more importantly

 

 

 

                                for minute after minute
                                an alarm rilling through
                                the open windows
                                of a hot afternoon
                                and all the while
                                the cracking picking
                                twicking of a squirrel
                                working out on a branch
                                somewhere          but then

                                                                                    more importantly

                                              a pigeon –
                                `hadn’t noticed –
                                                              on a bare branch looking
                                              another way

                not calling

 

 

 

openness wormhole: open / window
squirrel wormhole: almost-Escher
pigeons wormhole: first dog / in the park
attention wormhole: ‘no …’

 

heavy shower …

 

 

 

                                                      heavy shower …

                                                      the terracotta
                                                      chimney pot

                                                      on the lichen
                                                      stack before

                                                      the charcoal
                                                      cloud in the

                                                      sun break and
                                                      the wave of

                                                      birdsong in the
                                                      gardens’ trees

                                                      was golden

 

 

 

gold wormhole: grammar
chimney wormhole: sunny morning

 

objective intimacy

 

 

 

                                                              objective intimacy

                                university tables the same
                                     after thirty years
                                wood-edged and plastic skin
                                     silent under the air conditioning
                                silent before the hills and trees and distant sea
                                     and still

                                              and always the
                                unspoken turn and shift of
                                     page … chair the sigh and pan of
                                shelf … window auras radiating … overlapping
                                     all of them
                lifelong and occasional

 

 

 

sea wormhole: promenade
Brighton wormhole: ‘my Dot …’
reading wormhole: sunny morning

 

sunny morning

 

 

 

                      after a night
                                   of no electricity where
                                   the carpets seemed like floorboards
                                              and we snuggled together in bed
                                                              un-asleep

                                              sunny morning

                      high high in the sky
            a wide band of cirrus cloud
                      allows the whole world
                                   to move its rooftops beneath it

                                              more direct
                      a jet trail cuts into it – no
                                              above it –
            drifting at fifty miles an hour
                                   I look back into my book
                      then glance back out at the poem

                      the cloud
            has magnified as it settles behind
                                   the rooftops chimneys treetops
                      the jet trail nowhere to be seen
                                              I’m sure I’d noticed it

 

 

 

chimney wormhole: wide-open / concentration
reading wormhole: the spectre

 

mlewis diptych

 

 

 

                the oaks
in the triangle of land between
                Eglinton Hill and
                Cantwell Road
grow leaning haphazard out of the raised earth

                it was
fenced off gated and unknown when I was young
                in the sixties
it is fenced off still and littered
                in my fifties

                every Autumn
they shed leaves make the land grow contained
                by the fences

                but they are
                not huge
they are clothed in new arran pullovers of
                thick ivy

 

~~ “mlr” ~~

 

                                          on 2nd November 1967 my Dad left

                                          a little later in 1968 I dug a hole in the garden
                                          a little frightened about how deep I would go

                                          I lobbed stones high up into the air (careful that they land
                                          back in my own garden) and wondered if they could strike
                                          the birds            the planes?

                                          I ran around the edge of the garden over a hundred times
                                          counting the laps (and was made to drink salted squash
                                          to replace the sweat I’d lost)

                                          I wondered: if an alien race conquered the world
                                          and said they would go away if Someone could
                                          answer one single question correctly,
                                          and it was only I who would know the answer
                                          stood there in the garden                           now

 

 

 

1967 wormhole: 1967
1968 wormhole: the fingers
autumn wormhole: “bring in as many / different types of leaf / as you can find”
birds wormhole: The Smoker You Drink The Player You Get (1973) – tribute
oak wormhole: Bob // 1995/2012

 

Bob // 1995/2012

 

 

 

                                          Bob

                      took the scatter
                of wind around the ground
                      and the tumble
                of too many things to deal with
                      in life
                as they fell from the trees in the rain
                      today

                      and spent
                      lifetimes
                sitting on the sill watching
                      a single
                blade of montbretia agitate
                      and
                the crown of the oak lean quietly into
                      the blue
                      blue sky

                      job done

                      calmly

                                          1995
                                          2012

 

 

 

… in memory of: Bob 1995-2012
oak wormhole: Sunday
blue sky wormhole: your gold teeth

 

train // line

 

 

 

                                                      train

                                          “so long since your uncle has seen you
                                            … how tall you’ve grown”

                                          cabinet-dark oaks around
                                          the edge of the field
                                          leaf turning yellow by the line

 

 

 

oak wormhole: boots on / for a walk

 

evening

 

 

 

                                          evening

                      two houses
                      slightly staggered
                      facing east

                      bright clear high-grey sky
                      in no.7’s bedroom windows
                                – light on

                      deep grey clouds
                      in no.9’s bedroom windows
                                – no echo

                      the sky above them
                      already grey and scuddy and
                      the trees behind perfectly still

 

 

 

write / by the / night / of the / lamp

 

 

 

                                                                      write
                                                                      by the
                                                                      night
                                                                      of the
                                                                      lamp

                                airliner made its way across the sky
                                in shallow spreading waves somewhere
                                but what with the orange streetlight
                                and the shuffling trees
                                I couldn’t see it

 

 

 

part of >>> writing and being
orange wormhole: portrait

 

duck calls

 

 

 

                      in the early morning
                      the ground seemed frozen
                      but it was the shifting dew-mist

                      shh – duck calls

                      from behind the dark trees
                      along the bottom of the garden
                      where the fields and water were

 

 

 

a scene from >>> Ramsden Heath
mist wormhole: The Smoker You Drink The Player You Get (1973) – tribute