1967

Tags

1967, 1970s, 2014, Burt Bacharach, Dionne Warwick, divorce, green, hill, mist, Mum, parent, sound, voices, words

 

 

 

                                                                1967
                                                a holocaust
                                                happened

                                                quietly
                                despite all the ultimatums and final words rising crescendos and                
                                                muffled maybe

                                                                like a settled mist –
                                                houndstooth sound –
                                heavy on her back

                                                from which
                                she slowly rose like a hill dewy and scrub-plant green
                                                both clean
                                                and clear
what she had to do for the next decade

 

(theme from) the Valley of the Dolls: sung: Dionne Warwick, written: Burt Bacharach & Hal David; in 1967 my father left; in 1969 the decree nisi finally came through; somehow my Mum survived and brought us up during the 1970s

 

 

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

[Burt] Bacharach & Dionne Warwick wormhole: 1964
divorce wormhole: 1968
green wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs
mist wormhole: one day / in 1956
Mum wormhole: the policies came to nothing
sound wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – mmpph’
voices wormhole: constant hummm
words wormhole: Doctor Strange III – the needs of billions

 

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the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford

Tags

1960s, 1967, 1970s, 2007, 2016, Billericay, birdsong, childhood, colour, cottage, education, Essex, evening, farm, garden, grandfather, green, image, John, Kenya, life, London, love, morning, Ramsden Heath, South Africa, uncle, war, windows, writing

 

 

 

I have come into possession of a piece of work that my Uncle Mick did during the 1960s.   He was in his thirties when he wrote the ‘Boats of Vallisneria’ having survived a childhood of war and evacuation, having completed what education was available then, having completed a period of military service in Kenya and South Africa and returned to London, to move to Billericay in Essex, to begin his life proper.   His father (my grandfather) died early in the 60s and he spent the rest of his life living with and looking after his mother living in the tied cottage to the farm he worked.

He completed this work because he wanted to explore the shape and pattern of [his] life.   He completed it even while the changes in farming brought his work there to a close.   [He went on to become a gardener and eventually set up his own business framing pictures].   He submitted the manuscript to Dent & Sons for publication, but they declined.

He let me have a look at the script when I was in my late teens and visiting and whinnying on about wanting to be a writer.   This was in the later 1970s.   I was way too green and cursive to read it with great discernment or generosity and commented that it was OK but quite amateurish (a youthful candour with which I hurt many a person close to me when I was young and arrogant – I’m sorry, everyone).

The dear man died in 2007, and I had long since forgotten his work (although I remember being honoured that he had shown me his work – it confirmed to me that being a writer was a noble thing to be).   I had a visit recently from my brother who brought a whole case of artefacts from my uncle, one of which was the original manuscript.

… I think I’d like to publish it on my blog.   Share the work with the world that he was not so able to do during his own time.   In his honour.   In memoriam.   To preserve and celebrate the green-paint-on-sturdy-wood life of Ramsden Heath during the 1960s and 1970s.   To celebrate the linen-atmosphere of small-pane cottage window looking out on the garden in all facet.   To listen in on the darken-colours of morning and evening and bird-call in Essex countryside, every one different and newly-miraculous found.

While typing it up I felt I could tap the kernel of what he was exploring and cut in to his images and experiences within – and sometimes behind – his writing.   I would also like to explore his writing through my own.   And publish them alongside each other like a healthy pair of framed pictures above the mantelpiece.   To celebrate my love for him.   And make the contact with him that I was too gauche to make while he was alive.   (How much I appreciate people the most, once I have lost life with them).

His work will come first … soon

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

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

1967 wormhole: 1967
childhood & morning wormhole: currency of generations
education wormhole: aghh – we’ve been infected / it’s spreading through the system / we’re losing our files … / it’s taken out the processor … / I, I can’t open with this program anymore … / it’s scanning me – / I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program / from it …
evening wormhole: constant hummm
garden wormhole: diligence
green & life & love wormhole: being in love – poewieview #26
London wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
Ramsden Heath & uncle wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
war wormhole: just saying, is all V: // … systematic and consistent disempowerment
windows wormhole: between thoughts
writing wormhole: balancing // with a whole lot of deft

 

words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25

Tags

1970s, 1971, 2016, bed, Bowie, brick, buildings, cartoon, clouds, flats, form, guitar, hearing, height, litter, music, park, passing, pipes, shops, silence, sky, step, suburbia, trees, wind, words, world, writing

                           lying still enough in the quiet of bedclothes
                           you can hear the pops in the sky as the
                           clouds settle and the resolve of form as

                           the trees are passed, all big-flared steps
                           through the park like the coming cartoons,
                           into the suburbs, (across the globe), but

                           always back to the room above the shops
                           under height of building pipework and the
                           block of flats, where the brick and grime

                           ignore the swirling litter … but then later,
                           among strumming, the words tumble like
                           boulders, each to their own defining clunk

 

settled throughout: Holy Holy, 1971; Oh! You Pretty Things, 1971; Fill Your Heart, 1971; How Lucky You Are (Miss Peculiar), 1971; Hang On To Yourself, 1971, after the dust

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

 

 

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

1971 wormhole: 1971
Bowie & buildings & wind wormhole: no one – poewieview #24
clouds wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
guitar wormhole: 08:55
music wormhole: well,
park & trees wormhole: 1963
passing & silence wormhole: 1965
shops wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky
sky wormhole: 1968
words wormhole: my // shell – poewieview #19
world wormhole: tong len / the inauguration of another – timely – butter fly effect / taking and giving
writing wormhole: need

 

purple and mauve

Tags

'scape, 1970s, 2015, autumn, city, evening, mauve, purple, rain, rooftops, shops, sitting room, smell, streetlight, streets, tarmac, time, windows

 

 

 

                      there is a street view somewhere
                      from the shopfront rooftops at

                      the turn of the season as the
                      evenings gather earlier around

                      streetlights and window displays
                      all wet across the camber of the

                      patchwork tarmac like a cosy
                      sitting room with the damp smell

                      of dinner almost ready somewhere
                      during the mid 1970s when

                      everything began turning
                      purple with mauve with slivers
                      of white and yellow highlight

 

 

 

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

autumn wormhole: after all?
city & time & windows wormhole: Office in a Small City, 1953
evening wormhole: Evening Wind, 1921
mauve wormhole: mauve / night
purple wormhole: dream 260815
rain & rooftops & shops & streetlight & streets wormhole: now, the verticals go down as well as they go up
sitting room wormhole: mlewisredford introductory complete life audit confessional
smell wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting

 

now, the verticals go down as well as they go up

Tags

1970s, 1980s, 2015, alley, architecture, awning, buildings, chimney, city, colour, Daredevil, dark, dawn, drawing, Edward Hopper, form, Frank Miller, ground, hearing, height, identity, landscape, leisure, listening, litter, notice, orange, rain, rooftops, seeing, shops, silhouette, sitting, snow, sound, streetlight, streets, suburbia, tarmac, vertical

                now, the verticals go down as well as they go up

                                the form of
                                architecture
                                is drawn
                                by rain

                                streetlights
                                merely cast
                                the silhouettes
                                of dawn

                                in the 70s
                                and the 80s
                                the shops
                                opened late

                                like Hopper
                                landscapes
                                foretending
                                leisure

                                sleet down
                                an alley when
                                there are things
                                to be done

                                (cab waiting
                                with the meter
                                running) but
                                when it snows

                                it is time to sit
                                on a ledge and
                                listen to all the
                                muffled sound

                                below; lighted
                                billboards and
                                the uplit facades
                                of monoliths

                                above the
                                chimney stacks,
                                only when
                                sprung from

                                girders can you
                                hang foetus-like
                                above the roof-
                                tops; let all the

                                striving height
                                recede back
                                to the ground
                                it stands from

                                assassins and
                                bounty hunters
                                proceed colourful
                                and silent by the

                                dark rooftops
                                of old town
                                suburbia, only
                                the blind devils

                                leap the burning
                                awnings more
                                bright than day,
                                where only one

                                will notice from
                                the street, and
                                yet the fantastic
                                storeys of

                                orange-corporate
                                building rise
                                ineluctable
                                behind all

                                borough, seen
                                but not heard;
                                except for the
                                litter of paper

                                trailing the collateral
                                dance across tarmac
                                and paviours, hardly
                                noticed, but ever indulged

 

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: House by the Railroad, 1925
buildings wormhole: dream 260815
chimney wormhole: silhouette: // second / thoughts
city wormhole: Morning in a City, 1944
Daredvil wormhole: tag cloud poem V – draft-ness
dawn & orange wormhole: gre[wh]y / has Daddy left us?
Edward Hopper wormhole: Summertime, 1943
identity & streets wormhole: ‘from under the awning …’
rain wormhole: open window
rooftops wormhole: House by the Railroad, 1925
seeing & sound wormhole: after all?
shops wormhole: that comicbookshop in dreams,
silhouette wormhole: 1959
sitting wormhole: Ashdown Forest / 080213 14:47
snow wormhole: To my Mum
streetlight wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting

 

To my Mum

Tags

1970s, 1974, 2008, breathing, brown, Burt Bacharach, clothes, clouds, Dionne Warwick, evening, field, floorboards, friends, green, grey, horizon, houses, journey, kitchen, laughing, Mum, Plumstead common, rain, relationship, sky, smile, snow, streetlight, streets, Thames, time, tv, walking, white, windows, Woolwich, work, yellow

 

 

 

To my Mum who breathed deep the day she got a good set of saucepans in her pantry in 1974.   To my Mum who walked the long tunnel at Woolwich to and from work every day for twenty five years.   To my Mum who smiled on Plumstead Common when the white clouds were on the horizon and the grey cloud seamless in all the windows.   To my Mum who ate chops and beans every evening to hold off weight but who always wore smart coats.   To my Mum who was never quite sure if it was OK to laugh and relax in the seventies as the possibility suggested,

                – yes, it was okay,

and every time she did,
there were plastic raincoats in the evening high street,
there was Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach,
there were floorboards and wooden stepladders and wallpaper,
there were empty milk bottles on the doorstep,
there was a thin of snow on the housing estate under the green grey sky,
there were bowls of crisps and crackers and twiglets for the Cup Final,
there were high sash windows overlooking the Thames,
there were phone wires in front of the skies where she would never go
there were car journeys on wet roads by deep green fields,
there were yellow streetlights of new relationships and new-found friends,
there were bulbous patterns of brown and green to match the seasons.

My Mum cried when it all went wrong but went to work anyway.

 

To my Mum, who died 20th March 1999, far too early to realise the extent of her own patience and the width of her generosity; who typed up invoices for cargo ships in and out of London and taught me to leave three spaces after a full stop, which I honour to this day.

 

 

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

1974 wormhole: 1974
breathing & green & horizon & streetlight & white & work & yellow wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
brown wormhole: the dash is magnificent / the shadow grotesque
[Burt] Bacharach & Dionne Warwick wormhole: 1962
clouds wormhole: purpose
evening wormhole: after the storm
field wormhole: the edge has come …
grey wormhole: hinged
houses & white wormhole: bottom of Herbert Road to the / foot of Eglinton Hill dream
kitchen & sky & snow & streets & walking wormhole: dream 260713
Mum wormhole: just words wiped across a line
rain wormhole: the four whores of the apocalypse
Thames wormhole: H e a v e
time wormhole: between
tv wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
Woolwich wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II

 

Plumstead – Woolwich 121114

Tags

1970s, 2014, 8*, anxiety, architecture, art deco, ash tree, bay window, bench, Beresford Square, blue, breathing, brown, buddleia, buildings, Canary Wharf, cars, change, clothes, clouds, communication, compassion, Dallin Road, demolition, dream, Eglinton Hill, empire, Europe, eyes, feet, fence, Genesta Road, ghosts, glass, glasses, grass, growth, handshake, head, house, identity, iron, keys, language, leaves, library, light, living, London, looking, love, music, passing, pavement, people, petrol, piano, pigeons, plane, plastic, Plumstead, purple, rain, rainbow, roads, rooftops, school, schoolgirl, shadow, Shard, singing, sky, smile, sound, speech, step, streetlight, streets, sun, swifts, talking, tarmac, Thames, time, travelling, trees, tv, vow, walking, walls, windows, Woolwich, yellow

 

{Every year and a while I travel 40 miles up to Woolwich, where I grew up, to check that the journey I make started off in the write direction (HA!); while wandering I write, leaning on peoples’ front walls and making a coffee last in a cafe (and every once in a while I treat myself to an afternoon bench); I haven’t been up there for awhile, certainly since the echoing tragedy of Lee Rigby’s death on 22nd May last year; I wrote snatches of life as usual and came home; I realised that the snatches patch-worked together and worked them into a whole landscape which they had ever were in the first place; I know it’s a long piece but please pursue it for the sake of Woolwich; I realise now that my previous visits’ writings need some rendering due-ly …}

 

 

                      Plumstead – Woolwich 121114

                      all fractured now, slightly misshapen, still
                      holding together, the grubby art deco window that
                      coloured the stairwells bracing two rooms
                      maybe three now, don’t know why they used coloured

                      glass, the bay windows still looking up the street looking
                      down, occasional five-finger buddleias like Empire
                      plaques on the wall above top floor windows
                      scud clouds above the coping

                      then flights of step up and up and straddling and down
                      the storeys of irregular variegated plastic cladding
                      upwards upwards for to breathe free and live while people
                      pass on the wet street with small steps and quiet slippers

                      I had a dream once something anxious and dreadful
                      followed me going into and out of Polytechnic Street
                      from Wellington along by the stacked flanks of seventies
                      double-glaze all screened and blinded from the street

                      cannot see in cannot see out, people walk awkward
                      on the tiles flexing metatarsals under the slight over
                      hang of the library from the colding rain while, look,
                      a rainbow arches hidden down the side-street turning

                      the bricks and glazing purple, no one looks up
                      arranging bank loans, arranging brunch, after noon
                      the sun divides streets in half, the buildings too
                      dark to see the shop fronts too dazzled to walk into

                      the sun favours ambitious plants between torn-down
                      building and upright support, plays along the side
                      of preserved plots – flanged shadow from pipework and
                      signage across circular windows – eye to the sky – under

                      hand-brow, too bright even for tinted glasses;
                      so many of my people generations poor in the sun
                      from Empires and Union under the Royal Arsenal
                      Gatehouse; each passing step collapsed and proud knot

                      in kneed of any support, thank you: their shadows reach me
                      down the Square’s access channel long before their pain
                      walks by: I don’t know any of you now with your plastic ID
                      badges with your back-pat handshakes and bent-heads

                      sincere-talk, grouped and scattered by the public toilets
                      your drunk over-emphases your ways like pigeons – where are
                      all the pigeons? – and your beautiful language aged as
                      public benches; dark clothes to wear, light clothes to buy

                      and you don’t know me – lost son haunting the streets – but
                      I love you all constant as the windows proud above roofline
                      between turrets looking onto the Square; I long ago made
                      my vow to you at a time when borders seemed important
                      I know, I know I am slow but I return again and again to see you
                      and you break my heart each time I learn to smile again

                      out towards Plumstead on the lower road (I cannot find
                      the tree I found before through all my travelling) new trees
                      and tapered posts with lights for the road and lights for the
                      pavement and posts just waiting, reaching into the blue blue sky

                      you have been done up many times, Genesta*, so
                      I only notice now what hasn’t changed, for the first time:
                      unassuming tapered pillars between the windows and bays
                      of my youth that reflect the blue sky now (yellow leaves

                      highlight the paving and tarmac wet like petrol) only noticed
                      when a swift skeeks across one pane, not the other;
                      up Dallin Road, she’s got through another day
                      she’s survived the juddering divided walls of ‘have to’

                      the way things are these days, with music in hand
                      she makes rewarded way along the steely street where
                      the sun has slipped below the higher roofline, singing her
                      do-do-do’s to the endless chorus ‘why do we do it;

                      how do we do it?’, and looking for her house keys
                      under metal clouds; the long grass grows rosettes around
                      yellow leaves, brown leaves, by the leaning iron fence the
                      steep tarmac cracks and the shorter grass takes over; past the

                      bronze age tumulus it’s clear, London’s grown up a lot
                      since I watched Francis Chichester sail up the river
                      from the window up on Eglinton Hill – something he did –
                      now there are Shards and Wharfs and stacking planes

                      and significant lights denoting all manner of whey and access but
                      still my nose is running and I need to have a wee; I suppose
                      I need to get home now the light is fading slow and fast
                      at 52 – the ash has only lost its upper leaves by the roof

                      at 48 there is afternoon tv after electric piano practise is done
                      at 44 – the estate agent climbs awkward into her clean soft-top with
                      high clip heels; at 36 – a lantern shines arched in the porch while
                      sirens circle the borough and there’s nothing left here now outside 46

 

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: Batman#175
bench wormhole: the bench / on the fourth sister from / Birling Gap before the / wind-brushed scrub and gorse / and the grey-blue sky / smoothed through the / fishtank-blue horizon to / grey-green sea
blue & leaves & sun wormhole: Jean Miller kissed Salinger
breathing wormhole: born again
brown wormhole: on sitting / in front of / a hedge
buddleia wormhole: (Little by Little)
buildings & travelling wormhole: I could step / more open
cars & roads wormhole: the long road
change & time wormhole: Dr Strange II – … things are the same again
clouds wormhole: the utter beauty of giving when receiving
communication wormhole: Maidstone
compassion & feet & love & speech & talking wormhole: there are patient listeners
dream wormhole: we’re born // to die
Eglinton Hill & Woolwich & yellow wormhole: letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love
eyes & looking & shadow wormhole: a maturity
Genesta Road & rooftops wormhole: corroboration
ghosts wormhole: only the Batman realises that he is dead
glass & light & streetlight wormhole: oh-pen
glasses wormhole: first a mishap then clear vision
house wormhole: day off
identity wormhole: that
living wormhole: scattered
London wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
music wormhole: no exit
passing & sound & walking & windows wormhole: Matildenplatz / & Luisen
people & rain & sky wormhole: Luisenplatz
piano wormhole: … walking down the street
pigeons wormhole: tune up // baton taptaptap
purple wormhole: consturnation …? // consternation
school wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
smile wormhole: irretrievable / breakdown / of marriage
streets & trees wormhole: Dr Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
Thames wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate
tv wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
walls wormhole: stuck free to move within

 

letters to Mum IV – healing comes in smiling

Tags

1970s, 1998, 2014, 5*, abandonment, cancer, chemo, child, Christmas, Dad, dream, Eglinton Hill, Genesta Road, Hakuin, honesty, Joseph, letter, love, mother, Mum, Oscar Wilde, pain, parent, smile, talking, time, Zen

 

 

 

                                                                                              261298

                Dear Mum,

                                good to talk with you over Christmas
                                              honest and open
                                              I love that even when we don’t meet
                                              we can say we haven’t met to each other
                                                              when needed; we had

                                              a good holiday
                                              set everything up and
                                              let it all happen
                                              by itself
                                some of it was boring
                                some of it was tinsel-ly
                                Joe* called it ‘Winterval’
                I call it the gift to see like a child; recent dreams

                                of Eglinton Hill**
                still coming to terms with Dad leaving
                                after all these years … we had all been left
                                              we all had to survive, we all had to move down
                                              from Eglinton Hill to terraced Genesta Road*** –
                                              environment of survival – with the silly talk
                                              and crazy plans of becoming through the 70s

                                healing comes in smiling on the pain we carry
                                              befriending dis-order to help the heal
                                                              with the benign mind it ensues (it is
                                not the perfect but the imperfect that
                                                                      is in need of our love said our Oscar****)

                                              you might have
                                              good years left

                                              not cured but
                                              checking the

                                              cancer with
                                              little giggle and

                                              slight hysteric
                                              and you are right:

                                              bugger the dignity
                                              bugger the unfairness and
                                              bugger the chemo

                                Zen Master Hakuin was accused
                                of fathering the child – ‘is that so!’
                                he took care of the child – just so
                                the mother confessed, the parents
                                apologised and in yielding back the
                                child – ‘is that so!’

                much love, mark

 

     * eldest son; Mum was a Jehovah’s Witness and abstained from celebrating Christmas even though she loved the season when she was younger; Joe’s comment somewhat echoed the argument that Christmas had been hijacked
    ** large, semi-detached, Victorian 4-bedroom house where we (my Mum, my brother, my Grandmother and myself) lived up until 1971; no longer able to keep hold of it we had to move down the hill to …
  *** … Genesta Road, terraced, 3-bedroom, someone else’s wallpaper on the walls until we could change it ourselves
**** we shared a love of Oscar Wilde’s wit

 

 

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

part of the ongoing life and page of … Mum
abandonment wormhole: amid
child & time wormhole: I could step / more open
Christmas wormhole: on
Dad wormhole: ‘“ruddy crows!” / said my Dad …’
dream wormhole: my fidgety self
Eglinton Hill wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
Genesta Road wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate
Joseph wormhole: dream / 140603
love wormhole: happy birthday, my love
mother wormhole: the retriever the daughter and the mother
Mum wormhole: letters to Mum III – ongoing-term // eventually
smile wormhole: Tulips by Sylvia Plath – How Far To Step Before You Raise The Other Foot
talking wormhole: city-centre-coffee-shop / talk

 

letters to Mum III – ongoing-term // eventually

Tags

1970s, 1998, 2014, 6*, blood, cancer, childhood, death, family, giving, hospital, laugh, letter, letting go, life, living, Mum, reality, Ryokan, speech, teaching

 

 

 

Dear Mum,

                                finally
                I sit down to write –
too much draining into reserve too much exhaustion of voice controlling 30 pupils in a class; this job of constant give and demand leaves me slumped and inert, little use to anyone …

                … your illness, the hospital
                the cancer in your blood
                the ongoing-term shock

                watching you audit your life
                watching you simplify a life
                already simple, coming back
                to terms with it again and again

                now you are back in hospital
                because of a cold –
this is not something to be sorted with a little rest and a Lemsip –
                it won’t ‘be over’ at all will it but rather
                fought through better and worse
                (all the struggles of the last year
                 not in vain but in reality)

(in the 70s we saved up for the smallest things; things went wrong – we even got burgled! – (I saw you, you kept our worry to yourself) but then you ‘tut’d up a ‘this won’t do’: a good laugh all together in our house at what we had left –
                Ryokan’s moon* –

                eventually)

                love,

                Mark

 

 

*Daigu Ryokan (1758-1831): ah, the thief / left it behind – the moon / at the window

 

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

part of the ongoing life and page of … Mum
childhood & death & living wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
death & Mum wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate
giving wormhole: poessay VIII: / educational behaviourism
letting go wormhole: the precision // the gentleness // and / the letting go
life wormhole: our life
reality wormhole: poessay VII: // true revolution
speech wormhole: g’morning
teaching wormhole: the Telescope

 

letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk

Tags

1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 1998, 2014, 7*, afterlife, cancer, change, childhood, crane, death, distance, duty, family, father, history, identity, illness, letter, life, living, London, love, morning, Mum, Nan, prayer, reading, Saturday, son, speech, study, talking, time, walking, Woolwich

 

Mum was diagnosed with cancer in the early summer of 1998, she died the following March 1999; I couldn’t get up to London to see her regularly so I started a correspondence; sixteen years later I realise that our correspondence didn’t just stop with her death, the same as our life together didn’t: our life together was always the response between the words and events …

 

 

                                                                                    280698

                                Dear Mum

                                been feeling the need for a walk
                                and talk down to Woolwich and
                                around, through the history and
                                possibility of a Saturday morning,
                                arm in arm again, for many decades

                                now, but now there are only seconds
                                between all the thoughts and dramas
                                since you died (even, while you were
                                alive) where so much time has passed;
                                and Woolwich fades into building site

                                and cranes; all I could do then was listen
                                through letter, my life was too ‘detailed’
                                and 40 miles away, I said I could be there
                                in paper … now you are no miles away
                                and lost to all effect like cotton walls

                                we always had so much to talk about,
                                so many miles to cover – new routes
                                and ruins; new words and pasts – all
                                throughout the seventies, that the
                                eighties and nineties yawned us apart

                                in all our observation and resolve
                                until your illness made us embarrassed;
                                I had thought to shoulder my part of it
                                but the decades were against us and I
                                grew into the father I never had

                                I had paused to hear your resolve to fight
                                ‘the Fighter was back!’ brave-facing things
                                down to their shame and dissipation, again
                                and again, through all the crush and
                                nullity, giving your sons their childhood,

                                giving Nan her family, the silent duty
                                offered matter over fact, ‘just one of
                                those things’, until you were fighting
                                for retirement, fighting to allow for
                                all of people in all of their array

                                fighting to walk around London, to
                                read and study each new stretch of reborn
                                morning; I include you in my thoughts
                                these days in the quiet moments between
                                successive acts of my plays and rites and

                                whether the religion is suspect or not
                                the prayers are from your son’s heart
                                we have lost all the time of a world
                                but there are still so many miles to cover
                                still now, much love, mark

 

 

 

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

part of the ongoing life and page of … Mum
childhood & speech & time wormhole: ‘“ruddy crows!” / said my Dad …’
crane wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
death wormhole: on sitting / in front of / a hedge
family wormhole: “I think I’ll have a nice sandwich”
father wormhole: Sylvia
history wormhole: clouds
identity wormhole: I will eventually drift tectonic
life & love wormhole: the Buddha head in an antique shop
living wormhole: ‘I come from the brow …’
London wormhole: my life is not your market
morning wormhole: the poppies / of van Gogh
Mum wormhole: someone called Frank
Nan wormhole: dream / 130207
reading wormhole: first a mishap then clear vision
Saturday wormhole: Saturday
talking wormhole: connections
walking wormhole: there
Woolwich wormhole: the declensions of constant possibility throughout times