the silent night of the Batman

Tags

1970, 7*, attention, Batman, black, blue, Christmas, city, dawn, east, fear, glass, green, guilt, ink, light, Neal Adams, night, purple, quiet, river, rooftops, rose, shadow, shops, sky, skyline, smile, sound, south, stars, streetlamp, vista, windows, writing

                the silent night of the Batman

                even while they carried their
                gift-wrapped parcels and looked
                to each other with smiles of belief

                the shop signs hummed dark
                against the marbled frontage
                while above, the quiet floors

                of stone windows looked east
                looked south in the ink-black sky
                enough to write a novel in a

                single sitting, enough to hold
                a fleet of stars above the skyline
                stacking slowly; when the sky

                is ink-green the rooftop
                gathers ink-blue attention
                and leaps without step or

                swing through the glass and
                ledges of city vista, the lingering
                thought to shadow the guilt,

                the alley divide to streetlamp
                the fear, and over the river the rose
                cast high and wide to the stars until

                marzipan fingers reach across the
                ink-purple sky and marshmallow lights
                go out

 

 

I am so pleased to say that this is the sixth time I have posted this poem, mostly always on Christmas Eve: the poem in which my hero-ego – Batman – doesn’t appear and yet everthing is done by his having been there all along; Batman doesn’t swing across the rooftops, it’s just that we sometimes find the space to change our minds; who is the Santa Claus for the 21st century – Batman (termsandconditionsapply:discussionaboutexistenceis … irrelevant); sculpted out of “The Silent Night of the Batman” in Batman #219 by Gary Friedrich and Neal Adams

 

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

attention wormhole: interim
Batman wormhole: the too big moon
black & skyline wormhole: the skyline
blue & sky & streetlight & windows & writing wormhole: passing below
Christmas wormhole: 1967
city wormhole: 1966
dawn wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
glass wormhole: time
green & sound wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance
light wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
night wormhole: “The Lady from Nowhere”
purple wormhole: 1967
river wormhole: pen and ruler
rooftops wormhole: passersby
shadow wormhole: Prajnaparamita // Maitreya
shops wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
smile wormhole: comfy
stars wormhole: Clea

 

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Michael Redford: triptych

Tags

1935, 1970, 2007, 2009, 2012, afterlife, armchair, being, black, brown, carpet, chair, cigar, doing, doors, evening, fire, floorboards, garden, green, horizon, life, living, living room, night, piano, plants, plastic, Ramsden Heath, realisation, sitting, sitting room, smell, sound, table, talking, trees, uncle, windows, wine, wood

 

 

 

                                           Michael Redford
                                           1935-2007

                                           later on
                           he strolled in the garden
                           breathing the night and the plants
                           smoking a fine cigar

                           then he paused
                           and looked back at the armchair
                           where he had been sitting –
                                           Pphffffff

 

—~~M~~—

 

                                              sitting room

                                              plastic-marbled
                                              chest-height handle

                                              smell of sofa-linen
                                              and wood-fire evenings

                                              with company
                                              and dark green wines

                                              cool black boards and
                                              the white patterned carpet

                                              with almost-meeting
                                              crenellated walls

                                              brow-height mantelpiece
                                              on jungle green

                                              and the piano in the
                                              corner with duff bass keys –

                                              plant-shaking

 

—~~M~~—

 

                                                                      1970

                                                                      to my uncle
                                                                      shifting on
                                                                      hardplastic
                                                                      seat of dining
                                                                      chair – crack –

                                                                      elbow uncomfortable
                                                                      on table-edge
                                                                      carving – creak –
                                                                      to execute a
                                                                      perfect tree

                                                                      on the horizon
                                                                      with just two strokes
                                                                      one brown
                                                                      one green
                                                                      I knew then

                                                                      to put down
                                                                      my compass plans
                                                                      for every detail
                                                                      but only just now
                                                                      doing it

 

looking for what to publish today, I found my uncle unassumingly proffering the lesson in life that he always gave, even nine years after he died: that you don’t look for life, you notice it; some teachers teach by being rather than saying, so that you don’t realise you are being taught until you know; wherever he is now, I hope he knows what he gave me/us … in fact I dedicate the clean-ity of all I notice to return the gift to my uncle wherever his lives have led him now

 

 

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

being & doing wormhole: need
black wormhole: the start of adolescence
brown wormhole: London Hearts – poewieview #4
carpet wormhole: ‘the hour before dinner – / the empire of dusk’ – poewieview #6
doors & garden wormhole: impressionism
evening wormhole: well,
green & talking wormhole: bavardage
horizon & life wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
living & night & smell & sound & table & windows & wood wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
living room wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II
piano wormhole: tabla
Ramsden Heath & uncle wormhole: … still waving!
realisation wormhole: dream career // groggy
sitting wormhole: the writing’s on the wall
sitting room wormhole: purple and mauve
trees wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25

 

no one – poewieview #24

Tags

1970, 2016, Bowie, buildings, control, death, echo, emptiness, form, identity, illusion, land, life, night, Salinger, society, stairs, suicide, vista, wind

                           am I really the only one
                           who doesn’t know that
                           buildings are stage props
                           to keep illusion of form
                           and land from blowing
                           away in the night wind

                           the echo of stairwells
                           is inevitable reminder
                           the topple of vistas a
                           tease, but no one saw
                           old James Castle jump
                           we never lost control

 

James Castle jumped from a tower … at which school, and from which book?   Therefore who is the ‘I’ and ‘we’ of poem?   The Man Who Sold the World, 1970

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

Bowie wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23
buildings wormhole: bavardage
echo wormhole: my // shell – poewieview #19
death & wind wormhole: mauve
emptiness wormhole: 1964
identity wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
life wormhole: Dear Sir/Madam,
night wormhole: London Hearts – poewieview #4
society wormhole: miss / ad / venture – poewieview #22
stairs wormhole: the start of adolescence

 

like ink – poewieview #23

Tags

1970, 2016, being, Bowie, brain, branches, city, dark, earth, edge, emergence, floating, ink, light, orange, passing, Plumstead, red, Shrewsbury Park, sky, streetlight, thinking, trees, turning, writing

                                passing by the edge of the park under
                                occasional orange lamp, the dark trees
                                turn unable to contain the floating
                                brain of revolving redness in the branches

                                ah, but the city lights, spread about like
                                dust reassure that there is darken sky
                                without passion that moves free and sudden
                                over only orb and lonely branch like ink

 

oh, God, I should be dead: She Shook Me Cold, 1970; pack a pack-horse up and step-up here, on Black Country Rock, 1970

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

being wormhole: rhymed
Bowie wormhole: miss / ad / venture – poewieview #22
branches wormhole: train journey // like a branch
city wormhole: Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20
emergence & orange & Plumstead & streetlight & writing wormhole: up on the hill
light wormhole: 1964
passing wormhole: tabla
red wormhole: the start of adolescence
sky & trees wormhole: Jon
thinking wormhole: tong len / the inauguration of another – timely – butter fly effect / taking and giving

 

my // shell – poewieview #19

Tags

1970, 2016, Bowie, Buddha, delusion, desire, echo, eyes, forest, happiness, identity, karma, lifetimes, monkey, others, samsara, shadow, shell, the Three Poisons, thought, words

                my

                                shadows whip `round me
                                sometimes before you’ve
                                thought your words

                                you cannot help it
                                I have echoes in my eyes
                                from all the “I”s that faded

                                too soon to cast open their
                                only desires left hanging tantalic,
                                your monkey’s hand held tight in the

                                                                                 shell^*

 

^* “the prince heard the cry of a monkey in the forest: it had been trapped by hunters who used a nut case which was so-shaped that a monkey’s hand could fit into the shell when opened flat, but not if the hand was held as a fist.   The hunters placed food in the shell which greatly attracted the monkeys; when they put in their hands to grab the food they could not withdraw their hands, and yet they wanted the food so much that they would not let it go.   And so they were trapped.   This seemed to the prince that it might be the answer: beings find no happiness in life because the very act of trying to get happiness binds them to frustration.   In selfishly trying to grab their own lives, they were trapped in them.   The enemies to fight were the delusions within oneself: selfishness, pride, greed, belief in the self, anger, jealousy, hate, desire etc, those things which try to grasp happiness in life.”

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

Bowie & eyes wormhole: don’t look / at her eyes – poewieview #18
Buddha wormhole: out!
echo wormhole: where the goblins leered – poewieview #14
identity wormhole: Shonagh – poewieview #17
lifetimes wormhole: thick thick fog
others wormhole: crescendoeing cascade of chordage – poewieview #10
samsara wormhole: Nostalgia for Samsara – poewieview #16
shadow wormhole: keep the light off
thought wormhole: strange / tarnish
words wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky

 

the silent night of the Batman

Tags

'scape, 1970, 2011, alley, attention, Batman, belief, black, blue, buildings, city, cornice, dark, east, fear, glass, green, guilt, ink, leap, light, marble, marzipan, night, purple, river, rooftops, rose, shadow, shopping, shops, silence, sky, skyline, smile, sound, south, stars, stone, streetlight, thought, vista, windows, writing, years

 

 

 

                     the silent night of the Batman

                     even while they carried their
                     gift-wrapped parcels and looked
                     to each other with smiles of belief

                     the shop signs hummed dark
                     against the marbled frontage
                     while above the quiet floors

                     of stone-framed window looked east
                     looked south all the same in ink-black sky
                     enough to write a novel in a single sitting

                     enough to hold a fleet of stars
                     above the skyline stacking slowly;
                     when the sky turns ink-green the rooftop

                     gathers ink-blue attention and leaps
                     without step or swing through the
                     glass and cornice of city vista and

                     lingering thought to shadow the guilt
                     to alley the share to streetlamp the fear
                     and river the rose cast high and wide to the stars

                     until marzipan fingers reach across the
                     ink-purple sky and marshmallow lights
                     go out

 

cf. “The Silent Night of the Batman” by Mike Friedrich, Neal Adams and Dick Giordano, published in Batman #219, February 1970

 

 

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

attention wormhole: left alone
Batman wormhole: we play / the game
black & blue & green & sky wormhole: clouds
buildings & shops wormhole: Christmas lights / around the lamp post
city & light & windows & years wormhole: 1967
glass wormhole: dream 260815
night wormhole: Hotel Room, 1931
purple & rooftops wormhole: purple and mauve
river wormhole: row boat
shadow wormhole: com- / mute
silence wormhole: de Boeddha // of light
skyline & stone wormhole: sit
sound wormhole: plop!
streetlight wormhole: portrait: / two pigeons
thought wormhole: Automat, 1927 – held
writing wormhole: when writing // stay

 

up here

Tags

'scape, 1970, 1972, 2015, architecture, birds, buildings, cars, city, clouds, eyes, Gil Kane, identity, John Romita, knowledge, life, light, moon, people, perspective, presumption, rooftops, Roy Thomas, searching, seeing, shops, sky, skyline, society, sound, speech, Spiderman, Stan Lee, step, streets, thinking, time, venetian blinds, vertical, walking, walls, windows, years

 

 

 

                                deep down
                in the streets light can only be noticed
                between step and event all the while slogans
                are shouting high and huddled to the
                                              receding
                                              rooftops

                                but the streets
                can be taken sideways (from third floor up) with
                panned vista of skyline for all to see; me, I crouch at right angles
                to the depth-rise of sky-plummet
                                              searching
                                              for the

                                (pinnacles
                amid stacks of façade discerned by ledge and cornice
                sheer sides with no purchase beautiful for all their …
                                              stark
                                              knowledge)

                                I find ways in,
                over rather than through, the vertical line
                that makes architecture wide such that up can only reach higher
                                              the better
                                              for me
                                              to arc

                                impossible
                through all manner of event
                and despite all presumption – birds flattering in all
                                              direction –

                                up here
                among the sooty stacks
                I know my footing up sides of wall
                while those below stand scattered about the ground
                                              pointing

                                up here
                                on the stack
                birds make their way in occasional formation despite cloud
                and measure, where on the ground there is no parking despite time
                                              from
                                              high

                                up here
                people walk the streets like filings
                still warm from the splinter but magnetised in damaged clumps
                they let the lonely antennae do all the
                                              tensile
                                              thinking

                                thinking
                                thoughts
                are best done above the storeyline, clung to the outside, lean and breathtaken
                (otherwise they get flabby) the angle always far better
                                              as nadir

                                rooftops
                higher than most are perspectives in which to dress
                that allow vault and flagpole-spring to one façade or another
                whilst people stand around at parties, their backs to the windows, unaware
                                              of their own
                                              identities

                                I will walk
                up to the window below, cars parked variously on the street,
                stacks of elegant housing ignore the open-air caught and struggle with
                                              venetian
                                              eyes

                                the up-
                                rumble
                of the city may be constant but only noticeable
                when strangled, oh, where is the moon waiting below rooftops
                to make shop fronts blind and apartments
                                              contemplative?

 

plucked in passing overhead from the pages of Spider-Man #90-113 (November 1970 – October 1972), written by Stan Lee & Roy Thomas; drawn by Gil Kane and John Romita

 

 

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

1972 wormhole: 1972
birds wormhole: purpose
buildings & people & seeing & sky wormhole: Brugges April 2015 – looking lost
cars & walking wormhole: “King …”
city wormhole: events happen / through all measure of name
clouds wormhole: hot summer / morning
eyes & sound & walls & windows wormhole: Jackie’s slight smile
identity & thinking & time wormhole: [start where you are III] – delve
knowledge wormhole: the Apple
life & speech wormhole: out side of the writing / lodge
moon wormhole: tag cloud poem VIII – growth
rooftops wormhole: sight / seeing
searching & streets wormhole: Dionne Warwick
shops & society & years wormhole: 1959
skyline wormhole: gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared
venetian blids wormhole: 1963

 

someone called Frank

Tags

1970, 2005, cars, childhood, divorce, emergence, Ford Cortina, green, Iron Man, liquorice, Mum, music, Simon & Garfunkel, sound, the Shadows, vinyl, wood

 

 

 

                           someone called Frank

                           metallic junglegreen Ford
                                Cortina mark II

                           shiny squeaky record covers
                           ‘slint’ the teeth when
                           the fingernails touch
                           but the needle fits onto the vinyl
                           like liquorice

                           the Shadows Bridge Over
                           Troubled Waters in stereo:
                           big wooden speakers crackling

 

 

 

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

cars & childhood & sound wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
divorce & green wormhole: night time
emergence wormhole: the sounds the difficulty and the long long strands of liquorice
Mum wormhole: existence
music wormhole: … walking down the street
wood wormhole: need

 

1970 // just now

Tags

1970, 2012, 4*, brown, childhood, emergence, green, horizon, painting, portrait, Ramsden Heath, realisation, sound, trees, uncle

 

 

 

                                                                      1970

                                                   to my uncle
                                                   shifting on
                                                   hardplastic seat
                                                   of darkwood chair
                                                      – crack –
                                                   elbow-lean on
                                                   relief carvings on
                                                   table-edge
                                                      – creak –
                                                   to execute a
                                                   perfect tree
                                                   on the horizon
                                                   with just two strokes
                                                   one brown
                                                   one green

                                                   I knew then
                                                   to put down
                                                   my compass plans
                                                   for every detail
                                                   but I am only
                                                   just now
                                                   realising it

 

 

 

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

part of >>> years
brown wormhole: handsome
childhood wormhole: from my childhood
emergence wormhole: holiday
green wormhole: lost cape
horizon wormhole: William Carlos Williams
Ramsden Heath wormhole: 1964
realisation wormhole: plop!
sound wormhole: coffee shop
trees wormhole: Dr Strange #6 (Feb 1975)
uncle wormhole: Michael Redford / 1935-2007

 

the silent night / of the Batman

Tags

1970, 2011, 5*, Batman, black, blue, breeze, Christmas, city, comics, glass, green, lamp post, night, purple, red, silence, sky, smile, stars, white, windows, writing, yellow

The Silent Night of the Batman in Batman #219, Feb 1970; writer: Mike Friedrich; art: Neal Adams; inks: Dick Giordano

 

 

 

                                   the silent night
                                   of the Batman

                      even while they carried
                      their gift-wrapped parcels
                      and looked to each other
                      with smiles of belief
                      the shop signs hummed
                      dark against the marbled fronts

                      while above them the quiet floors
                      of stone-framed windows
                      looked east looked south all the same
                      the same in an ink-black sky
                      enough to write a novel in a single sitting
                      enough to hold a fleet of stars
                      above the skyline taxiing slowly

                      then the sky turns ink-green
                      the rooftop gathers ink-blue attention
                      and leaps without step or swing
                      through the glass and cornice
                      of city vistas and breeze

                      to shadow the guilt
                      to alley the share
                      to streetlight the fear
                      and river the rose
                      cast high and wide to the stars until

                      marzipan fingers reach
                      across the ink-purple sky
                      and marshmallow lights

                      go out

 

 

 

dedicated with great gratitude
to Neal Adams and
Mike Friedrich

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

Batman & comics & night & red wormhole: roof-top vigil
black wormhole: sitting room
blue & smile wormhole: Initiation
breeze & yellow wormhole: “…he paced about the bricks with / empty glasses…”
Christmas & city white & windows wormhole: 1967
glass wormhole: through a cracked glass greenly
green wormhole: ‘green post stamps …’
lamp-post wormhole: Christmas lights / around the lamp post
purple wormhole: ‘in clear …’
silence wormhole: boxer
sky wormhole: theological discussion
stars wormhole: ‘radar-blinking …’
writing wormhole: ‘coming / to understand