burgundy

 

 

 

                                burgundy

                      as C pulled the wool
                      through the sock
                      after a pause

                      the bass guitar strummed
                      quietly on the cassette

 

 

 

C wormhole: snoring / schlupp
burgundy wormhole: early Spring weather and / government standards questions

 

bass and piano

 

 

 

                           bass and piano

                with no sound
                the snow lay on the lawn
                and the cars were
                parked in the kerb

 

 

 

pink and blue

 

 

 

                               pink and blue

                     on the moist
                     outmost branch –
                               lurching
          up and down –
                               the small
                     bird
                     pecked –
          in the breeze –
                     the few
                     remaining
                     blossoms

                               at length

                     on the road
                               passed
                     a white-faced girl
                     on a bicycle
                               no hands
                     zipped parka
                     whistling

 

 

 

breeze wormhole: ‘the imperial buildings of Europe …’
pink wormhole: Batworld

 

morning in / Shrewsbury Park / reading POW comics

 

 

 

                morning in
                Shrewsbury Park
                reading POW comics

        under the apricot sky
        I was wondering what had
        happened to the blue sky
        by the big oak tree

 

 

 

blue sky wormhole: Batworld
Plumstead wormhole: ‘she shook the sweets …’

 

Charlotte’s / warm / hand

 

 

 

                                                                Charlotte’s
                                                                warm
                                                                hand

                                                                right

                                                on the horizon
                                                by the

                                                                sea

                                                a single
                                                                orange
                                                                crane

                                                holding –
                                                                cables thrumming –

                                                the wide
                                                                land-
                                scape
                                                                swaying

                                                and

                                                to the left a

                                                solitary
                                                family of
                                                wizened trees

                                                held

                                                by decades
                                                                of wind

                                                in a climb
                                                uphill

                                                caps
                                                pulled down
                                                over their heads

 

 

 

orange wormhole: after the rain / flowers like / cupcakes
sea wormhole: ‘discution poli …’

 

‘just because you do not understand …’

 

 

 

                just because you do not understand
                      does not make you right

                even if you express it publicly
                even if you express it loudly
                even if you speak for others
                even if you are elected
                even if you are published
                even if you are a best-seller
                even if you own a big car
                even if you have years of experience
                even if you are young and beautiful
                even if you are qualified
                even if you are a victim

                and least of all if you shuffle reference and agenda
                to win the discussion to win the applause
                to win the status

                                you are
                                still
                                not
                                right

 

 

 

Have wormhole: angular hardened and defined

 

‘the fresh air of holidays …’

 

 

 

                      the fresh air of holidays and
                      a whole bookcase of beat literature
                      authors’ names biro’d on the shelf-edges
                      in a bookshop in Bakewell

 

 

 

my / superpower

 

 

 

                                      my
                     superpower

            I am not implacable like Superman
                     which is my own Kryptonite
            I am not grim like the Batman
                     which is my own Tragedy
            I am not angry like the Hulk
                     which is my own Not Being Accepted
            I am not strange like Stephen
                     which is my own Ambiguity
            I am not a human god like Thor
                     which is my own Dilemma
            I am not webbed in moral struggle like Spiderman
                     which is my own Shifted Agenda
            I am not fore-sighted like Daredevil
                     which is my own Not Being Listened To
            I am not mellifluent like the Beast
                     which is my own Distrust

                     no

            my powers are far far greater
            than any of these

 

 

 

Superman wormhole: by default

 

by default

 

 

 

I heard the rationalisations made by others when my parents separated
            the state- agree- and pro-claims that come-on-now put life
               together again
I have always distrusted the way others have seen things-are
            over folded arms leaning on brooms
                      leaning on rhetorical interrogatives
                      for agreement – the essential glue of life
so I developed my own view and picture

                                by default

in contradistinction to the broom
            the bartered agreed proclaimed understandings
                      think alternatively from the usual
                      build myself alternatively from the usual
                      pride myself alternatively from the usual

when I was young I didn’t present my take
            because I was young
when I was a teen I questioned usuality but ended up hurting people
            and then shut up because they wouldn’t like me
when I was older I kept quiet in order to be-the-bodhisattva So That
   Others Might Live
            (actually I colluded with others that I was head-in-the-clouds
               and mostly useless)

but the school kept sloganizing for better performance
            kept provoking me to think about teaching
                      I couldn’t help it they kept goading me ‘this
                                is the way things are’
I placed my thoughts carefully in the rocket ship
            and shot them into the sky tucked-up cohesive dotted and teed
            they would grow to have a fine blue chest

but still they came from an alternative world
            still they would always be alien to the norm
for them to be listened to would be to redefine how things are seen
                      and why would they do that?
                                and why would I hope that they would?

 

 

 

after all

 

 

 

                      I am a writer
                      cunningly disguised as a teacher
                      lessons laced with poems
                      poems targeted levelled and marked
                      but after 24 years I realised
                      that no one reads poetry anymore
                                let alone well
                      and that’s why there are so many managers now

 

                      perhaps not so cunning
                                after all