• 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: room

threshold to behold

09 Thursday May 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 6 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 balance necessary between

01 Tuesday May 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

2017, 7*, appearance, balance, being, cause and effect, checking, coagulation, denial, doing, empty, fortune, healing, holding onto, karma, legacy, life, lifetimes, lunge, morning, path, Refuge, relationship, room, self-grasping, shutters, statue, trauma, true nature, urge

in my corner of the room
                I have only just noticed the shutters ajar –
                                wondering if I dare push them further apart –

the dynamics of past lifetimes
                rebirths of exact measure to the traumas
                                round which they coagulate; but then, also, the

healing of relationships
                which tip towards fortune however
                                you make them, the balance necessary between doing

all that holding and checking
                of all those causes and effects which
                                comb-through the tangles of legacy but which

can so-easily become the
                local point of selfish, and being
                                insight through the skein of appearences into

their respective empty
                nature enabling them all to
                                appear in the first place which can so-easily

become a stoney denial
                of causality into one’s own statue
                                stuck in pose; the path through which neither

aggravates nor heals;
                the practice of Refuge in the
                                morning and at the urge to lunge of all

my doings, alongside
                all the other 6-fingered and 4-
                                thumbed sisters of this world

 

this teetered out of a comment made in response to one of Jana H. White’s posts, but I’ve been all the way through her site and can’t find it – she must have taken it down: it would make sense of the ‘corner of the room’ and the ‘6-fingered and 4-thumbed’ references, but, maybe, if you tune out a little, it works nonetheless…

 

 

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

balance wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
being & doing wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye
life & lifetimes wormhole: amniotic avenue
morning wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
path wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell

 

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Morning in a City, 1944

18 Friday Sep 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

'scape, 1944, 2015, being, ceiling, city, Edward Hopper, green, horizontal, morning, naked, portrait, room, sleep, sunlight, waking, windows, years

 

 

 

                                   Morning in a City, 1944

                                   in the height of a room
                                   with no ceiling, it’s alright,

                                   it’s alright to stand naked
                                   before the window and be

                                   the first to let the tilt of
                                   sunlight through lucent

                                   green form every ligament
                                   poise and fold up from some

                                   groggy horizontal; the blinds
                                   across the way are half-

                                   pulled and unconcerned
                                   staring vaguely downward

 

 

 

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

being & Edward Hopper & years wormhole: Railway Crossing, c. 1922-23
city wormhole: up here
green & sleep wormhole: gre[wh]y / has Daddy left us?
morning wormhole: dream 230315
windows wormhole: dream 260815

 

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‘the red and white …’

18 Wednesday Mar 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1980, empty, night, owl, red, room, shelf, traffic cone, white

 

 

 

                the red and white
                traffic cone stood
                in the corner

                the owl on the
                single shelf
                of the room

            stared at each other all night

 

 

 

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

night wormhole: events happen / through all measure of name
red wormhole: ‘in the centre of the bare room …’
white wormhole: To my Mum

 

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‘in the centre of the bare room …’

08 Sunday Mar 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

1980, dancing, floorboards, light, puppet, red, room, wine, wineglass

 

 

 

                      in the centre of the bare room
                      a glass
                      filled with redwine

                      through the redlight a marionette
                      feet nailed to the floor
                      dancing

 

 

 

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

dancing wormhole: tag cloud poem V – draft-ness
light wormhole: what heavy and cantilevered structure
red wormhole: silence

 

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the streets just fill with business

18 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

2015, 5*, air, Alan Moore, architecture, buildings, business, compromise, Eddie Campbell, From Hell, life, movement, open, others, process, rooftops, room, silence, sky, society, speech, status, streets, talking, walking, windows

                                              in rooms of procedure and name-plaque
                                the days event and compromise as ever
                                while only the rooftops through windows ajar
                                ‘for a bit of air’ seem to know things ‘what
                                 happens’ and they’re keeping silent as ever
                adrift under the sky

                                              despite busy movement over the cobbles
                                the buildings recede in perfect line and
                                the streets just fill with business, while some
                                mop the pavements others exchange their
                                local stereotypes; two men stroll through, one
                of them talks of lives

 

askance from chapter six of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

a little snippet from askance From Hell, askance from chapter ten of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, gwn’n’avvalook

 

 

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

architecture & air & life wormhole: ha ha ha
Alan Moore & buildings & others & sky & society & windows wormhole: hinged
compromise & speech & streets wormhole: the four whores of the apocalypse
open wormhole: tag cloud poem VIII – growth
rooftops wormhole: great underbelly to the rooftops
silence wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II
talking wormhole: September – silhouette of leaf // the / inside and the / outside
walking wormhole: purpose

 

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1963

27 Friday Jun 2014

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

1963, 2014, 3*, Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick, echo, floorboards, groundlessness, identity, listening, openness, room, speaking, windows, years

 

Music: This Empty Space; singer: Dionne Warwick; writers: Burt Bacharach, Hal David

 

 

                                1963

                                in this empty room I hear
                           echo on floorboard
                                I can speak clearly now
                           I don’t need to fill the room
                                I can open the window

 

 

 

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

Bacharach & [Dionne] Warwick wormhole: 1963
echo wormhole: I don’t know what to do …
floorboards wormhole: Michael Redford: // someone missing
groundlessness wormhole: the en-gentled / end of a wan / writing retreat
identity & openness wormhole: the Buddha head in an antique shop
listening wormhole: responsible
windows wormhole: titanic

 

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dream / 301197 // home

09 Monday Dec 2013

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

1997, 2012, 4*, Dad, dream, Eglinton Hill, evening, family, green, growth, home, kitchen, mirror, pink, room, twilight, walking, walls, windows, work

                                dream
                                301197

                I am here with a party of people
                                feel of a party gathering
                                feel of a family gathering

                I am sitting in one of the upstairs rooms
                                noticing how it has changed
                                noticing how it is the same
                                this symbol of mine that I live in

                                later I am with my Dad
                and my own family are in the house too all living together
                                I have been to work
                                I have walked back home and into the house
                                through the back kitchen door
                Dad says that he had tried to contact the school to arrange a lift
                                but couldn’t and he apologised

                                I had walked home
                I was very relaxed and contented
                                I had walked home after work

                I spent time exploring the house
                                reviewing
                                recognising a walk-in cupboard I hadn’t noticed before
                                and other changes that Dad had made to the house
                                has he been looking after my life for all these years?

                during dinner I remarked
                that the house didn’t seem to be where it was
                Dad said that they’d moved it here because they liked it
                                and it suited them

                Eglinton Hill was no longer in Eglinton Hill:

dark green twilight Kent quite near semi 101 Dalmatians fleeing to Suffolk glasses on the mantelpiece smokey tall people pink walls talking glassey mirror large sitting room glimpsed through other front windows of houses in Eglington Hill late evening dark green wallpaper tired light feelings

                nothing is the same
                                when grown up

 

 

 

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

Dad & dream & Eglinton Hill wormhole: dream / 121097
evening & walls wormhole: point of realisation
family wormhole: Moebius strip
green wormhole: Eridge Station
kitchen wormhole: Saturday
mirror wormhole: tired – diptych
pink wormhole: wraggle of architecture
twilight wormhole: twilight
walking wormhole: dream / 010397
windows wormhole: 1996 dream
work wormhole: Sunday

 

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dream / 121097

08 Sunday Dec 2013

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

1997, 2012, 3*, Dad, dream, Eglinton Hill, room, searching

 

 

 

                                           dream
                                           121097

                     exploring Eglinton Hill there
                     were other rooms to find

                     I found new rooms
                     but found my Dad was with me

                     right behind my shoulder
                     exploring Eglinton Hill

 

 

 

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

Dad wormhole: sometimes
dream wormhole: dream / 010397
Eglinton Hill & searching wormhole: 1996 dream

 

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‘the walking stick …’

09 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

'scape, 1980, 4*, floorboards, morning, music, room

 

 

 

        the walking stick
                leant
        against the phonogram
        with the scratched record
        in the middle of
        the bare room

                morning light

        the stick
                stretched
        its limb

 

 

 

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

part of >>> FLOORBOARDS
morning wormhole: an evening / getting drunk / and relaxing / after breakfast
music wormhole: comicbook morning

 

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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
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