• 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: purpose

threshold to behold

09 Thursday May 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

1967, 2019, 8*, abandonment, alcove, being, birds, blue, books, breeze, Dad, Eglinton Hill, evening, garden, head, identity, life, meaning, openness, place, purpose, room, shoulders, skirting board, sky, son, sound, standing, text, time, trees, Victorian houses, weight, windows

                                  threshold to behold

                having persistently interrogated every alcove
                and skirting and sash-window of every room
                he could possibly have been in

                for any lead to any whereabouts, to even a
                chalk-outline, of how to be (beyond the breath
                of standing next to him in the breezy garden) –

                they were so well-moulded, fitted at perfect
                right angle, pulleys holding the weight just right
                to open, surely they would know – nothing,

                (or were they just too arcane to decode),
                the son stood before the bookshelves – how
                was it, now – legs not really astride but anyhow,

                (dangling, even), but head and shoulders alert,
                scanning the spines, weighing what each had
                to offer to respective places and times in the

                whole of a life, ah, this is the one – plucked –
                from the top of the spine, reached down; felt
                their weight, now, opened boarded covers

                (sound of crease), open at random (must of
                decades), what does the text say when
                eavesdropped unaware, has it sense, could I inhabit

                that sense enough to see what to do, to breathe
                what to be – birds take flight into the turning deep blue
                above evening trees

 

my father left his family on my eighth birthday; I’m sure he didn’t plan in that way, but that’s the day he happened to come home late again and confess that he’d been seeing someone else – I played with my new cars behind the sofa and listened to him leave, I didn’t look up so much as stare at the shape of the room as if noticing for the first time in the Victorian house on the hill where we lived; ‘I searched for form and land, for years and years I roamed’ (a no-prize to anyone who can name where these lyrics come from) looking for the direction I needed to be ‘the man of the house, now’ as someone said to me at the time; it’s only now I have retired that I realise there is no direction to go and that there is no man about the house other than saying makes it so; I still don’t look up, but am more and more sure that I don’t have to, now; still, all that browsing, plucking and hoarding over the years …

 

 

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

abandonment & Dad & life wormhole: my uncomfortable life
being wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
birds wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
blue & trees wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
books wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
breeze wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
Eglinton Hill wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
evening & time & windows wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
garden wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
identity wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
meaning wormhole: the old man;
openness wormhole: the mantra of Maitreya
sky wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
sound wormhole: 10/28 ‘On hot days …’ by William Carlos Williams
Victorian houses wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing

 

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the old man;

19 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2019, 8*, bougainvillea, Buddha, hope, life, lute, meaning, ochre, old age, open, pink, politics, power, purpose, renunciation, samsara, society, the Four Signs, time, walking, wind, windows

                the old man;

                by the open window –
                air of civic celebration

                flowering deep pink
                bougainvillea on ochre

                wind, but despite
                all iron machination

                the Prince of all
                that hope could keep

                had seen that Make
                held long-together only

                with foresworn and
                decrepit elapse

                that bent walking
                could behold;

                and the borough might hold
                but there were

                further portents
                on the way and a

                fourth that
                warranted all wasteland –

                when the lute-string
                snapped

 

An old man was the first of the Four Signs that tipped the Prince to thinking that there was more to life than privileged indulgence – there was a seriousness in life to consider which his father had designed to keep from him; when the Prince had been born, there was a prophecy that he would either become a great king enjoying power and influence far beyond, even, what his father had achieved, or that he would leave home and become a seeker of deeper purpose and meaning in life, but the father could not keep all of life’s questions at bay for the rest of the Prince’s life … the other Signs were: illness, death and worldly renunciation; this encounter fore-shadowed the Prince leaving his home to search for that deeper meaning and purpose

 

 

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

Buddha wormhole: birth in the world
life & time & walking wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
meaning wormhole: to let be
ochre wormhole: every step I take
open & windows wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
pink wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
politics wormhole: how to teach
power & society wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
renunciation wormhole: and … // … sound
samsara wormhole: Batman: Oddysey
wind wormhole: {reading right to left}

 

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pursued

09 Wednesday Jan 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

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1970, 2018, 5*, Batman, branches, cape, doors, fingers, growth, history, holding, land, legacy, opening, purpose, questioning, reaching, responsibility, shadow, society, warp, weft, white, wings

                the clench of cape
                into wing opens heavy doors

                into questioning
                that will be pursued despite

                occasion of legacy
                billowing in after-tow o’er

                hill and vale
                and where leafless branches

                reach, fixed
                in growth, it is fingers will

                pull beyond
                the furl and flack to present

                as white shadow
                in response

 

Detective Comics #403, September 1970, “You Die By Mourning” by Frank Robbins and Bob Brown

 

 

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

Batman wormhole: ‘streetsigns …’
branches & history wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
doors wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
shadow wormhole: on facing the Have
society wormhole: {reading right to left}
white wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XXII by William Carlos Williams

 

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to let be

21 Wednesday Nov 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

2018, 6*, allowing, being, change, echo, identity, letting go, looking, meaning, mist, Mum, prospect, purpose, putting out, retirement, rhetoric, school, shopping, space, streets, voice, wisdom

                                so I stopped working
                in an institution that couldn’t converse within its own rhetoric

                                couldn’t find a voice
                to navigate through all that drifting mist, and got lost, so I

                                no longer comb
                through shops and streets looking for echoes of a lost chord

                                that would weave
                my lives back together (couldn’t find it in all that looking),

                                all that
                                anxious putting-out
                and prospect, finding everything changed and nothing done,

                                and no monument
                that I was ever really there other than the space through

                                which the change
                happened glorious to allow, nothing to behold, everything

                                to be, a lot of
                history to let go – it was obstructive of me to try to solidify

                                there anyway,
                I should have stayed with the wisdom I inherited before

                                I was born,
                allowed the acceptance of my mother’s wisdom: to let be

 

 

 

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

being & identity & meaning wormhole: SPRING AND ALL VI by William Carlos Williams
change wormholeL The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
echo wormhole: La Route de Louveciennes, 1870
letting go wormhole: beguiled / desire
looking wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XI by William Carlos Williams
mist wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
Mum wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
retirement wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
school & streets wormhole: THE LONELY STREET by William Carlos Williams
space wormhole: space for probing thought

 

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blister on me thumb

17 Wednesday Oct 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

2018, 6*, being, breathing, cold, day, distraction, finding, growth, hope, inspiration, looking, money, need, not knowing, notebook, purpose, shelf, step, talking to myself, teeth, thrill, walking, windows, zip

                blister on me thumb
                so I did the zip right up

                to walk around the cold day
                to look for finds that I

                knew I no longer need
                nor even the thrill of find

                what I hadn’t known
                was there let alone the

                inspiration that I think
                to hold the day worthwhile

                while yet the outbreaths
                follow the in- without

                step or hope under my
                very nose, and I make

                from window to shelf
                distracted the while by

                tugging the zip back down
                over the separated teeth

                before I can reach for
                wallet or note-pad

 

 

 

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

being & windows wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
breathing wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pigs
distraction wormhole: JANUARY by William Carlos Williams
looking & walking wormhole: THE LONELY STREET by William Carlos Williams
talking to myself wormhole: only

 

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turned backs of saddened victory

05 Monday Mar 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

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1964, 2016, 6*, bone, Dr Strange, eyes, faces, flame, light, lime, message, purpose, role, Steve Ditko, Strange Tales, thought, windows, words

                while little more than bone bends
                calcified from the hip to graft with

                hideous and perverse satisfaction
                to phemur on which it sits, the

                messenger is sent lumbering clothed
                in outsize roles and ragged over

                cross-hatch purpose to breach the
                barrier of any window and the light

                that it may let fall across all facial
                thought – oh, the faltine flames

                that flicker lime between furnished
                brow, the words, not seen, but rise

                in smokey scapulas, the being in
                cross-hatch has frantic eyes, the amulet

                has light which cannot be framed –
                turned backs of saddened victory

 

from the Dr Strange story, Strange Tales #116, ‘Return to the Nightmare World’, January 1964; Lee & Ditko

 

 

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

1964 & faces wormhole: 1964
Dr Strange wormhole: the skyline
eyes & thought wormhole: between
light wormhole: tremule
lime wormhole: lime crocs
windows wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
words wormhole: at table 21 in the garden centre thinking to / replicate Hughes’ exercise for Plath about / the Yew Tree

 

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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

05 Tuesday Dec 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2015, 6*, attention, being, doing, eating, exercise, feeling, identity, life, living, need, notice, purpose, reaching, standing, strength, study, thinking

                looking back over the tack
                     and jibe of my life I
                          notice there is
                               a fetch

                I stand too much to attention
                     too alert to notice
                          where I am

                I reach far too far to get
                     that I cannot have
                          what I am

                I eat too much to treat me
                     and deaden
                          what I need

                I exercised too much and
                     stretched the ligaments
                          that contain all my effort

                I exercise too little now to realise
                     the strength I have
                          untapped

                I have studied too much to
                     know what I think
                          or feel

                                    after all …
                                         but certainly not
                                              where I had planned
                                                   or where I thought
                                                        I’d been

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: looking ahead
being & life wormhole: passing
doing & thinking wormhole: circuitry
identity wormhole: immeasurable love
living wormhole: addictive
study wormhole: reading // unstirred

 

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addictive

24 Friday Nov 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2*, 2015, addiction, eyes, living, lurch, obligation, purpose

                it’s that damn eyes-
                shut-adrenalin rush-
                lurch out of should
                and purpose that
                congeals addictive

 

 

 

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

eyes wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
living wormhole: work
obligation wormhole: Clea

 

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being / doing

22 Saturday Jul 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2013, 5*, being, doing, failure, identity, ignorance, meaning, purpose, recogniton, selflessness, success, virtue

                the point is not in the
                      doing of things
                or in the not-doing of things or
                in doing things differently to my
                      greater good or shame

                it is not in the success or failure of
                      their being done
                or in the recognition or overlook
                      that I have done them

                it is not even in the virtue
                      or ignorance of what I do
                but in the being
                      while they are doing

 

 

 

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

being & doing wormhole: nothing doing is important / or worthy in itself
identity wormhole: divergent // direction
meaning wormhole: holiday
recognition wormhole: not / the Catcher

 

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nothing doing is important / or worthy in itself

18 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2013, being, doing, emptiness, purpose

                                                nothing doing is important
                                or worthy in itself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: divergent // direction
doing wormhole: nevertheless
emptiness wormhole: no / thing
purpose wormhole: to rescue something

 

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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 …

  • “…and may the great elements…”
  • paisley // implicitly
  • this pocketed being
  • the inevitable tock // when we close our eyes
  • time
  • the simple prayer // the tattered poem // the bitter lament
  • taking birth
  • mirror
  • long / road
  • ‘in my car I pass…’

Uncanny Tops

  • me
  • Moebius strip
  • YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams
  • 'in my car I pass...'
  • 'the practice ...'
  • 'I can write ...'
  • like butterflies on / buddleia
  • meanwhile
  • 'hello old friend ...'
  • under the blue and blue sky

category sky

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tag skyline

'scape 2* 3* 4* 5* 6* 7* 8* 20th century 1967 1979 1980 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 acceptance afternoon air Allen Ginsberg anxiety architecture arm in arm attention awareness Batman beach beauty bedroom being birds birdsong black blue Bodhisattvacharyavatara books Bowie branches breakdown breathing breeze brown Buddha buildings career Carol cars change child childhood children city clouds coffee shop colour combe end comics communication compassion compromise crane creativity curtains dancing dark death distraction divorce doing doors dream Dr Strange earth echo Edward Hopper Eglinton Hill emergence emptiness evening eyes faces family father feet field floorboards garden Genesta Road girl giving glass gold grass green grey growth haiku hair hands Have hedge hill hills history holiday hope horizon house houses identity kitchen leaf leaves lemon letting go life lifetimes light lime listening living London looking lost love management managerialism mauve meaning mind mist moon morning mother mouth movement Mum muse music night notice open openness orange others park passing pavement people performance management pink Plumstead poetry pointlessness politics portrait posture power practice professionalism purple purpose quiet rain reaching reading realisation reality red requires chewing river roads roof rooftops samsara sea searching seeing settling shadow shops silence silhouette silver sitting sky skyline sleep smell smile snow society sound space speech step stone streetlight streets sun sunlight superhero table talking talking to myself teaching teaching craft Thames thinking thought time train travelling trees true nature university voices walking walls water waves white William Carlos Williams wind windows wood Woolwich words work world writing years yellow zazen

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