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mlewisredford

~ may the Supreme and Precious Jewel Bodhichitta take birth where it has not yet done so …

mlewisredford

Tag Archives: pride

What You Are by Roger McGough

03 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

1967, accident, advertising, apple, blood, books, buildings, canal, cat, cattle, children, city, clock, clouds, cuckoo, curtains, dawn, death, depth, derelict, dew, distance, duty, eyes, feet, fish, flesh, flowers, found, frog, glasses, God, goldfish, grass, green, hands, heartbeat, Hiroshima, humanity, innocence, ivy, kiss, leaves, library, love, Lusitania, madness, measure, midnight, mirror, moment, morning, moth, mother, murder, neurosis, peace, petals, plastic, poem, politicians, power, prayer, pride, Roger McGough, rosary, sand, seeds, silence, Spring, stage, station, subconscious, sun, sword, symbol, teacher, tears, teeth, time, torpedo, treason, trees, van Gogh, voices, walls, war, water, waves, wind, windows, winter, womb, world, World War, yellow

                What You Are

                you are the cat’s paw
                among the silence of midnight goldfish

                you are the waves
                which cover my feet like cold eiderdowns

                you are the teddybear (as good as new)
                found beside a road accident

                you are the lost day
                in the life of a child murderer

                you are the underwatertree
                around which fish swirl like leaves

                you are the green
                whose depths I cannot fathom

                you are the clean sword
                that slaughtered the first innocent

                you are the blind mirror
                before the curtains are drawn back

                you are the drop of dew on a petal
                before the clouds weep blood

                you are the sweetfresh grass that goes sour
                and rots beneath children’s feet

                you are the rubber glove
                dreading the surgeon’s brutal hand

                you are the wind caught on barbed wire
                and crying out against war

                you are the moth
                entangled in a crown of thorns

                you are the apple for teacher
                left in a damp cloakroom

                you are the smallpox injection
                glowing on the torchsinger’s arm like a swastika

                you are the litmus leaves
                quivering on the suntan trees

                you are the ivy
                which muffles my walls

                you are the first footprints in the sand
                on bankholiday morning

                you are the suitcase full of limbs
                waiting in a leftluggage office
                to be collected like an orphan

                you are a derelict canal
                where the tincans whistle no tunes

                you are the bleakness of winter before the cuckoo
                catching its feathers on a thornbush
                heralding spring

                you are the stillness of Van Gogh
                before he painted the yellow vortex of his last sun

                you are the still grandeur of the Lusitania
                before she tripped over the torpedo
                and laid a world war of american dead
                at the foot of the blarneystone

                you are the distance
                between Hiroshima and Calvary
                measured in mother’s kisses

                you are the distance
                between the accident and the telephone box
                measured in heartbeats

                you are the distance
                between power and politicians
                measured in half-masts

                you are the distance
                between advertising and neuroses
                measured in phallic symbols

                you are the distance
                between you and me
                measured in tears

                you are the moment
                before the noose clenched its fist
                and the innocent man cried: treason

                you are the moment
                before the warbooks in the public library
                turned into frogs and croaked khaki obscenities

                you are the moment
                before the buildings turned into flesh
                and windows closed their eyes

                you are the moment
                before the railwaystations burst into tears
                and the bookstalls picked their noses

                you are the moment
                before the buspeople turned into teeth
                and chewed the inspector
                for no other reason than he was doing his duty

                you are the moment
                before the flowers turned into plastic and melted
                in the heat of the burning cities

                you are the moment
                before the blindman puts on his dark glasses

                you are the moment
                before the subconscious begged to be left in peace

                you are the moment
                before the world was made flesh

                you are the moment
                before the clouds became locomotives
                and hurtled headlong into the sun

                you are the moment
                before the spotlight moving across the darkened stage
                like a crab finds the singer

                you are the moment
                before the seed nestles in the womb

                you are the moment
                before the clocks had nervous breakdowns
                and refused to keep pace with man’s madness

                you are the moment
                before the cattle were herded together like men

                you are the moment
                before God forgot His lines

                you are the moment of pride
                before the fiftieth bead

                you are the moment
                before the poem passed peacefully away at dawn
                like a monarch

 

from The Mersey Sound, 1967
when I first read this poem in 1978 I was too young to let go associations enough to get the metaphor; after a lifetime of being obligated to associations which stood idly by while I wildly floundered without ground, I can let them go with glee and relish and relish the metaphors to the portrait’s content (… still not sure about the ‘lost day of the child murderer’, however, and I’m still not sure why I’m not sure, but I’m not; but I can’t think McGough just slipped up over one couplet … (and I can’t find any discussion of this line in the pages-that-proliferate-like-spores-wafted-across-their-own-private-amphitheatres))

 

 

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

books & love wormhole: `whappn’d!
buildings wormhole: cowled
city & windows wormhole: moon- // washed
clouds & green & silence & time & wind wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
curtains wormhole: ‘the Bat-Signal …’
dawn wormhole: between
death wormhole: beguiled / desire
eyes wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Cows
feet wormhole: ‘oh my girls and muse …’
glasses wormhole: … the underleaves show
hands & water & world wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
leaves wormhole: sufficiently away
library wormhole: two profiles
mirror wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams
morning wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
mother wormhole: granny
power wormhole: I
Spring & sun wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
trees & voices & yellow wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams
walls wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
war wormhole: to arms, then;
waves wormhole: Khandro Tsering Chodron
winter wormhole: where did the silence go

 

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what life went on

26 Tuesday Jul 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1960s, 1997, 2012, 5*, abandonment, aloof, anger, children, Dad, dream, Eglinton Hill, family, flowers, forgiveness, garden, grief, kitchen, life, living room, pride, speech, table, walls, yellow

 

 

 

                                I arrive at the garden wall of Eglinton Hill*,
                                painted yellow, not quite finished; my kids

                                come out to see me, what has been done
                                while I was at work (what life went on

                                while Dad was away, what had been done),
                                straight into the front living room* – it is a

                                dappled kitchen now, 1960s small-flowered
                                and yellow-weave table cloth; I wander around

                                the rooms with the kids, how they have
                                changed; I rise out of sleep with the grief,

                                I still feel the hurt, I cannot forgive, I have
                                high expectations: proud angry and aloof

 

* childhood home; I was in the front living room where I heard my parents argue for the first and last time

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: 1967
children wormhole: ashramas
Dad wormhole: spit / spot
dream wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
Eglinton Hill wormhole: the figure “46” / in frosted glass
family & living room wormhole: currency of generations
garden & kitchen & speech wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – from arm to nature, doing nothing
life wormhole: carpet worn / to the backing – poewieview #30
table wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – the soft canticle of the gourds:
walls wormhole: trellis / and wisteria – poewieview #29
yellow wormhole: the / bright yellow / world

 

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dream career // groggy

07 Thursday Apr 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2012, career, compromise, dream, identity, journey, naked, obsession, pride, professional development, realisation, talking to myself, teaching, voices, waking

 

 

 

                                                      dream career

                                                      so there I was
                                                      naked except
                                                      for my pants
                                                      in the room
                                                      had to make it
                                                      round the room

                                                      I figured to go
                                                      right round
                                                      the room – do
                                                      it properly –
                                                      started off fine
                                                      became more

                                                      and more difficult
                                                      pants caught
                                                      on something
                                                      maybe the door
                                                      but I pushed on
                                                      turned the

                                                      support post at
                                                      far end of the room
                                                      pants were getting
                                                      tighter and tighter
                                                      ‘but I can push on’
                                                      stretched thinner

                                                      and thinner ‘but
                                                      I am strong’ going
                                                      to cut and then
                                                      I suddenly realised
                                                      how ridiculous:
                                                      the room, the

                                                      journey, my nakedness
                                                      my pants – would
                                                      my pants slice
                                                      off my legs –
                                                      so I stopped
                                                      and woke up, groggy

 

as the great majority of my readers are from America, I’d better point out that ‘pants’ means ‘underwear’ – the last vestige before total nudity (believe me, it ain’t pretty!); I am in the last throws of my career (I know, it’s been lingering on since obituary, and maybe shouldn’t’ve) and soon to enter the Last Rites; I was having a natter with Waywardspirit and we both agreed that it was about time; but I was nevertheless indulging in a little guilt ‘n’ defeat when I came across a dream I had before, even, my ‘obituary’ and it makes me feel better; and wiser …

 

 

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

career & teaching wormhole: and that’s where I are
compromise wormhole: working / for a living
dream wormhole: let the dreams / become the ghosts they / always were
identity wormhole: the start of adolescence
realisation wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
talking to myself wormhole: true nature
voices wormhole: becoming

 

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because

27 Wednesday Jan 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2013, acceptance, armchair, distraction, green, grey, laziness, letting go, living, mist, naïveté, posture, practice, pride, relief, scaffolding, sitting, staring, wonder

 

 

 

                                even the crap sittings
                                where I waft around anywhere
                                but where I am

                                even the lazy sittings
                                where I sit on a chair and stare
                                feeling sorry

                                even the workaday ones
                                where I sit fussing around the posture
                                like a scaffold

                                all are valuable
                                if I accept the sheds of pride as they are
                                because

                                later in a day
                                as life wafts and rolls by itself
                                allofasudden something
                                is just not done anymore
                                and I let it go naïvely
                                cast adrift in a grey green mist which
                                I accept
                                with relief
                                and fresh
                                wonder

 

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: sooner or later
distraction wormhole: start where / you are II
green wormhole: Saturday
grey wormhole: library windows
letting go wormhole: Seven A.M, 1948
living & mist wormhole: ‘went up to London and what did I see; …’
naïveté wormhole: poessay X: soul love
posture wormhole: grrr
practice wormhole: when / ever
sitting wormhole: when writing // stay

 

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relapse

06 Friday Feb 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

2015, 6*, ambition, breakdown, childhood, circular poem, creativity, depression, dissolving, doing, doubt, expectation, eyes, heart, history, identity, letting go, life, naïveté, pride, realisation, self, self-love, thinking, time

 

direction of read: reading direction

 

 

                                                                               it is amazing
                                         I realise because                            how much
                       again and again before                                             the same old
                     unambiguous heart                                                           ambition can
             to find my naïve and                                                                      cover the
                 again and again                                                                              same old illness
              self and relapse                                                                                    and seem to be
    will have to build my                                                                                        the cure I suppose
  that it isn’t although I                                                                                           I should be grateful
   eventually heartened                                                                                            that I’m not cured
         broken, and then                                                                                             as I thought –
            and I am heart-                                                                                            gives me something
   virtuous was despite                                                                                             more for pride
    I thought everything                                                                                          to relinquish
       creative was despite                                                                                      and love to
          I thought everything                                                                                dissipate leaving
               was always despite                                                                          the cure ready-
                      I thought the cure                                                                 prescribed and
                              but for the doubt;                                                   dosed – a self-healed
                             slightly arched brows –                                 man without edges
                                                 without history and

 

 

 

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

breakdown wormhole: right to be
childhood wormhole: just words wiped across a line
circular poem wormhole: a known from without the unknown
creativity wormhole: sometimes
depression wormhole: anti-depressants
doing & identity wormhole: un … able
eyes wormhole: Dr Strange VI – to hold my face to the world
history wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
letting go wormhole: I need to keep my eyes open / in meditation
life & thinking wormhole: step
naïveté wormhole: scattered
realisation wormhole: gently straighten
time wormhole: the edge has come …

 

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anti-depressants

14 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

2013, 3*, antidepressants, breakdown, depression, life, living, practice, pride

 

 

 

                           anti-depressants

                           too proud all my life
                           to rely on medicine
                           to see me through
                           I lay on my own bed

                           now I am broken
                           and left foolish I
                           embrace them to
                           teach me how to
                           practise happiness
                           one wave at a time

 

 

 

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

breakdown wormhole: letter 080514
depression wormhole: tag cloud poem V – draft-ness
life wormhole: 1963
living wormhole: poessay VII: // true revolution
practice wormhole: fractured –

 

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emerging

13 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

2012, 6*, acceptance, being, growth, letting go, pride, sitting, talking to myself, writing, zazen

 

 

 

                                                       emerging

                      through much undergrowth to allow that
                                   what I have to let go of
                      is what I want to have
                      and then I will have all that I want
                      and be entertained by it too

                                                       -o-

                      but the conceit – actually the fear –
                      creeps in like twilight
                      and stays for days and weeks because
                      it is hardly noticed and
                      slightly darkens everything

                                                       -o-

                      I need to find ways and tricks
                      to touch back with Real

                      No.   I don’t.   That is another
                      creeping failure that will haunt me for months
                      I need to live in the experience of sitting
                      when I sit so that I can do anything
                      as I anything
                      I do not need another project
                      to spend my days being anxious over
                      I need the balmy gentleness
                      of being the lesson
                      I am always looking for to
                      vindicate and inspire me

                      the same with writing.   Look at this.
                      Flowing.   Because I have sat in myself
                      pen poised when I am writing
                      not wanting the next chapter
                      of the over-reaching project that
                      I have set myself

                                   just write being
                                   myself just sit
                                   being myself
                                   just be myself
                                   with wide-open
                                   acceptance

                                   and ignorance

 

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: meditation session
being & letting go & zazen wormhole: thirst? / hunger?
sitting wormhole: radiator
talking to myself wormhole: the freedom to … // … enjoy
writing wormhole: renounce

 

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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
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