• 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: people

I am not yet ready

03 Saturday Feb 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2016, 5*, career, confession, eyes, faces, fracture, indentity, Luton, mouth, passing, people, Refuge, responsibility, university, work

                in the university reception
                I cannot Take Refuge while
                fractured from those around

                and those who pass, their
                faces about their work and
                identity, already persed

                beside their mouth my eyes
                trying to make the devastating
                confession for which I suspect

                I am not yet ready

 

 

 

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

career wormhole: after all
eyes & people & work wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
faces wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
identity wormhole: lack of center
mouth & passing wormhole: two profiles
university wormhole: reading // unstirred

 

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green and / luminant / to behold

02 Friday Feb 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

2012, 5*, balance, being, breakdown, coffee, communication, diagram, distance, ears, eyes, father, fingers, fracture, gardening, gathering, glass, green, holiday, home, listening, looking, luminous, people, school, service station, society, suit, summer, table, talking, terrace, thinking, thumb, woman, work

                                first day summer
                                holiday service station
                                100 miles away from
                                home thinking I
                                don’t fit in with the
                                way things
                                are played

                always looking
                                fractured
                                cracked
                                                from in at the side

                                green and
                                luminant
                                to behold

                                on the terrace
                                two businessmen sit
                                with ledgers coffees
                                the woman listening

                to one
                                                to the other

                                agreeing
                                the diagram
                                on the table

                                the elder sits back
                                dark suit large ear
                                plump throat tanned
                                skin upturned hand
                                emphasising gently
                                beside the diagram
                                thumb to fingers

                slightly gathering
                                like a father
                                                like a gardener

                                occasionally
                                talking with
                                still young
                                green eyes

 

 

 

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

balance wormhole: ‘still …’
breakdown & society wormhole: after all
coffee & woman & work wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
communication wormhole: Infantino KO
eyes wormhole: two profiles
father wormhole: looking ahead
glass & people wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
green & looking & thinking wormhole: Batgirl –
holiday wormhole: when the rain has settled / the dust
listening wormhole: buttercups
school wormhole: step
table wormhole: immeasurable love
talking wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?

 

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the silent night of the Batman

24 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

2011, 7*, alley, attention, Batman, belief, black, blue, buildings, Christmas, city, east, fear, glass, green, guilt, ink, light, marble, marzipan, night, people, planes, purple, river, rooftops, rose, shops, silence, sky, skyline, smile, south, stars, streetlamp, thought, vista, windows, writing

                the silent night of the Batman

                even while they carried their
                gift-wrapped parcels and looked
                to each other with smiles of belief

                the shop signs hummed dark
                against the marbled frontage
                while above, quiet floors of

                clear-dark windows looked east
                looked south in the ink-black sky
                enough to write a novel in a

                single sitting, enough to hold
                a fleet of stars above the skyline
                stacking slowly; when the sky

                is ink-green the rooftop
                gathers ink-blue attention
                and leaps without step or

                swing through the glass and
                ledges of city vista, the lingering
                thought to shadow the guilt,

                the alley to streetlamp the
                fear, and over the river the rose
                cast high and wide to the stars until

                marzipan fingers reach across the
                ink-purple sky and marshmallow lights
                go out

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: looking back over the tack / and jibe of my life I / notice there is / a fetch // after all … / but certainly not / where I had planned / or where I thought / I’d been
Batman: cape and cowl
black wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
blue wormhole: out
buildings & people wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
Christmas & stars wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
city wormhole: city streets
glass wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
green & sky & smile wormhole: looking ahead
light wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
night & writing wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
purple wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
river wormhole: glide
rooftops wormhole: low afternoon
shops wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
silence wormhole: is this it // all the time
skyline wormhole: clear as vista
thought & windows wormhole: for / the first time

 

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London refugee march – 120915

18 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2015, 5*, architecture, balcony, buildings, capitalism, denial, dog, economics, freedom, global, justice, London, migration, people, Picadilly, politics, power, protesting, railings, refugees, roads, sound, stucco, sun

London refugee march – 120915

                                                there are
                                no economic migrants
                within global capitalism
only refugees

                                                you can’t have
                                a free market without fair-dom
                freedom for the mass
is individual

                the dog
                calmly
                sniffed
                this bit
                of road
                that bit
                below the
                plackards
                and the
                whistles
                on a lead
                past the

just too beautiful
                railings and balconies and
                                stucco of Picadilly, sun on the sides showing
                                                all the finial of denial

 

 

 

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

buildings wormhole: glide
capitalism & London wormhole: place
dog wormhole: slightly / uphill
economics wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
justice wormhole: listen willya
people wormhole: passing
politics wormhole: just saying, is all VII: // `spolitical
power wormhole: I turn to wake up
roads wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
sound wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
sun wormhole: city streets

 

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passing

01 Friday Dec 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

2015, 3*, being, event, life, passing, people, step

                the lifetime
                of events of
                passing people
                is in length of
                thigh and
                unavoidable
                step of place

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
life wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
passing wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
people wormhole: dream I // dream II

 

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dream I // dream II

06 Sunday Aug 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2014, 3*, arrival, blue, experience, explanation, giving, hill, identity, looking, people, poem, reflection, retirement, school, tarmac, teaching, time, town, waking, windows

          dream I

    I had to get to school
    from the college halls
    in a town I didn’t know
    or what I was doing there

    I was already late
    but making my way
    past blue window reflections
    on honeycomb tarmac

    I realised I was going the
    wrong way up a hill people looking
    at me in my teacher’s clothes they
    knew the school is not here

    I am in an area I do not know
    so I go back down the hill
    trying to show that I know
    what I am doing I can see

    the whole town spread out
    like a city the different areas
    the school is there somewhere
    and I need to get myself there

and yet woken up now I’m not so sure I do

          dream II

    my chance to teach
    I explain everything

with little clever phrases like poems
    but each time

    I have to explain yet further
    taking hours, not

    holding them I gave of my
    of my own experience but it wasn’t

    theirs, they started leaving
    before I could conclude

retired now I’m not sure I ever arrived

 

 

 

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

blue wormhole: pass and / fro
giving wormhole: six paramitas
identity wormhole: I keep / waiting to be discovered and get lost in anticipation
looking wormhole: over-pink cagoule
people wormhole: memorial
retirement wormhole: Virginia
school wormhole: step
teaching wormhole: make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let
time wormhole: tragic and archival
windows wormhole: windows // and balconies

 

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memorial

09 Sunday Jul 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2013, 5*, Ashdown Forest, hope, judging, peace, people, reflection, Remembrance, trumpet, war

                memorial

            noticing my easy habit
                of judging others disdainfully
            I looked at the crowd around
                the Airman’s Memorial
            and offered that up to the hope of
                ease between all
            as the trumpet blew
                reveille

 

the Airmans’ Memorial is a tiny walled garden on Ashdown Forest marking the place where an aircraft crashed on the way back from a sortie during the 2nd World War; a service a Remebrance is held there every year

 

 

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

Ashdown Forest wormhole: ‘avenue of wraggled gorse tops …’
people wormhole: too greedy
reflection wormhole: strange / tarnish
war wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – introdepthion

 

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too greedy

28 Wednesday Jun 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2013, 6*, air, ambition, attention, breathing, coffee, distraction, experience, fruit jellies, love, passing, people, poem, sandwich, sitting, smoothie, staying, sugar, talking to myself, town, walking, walls

                you know, mark, you can be
                too greedy, not from the coffee
                or the four DVDs, not from the

                ploughman’s sandwich nor the
                pear and peach smoothie, not even
                from the bag of fruit jellies that

                now you’ve opened you’re
                probably going to have to finish,
                but from wanting to carve a poem

                out of every damn experience you have
                sitting on every damn wall in
                every damn town you visit while

                every damn person walks past thinking
                you’re a bit damn weird … but then,
                nah, I don’t quite think so, as long as

                you seep into the observation and
                don’t ride it through somewhere else,
                and you can check the ambition

                with enough wide-open love to breathe,
                you could sculpt poems out of
                the very air where you stay put …

                … and, besides, I’m getting one
                hell of a sugar-buzz from these
                sugar jellies … will I never learn!

 

 

 

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

air wormhole: retirement
attention wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
breathing wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey
coffee wormhole: too much in arrival
distraction 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
love wormhole: slow enough / to have love
passing wormhole: morning sun
people wormhole: where else
sitting wormhole: the goldilocks stance
talking to myself wormhole: where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …
walking wormhole: ‘avenue of wraggled gorse tops …’
walls wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams

 

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where else

27 Tuesday Jun 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2013, 6*, beige, breeze, circle, green, light, money, morning, music, oblong, other, people, sound, spaceship, square, trees, Uckfield, visit

                                the wide-open
                recreational green in town had beige and bright green
                circles and squares and oblongs obliquely occupying
                                the perimeters

                                and the centre,
                a rattling string-of-lights spaceship had come visit
                variously revolving and blinking, relaying energy
                while its engine idled strange music all wondrous
                                to behold

                                the people came
                and applied hard-earned pieces of metal and one morning
                the ship was gone as if nothing had happened but if you
                listen closely to all the trees standing square around the breezes
                they saw it all, they’ll tell you, where else did those marks
                                come from!

 

 

 

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

beige wormhole: 1963
breeze 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”
green wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey
light 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
money wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Olly
morning & trees wormhole: morning sun
music wormhole: strain
people wormhole: prelude: // travel
sound wormhole: ‘quick – she’s gone to pay …’

 

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prelude: // travel

01 Thursday Jun 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2013, 6*, acceptance, castle, coffee, compassion, doing, driving, dust, field, green, Have, mist, motorway, passing, people, progress, self-compassion, sky, steel, stone, sunlight, tarmac, travelling, waking, wood

                                prelude:

                had a day to myself
                no work to do no family no obligation
                I could have built myself a castle stony to the sky
                but I did nothing to make my mark in the world
                nothing to house
                the sky

                and I felt strangely accepting of that
                a sort-of love really

                                travel

                woke-up stupid lack-slept
                but I have a certain love for myself
                and I get on with last-minute packing

                people, slaves in so many ways to Have
                but I have a certain love for myself
                and can accept us all to suffer our own coffees

                there is steel in all the greens and mist in all the sunlight
                the harvester shaves the field to dust and someone
                burns the wood to waft across the motorway

                but I have a certain love for myself and
                I let them all pass and while the rubber turns
                the tarmac I progress to a destination

 

 

 

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

acceptance & sky wormhole: stone
coffee wormhole: magnificent salad
compassion wormhole: so pleased to see you again
doing wormhole: wasted –
field & green wormhole: greedy
Have wormhole: beepbeep
mist wormhole: retirement
motorway wormhole: dawn
passing & travelling wormhole: handsome
people wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show
stone wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything
wood wormhole: the 19th century

 

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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 …

  • ‘the practice …’
  • under the blue and blue sky
  • sweet chestnut
  • ‘she shook the sweets …’
  • YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams
  • meanwhile
  • a far grander / Sangha
  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VII, Joyous Effort – verse 8; reflectionary
  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VII, Joyous Effort – verse 7; reflectionary
  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara: Chapter VII, Joyous Effort – verse 6; reflectionary & verses 3-6 embroidery

Uncanny Tops

  • Moebius strip
  • me
  • YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams
  • 'I can write ...'
  • meanwhile
  • like butterflies on / buddleia
  • covert being
  • 'hello old friend ...'
  • To my Mum
  • start where you are I

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