meanwhile

Tags

2020, 6*, afternoon, angle, binoculars, blue, cranes, curtains, Eiffel Tower, flags, gorge, green, hope, horizon, mankind, moon, night, rite, rooftops, sea, seagulls, shape, ships, sitting room, sky, sound, stone, time, Tintin, travelling, walking, warehouses, water

                the seagulls, they glide about the
                cranes and warehouse rooftops

                they wheel above the pacing and fro,
                cut between pulleys and raised pennants

                oblivious to distant headland through
                studied binocular pointing out to sea, back in the day

                when the skies were afternoon-blue
                and the sea still sitting-room-green

                then, when there was dare to hope
                and ships anchored on the horizon

                under curtain-drapes of nightest sky
                while the moon snagged in line from

                fore-mast to prow; nevertheless, they
                trekked over crag and gorge, they walked

                through water and pushed through
                trapezoids – slab! – into rooms of stone

                locked and immovable despite
                horizon, fit or ninety degree angle

                oblivious to mankind’s rite and dress;
                meanwhile the twins climbed the tower

 

c’mon, now: a gold-plated no-prize to the first reader who can tell me which book this piece came from to celebrate my return to writing; perception – knowing what’s going on – is never as linear as it might seem to be in a story; already given that there is breadth and depth, even in the scant of depiction, there is usually a time (and a space, and we know how relative those two can be) during which something happens, but let’s not think that these are the only dimensions – there is always a right-angle to be taken that paisley-swirls to a far-wider cauldron than could have initially never been conceived but of which there were pre-echoes if listening askance intently-enough

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

afternoon & horizon & sky wormhole: travelling,
blue wormhole: silence
cranes wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
Eiffel Tower wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
green wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – tenderness
moon wormhole: ‘not sure …’
night & water wormhole: riders of the night
rooftops wormhole: travel // when I die
sea wormhole: then
seagulls wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
sitting room wormhole: the sitting room
sound wormhole: Four Noble Truths
stone wormhole: looking hard enough
time wormhole: travel // when I die
travelling wormhole: IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS by William Carlos Williams
walking wormhole: breakfast

 

window

Tags

1830, 2019, 5*, artist, creak, crystal, fire, light, painting, silence, silhouette, sound, standing, Turner, windows

                oh,
                the Artist stood

                only he
                in silhouette

                daubing;
                his Admirers reclined

                or leant
                and all was silent

                save a creak
                and a lap of flame

                and the
                incandescent crystal

                of light
                around the floor-to-ceiling

                window

 

the sounds of light downloaded from Petworth: the Artist and his Admirers (the old library), c. 1830 by William Turner; when light enters through windows it turns to music if there is an alert-enough artist to express it and an audience-enough to hear

 

 

^{————w}(O)_{rmholes________________________________|—–}

light & silence wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
silhouette & sound wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
windows wormhole: “And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”

 

boiled spangle with soft centre

Tags

'scape, 1833, 2019, 6*, building, ice cream, people, river, society, stone, sun, sunset, town, Turner, water, wheel

                boiled spangle with soft centre

                they came in tents
                they came on wheels
                down to the water’s edge

                all the turrets and span
                of stone were already
                faded with every ice-cream sun

 

OK … ‘Spangles’ were a boiled sweet, square and dimpled, which suggested a soft centre, but didn’t; their taste was a combination of visual colour and transluscency rather than anything other than sweet; Turner‘s A Town on a River at Sunset, 1833, had the colour of event and the transluscency of time, but also the soft centre of … life-ing

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

people wormhole: my uncomfortable life
river & stone wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
sun & water wormhole: then
sunset wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky

 

then

Tags

'scape, 1819, 2019, 6*, anchor, apricot, day, drifting, east, looking, morning, port, reflection, sea, ships, sky, society, spire, sun, sunrise, time, town, water, William Turner

                                                                                earlier,
                before the sun suggested the apricot immensity of coming day
                                fill up the sky and

                                                                                deep within
                glazed waters, the hulls drifted anchored, spindly masts
                                like antennae

                                                                                only port towers
                of decades stood still and reflected, later, jetties of planks and
                                posts tied onto

                                                                                the sea
                like ripples, there were centuries of town and spired symbol, then,
                                to bounder playful sky

 

prologued from S. Giorgio Maggiore, Early Morning, 1819 & Looking east from the Giudecca: Sunrise, 1819 both by William Turner; did you see the sunsets that morning, was anybody else there …?

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

apricot wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
looking wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
morning & reflection & sky & sun & water wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
sea wormhole: slight sneer
society wormhole: quietly in my quiet house
time wormhole: Sujātā

 

Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896

Tags

'scape, 1896, 2018, 5*, bridge, buildings, desire, industry, lives, Pissarro, river, rooftops, Rouen, sky, smoke, storey, streets

                                   Great Bridge,          Rouen, 1896

                                                   to span       the river

                                   is to ride the banks            with quarter and delve inland

with vascular street and hood-eyed blocks         of storey looking down

            under receding ateliers of desire          under oblivious

                                                      plumes      of sky

 

spanning the reach of the Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896 by Camille Pissarro, the eternal dialectic between nature and industry

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

bridge wormhole: Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902
buildings wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
river wormhole: Sujātā
rooftops wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873
sky wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
smoke wormhole: La Route, Effet d’Hiver, 1872
streets wormhole: {reading right to left}

 

Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902

Tags

1902, 2018, 6*, afternoon, autumn, branches, bridge, grey, Paris, rain, red, river, sky, speech, statue, steps, umbrella, woman

                the afternoon autumn skies
                had red taint in their greys

                from sodden divested branches
                grown warped and wet

                before the river – turn away,
                don’t look at me like this – but

                the iron rider on horse had
                none of it atop graceful steps,

                ‘pah’ said the old woman
                as she shook out her umbrella

 

de l’avantaged de Pont Neuf, Paris, 1892 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

afternoon wormhole: La Route, Effet d’Hiver, 1872
autumn & grey wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
branches wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
bridge wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
Paris wormhole: looking / ridiculous
rain wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
red wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
river & sky wormhole: Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890
speech & woman wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877

 

Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890

Tags

1890, 2018, 6*, light, Pissarro, river, Rouen, shadow, sky, spire, stone, sun, time, trees, wood

                Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890

                they’ll grip the bank
                and grow for forty years

                while barges hardly move
                the sun will turn to wood,

                but they’ll be gone, the
                shadow they keep cannot hold,

                the light flattens all save
                the scars of the stone spires

 

grown from the banks of Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

light wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
river & sky wormhole: in turgid reflection
shadow wormhole: alabaster balustrade
stone wormhole: St. Erasmus in Bishop Islip’s Chapels, 1796
sun wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
time wormhole: threshold to behold
trees wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
wood wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees

 

in turgid reflection

Tags

1838, 2019, blood, blue, claim, ghosts, government, grandeur, happening, horizon, industry, pillars, politics, power, reflection, retrospect, river, rust, sky, sound, sunset, Turner

                the clank and graunch of distant industry
                and government brushed pillared and ghostly

                across the known horizon, blue and sullied
                through un-attributable disclaiment;

                nothing has happened until it has stopped
                and only then is there fiery grandeur of

                retrospect; you can hold the power
                the higher you mast and defy all

                settled relation, but the sun will always set
                with rust in the sky like dried blood and

                in turgid reflection

 

woven within and despite The Fighting ‘Teméraire’ tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838 by William Turner

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

blue wormhole: threshold to behold
ghosts wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
horizon wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
politics wormhole: 10/28 ‘On hot days …’ by William Carlos Williams
power wormhole: the old man;
reflection wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
river wormhole: on facing the Have
sky wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877
sound wormhole: abandoned sound mirrors

 

Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877

Tags

1877, 2018, 5*, blue, clothes, clouds, hill, house, Pissarro, Pontoise, portrait, red, roof, trees, walking, woman

                she walked from the
                red-tiled house and the

                ruddy hill behind, in her
                dark blue finery, upright

                as the trees which reached
                high to the squally clouds

 

stepping out from the Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

blue wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
clouds wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
house wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
red wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
roof wormhole: The Diligence at Louveciennes, 1870
trees wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
walking wormhole: the old man;
woman wormhole: Female Peasant Carding, 1875

 

Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879

Tags

1879, 7*, axle, boulevard, burn, carriage, chimney, evening, future, horses, individualism, lives, Montmartre, night, passengers, pavement, pediment, petrol, Pissarro, shops, skyline, sun, time, windows

Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879

                each atelier window
                piled up above the
                pediment line,
                shutter-shut but
                lives to be told, each
                with individual chimney

                each carriage with each
                passenger pulled by their
                own horse evenly around
                an axle; fixed,
                only the boulevard proceeds …

Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879

                … through time; but at night
                the shop-fronts burn and
                ignite the petrol pavement,
                there, under the rippled
                surface, the ache of things to come

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–

chimney wormhole: Impression of Winter: Carriage on a Country Road, 1872
evening wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
night & skyline wormhole: intent
shops wormhole: pediment to behold
sun wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
time wormhole: the old man;
windows wormhole: Female Peasant Carding, 1875