify transparent exponential

                           to the tangle that pulls it all tight into its own
                           relief – the space forever at its heart as the
                           space between these words that allows them to be read

                           thank you

 

 

 

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

city wormhole: city twilight
compassion wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
identity wormhole: just words wiped across a line
life & lifetimes & love & reading & sky & space & walls wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
living room wormhole: tag cloud poem VIII – growth
silence wormhole: ‘the walking stick …’
superhero wormhole: amid
Victorian houses & Woolwich wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 – / the breath of London
voices wormhole: new year’s eve 2014; train up to London to / walk the bridges across the Thames, and / listen to the voices say it is, and was, like, / but get back home before the fireworks / obliterate it all in the emptying twilight
windows wormhole: 1977
words wormhole: career came to naught …

 

born again

Tags

2013, 6*, birth, breathing, colour, heart, hurt, identity, life, mist, pain, samsara

 

 

 

                                                                                 I am born
                                                              colours and mists
                                              coalesce

                                              I become good at recognising them I
                become aware of the I
                                              recognising them
                                and when the dull surprises happen I
                                              become
                                foreshortened and arthritic
                                              with each
                                              exhalation
                                of my broken heart until
                I stop breathing

                                                              unless I am
                                              born again
                                breathing the mist’s swirl and
                singing the colour’s shine

 

 

 

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

breathing wormhole: breathe it all / in
identity wormhole: scattered
life wormhole: Dr Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
mist wormhole: oh-pen too
samsara wormhole: a known from without the unknown

 

letters to Mum IV – healing comes in smiling

Tags

1970s, 1998, 2014, 5*, abandonment, cancer, chemo, child, Christmas, Dad, dream, Eglinton Hill, Genesta Road, Hakuin, honesty, Joseph, letter, love, mother, Mum, Oscar Wilde, pain, parent, smile, talking, time, Zen

 

 

 

                                                                                              261298

                Dear Mum,

                                good to talk with you over Christmas
                                              honest and open
                                              I love that even when we don’t meet
                                              we can say we haven’t met to each other
                                                              when needed; we had

                                              a good holiday
                                              set everything up and
                                              let it all happen
                                              by itself
                                some of it was boring
                                some of it was tinsel-ly
                                Joe* called it ‘Winterval’
                I call it the gift to see like a child; recent dreams

                                of Eglinton Hill**
                still coming to terms with Dad leaving
                                after all these years … we had all been left
                                              we all had to survive, we all had to move down
                                              from Eglinton Hill to terraced Genesta Road*** –
                                              environment of survival – with the silly talk
                                              and crazy plans of becoming through the 70s

                                healing comes in smiling on the pain we carry
                                              befriending dis-order to help the heal
                                                              with the benign mind it ensues (it is
                                not the perfect but the imperfect that
                                                                      is in need of our love said our Oscar****)

                                              you might have
                                              good years left

                                              not cured but
                                              checking the

                                              cancer with
                                              little giggle and

                                              slight hysteric
                                              and you are right:

                                              bugger the dignity
                                              bugger the unfairness and
                                              bugger the chemo

                                Zen Master Hakuin was accused
                                of fathering the child – ‘is that so!’
                                he took care of the child – just so
                                the mother confessed, the parents
                                apologised and in yielding back the
                                child – ‘is that so!’

                much love, mark

 

     * eldest son; Mum was a Jehovah’s Witness and abstained from celebrating Christmas even though she loved the season when she was younger; Joe’s comment somewhat echoed the argument that Christmas had been hijacked
    ** large, semi-detached, Victorian 4-bedroom house where we (my Mum, my brother, my Grandmother and myself) lived up until 1971; no longer able to keep hold of it we had to move down the hill to …
  *** … Genesta Road, terraced, 3-bedroom, someone else’s wallpaper on the walls until we could change it ourselves
**** we shared a love of Oscar Wilde’s wit

 

 

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

part of the ongoing life and page of … Mum
abandonment wormhole: amid
child & time wormhole: I could step / more open
Christmas wormhole: on
Dad wormhole: ‘“ruddy crows!” / said my Dad …’
dream wormhole: my fidgety self
Eglinton Hill wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
Genesta Road wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate
Joseph wormhole: dream / 140603
love wormhole: happy birthday, my love
mother wormhole: the retriever the daughter and the mother
Mum wormhole: letters to Mum III – ongoing-term // eventually
smile wormhole: Tulips by Sylvia Plath – How Far To Step Before You Raise The Other Foot
talking wormhole: city-centre-coffee-shop / talk

 

our life

Tags

2014, 5*, being, breathing, Carol, crying, Gran Canaria, holiday, life, looking, love, pain, relationship, relaxing, shock, yoga

 

 

 

                                              oh my little baby
                did some yoga and hurt my shoulder
                                went into shock and apologised
                                for wasting so much of

                                              our life

                                              I didn’t know
                                what to do couldn’t move (she has all the practical
                                              even when knot needed)
                                              but then she cried

                and it didn’t matter anymore I put my hand on her chest
                                                              (over-breathing)
                                              and breathed steady
                                without telling her to calm down

                                              she looked at me
                                              for the first time in days
                                and then she didn’t need the blanket
                                                              anymore

 

 

 

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

being & looking wormhole: ‘like a piece of ice on a hot stove / the poem must ride on its own melting’
breathing wormhole: I will eventually drift tectonic
C wormhole: I find / you find your bones / on the outbreath
holiday wormhole: swifts test the chasm of sky
life & love wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate

 

true to life

Tags

2011, 7*, Dad, death, life, Mum, muse, pain, portrait

 

 

 

                                              true to life

                      two days before she died
                      deep in the pain that would
                                swallow her unconscious
                      she said she felt sorry
                                for Dad

                      who had left to find
                                another life
                      away from the one he had

                                she left implicit
                      that he would never find one
                                always wondering
                                always wandering

                                but she
                      had stayed with the rubble
                      the lino and the clumps of grass
                                true to her sons
                                true to her mother
                                true to her pain

 

 

 

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

… part of: mum
death wormhole: Michael Redford / 1935-2007
life wormhole: just
Mum wormhole: ‘twelve years since Mum died …’
muse wormhole: ‘the mother …’