between thoughts

Tags

1978, bedroom, blue, brother, childhood, Eglinton Hill, glass, John, laughing, mauve, morning, pyjamas, rain, reading, shadow, smile, sun, thought, windows, yellow

 

 

 

                            up floated the printed words
                                            lengthening shadows on the page
                                                          light rain fell

                            small mauve sparks
                                            sprayed from the crack
                                                          in the bedroom window

                            charging my smiling brother
                                            in his yellow and blue pyjamas
                                                          laughing in the morning sun

                                            between thoughts

 

 

 

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

bedroom wormhole: where the goblins leered – poewieview #14
blue & sun wormhole: too late:
childhood wormhole: 1968
Eglinton Hill & glass wormhole: the start of adolescence
mauve wormhole: being in love – poewieview #26
morning wormhole: work
rain & windows wormhoe: fine
reading wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
shadow wormhole: impressionism
smile wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
thought wormhole: dry rot
yellow wormhole: stacked

 

work

Tags

1978, contemplation, dressing gown, garden, Genesta Road, leaves, lifetimes, morning, Nan, night, patchwork, seasons, self-effacement, selflessness, sun, tea, time, work

 

 

 

                           my grandmother’s
                           multi-coloured patchwork gown;

                           she climbed the garden steps
                           at night and stood

                           contemplating
                           work done work to be done

                           in the morning
                           the sun was on the leaves

                           and glinted off the mug of tea
                           she’d been drinking

 

my ‘grandmother’ was Gladys Charlotte Conlay who lived a life of work for all her families, without guile or motive, between 1906 and 1989; the garden was in ‘Genesta Road’ – her last home which she made with her divorced daughter and her two grandsons

 

 

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

garden & night wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
Genesta Road wormhole: new garden
leaves wormhole: dog bark
lifetimes wormhole: a theremin note – poewieview #21
morning wormhole: nothing to say
Nan wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
sun wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
tea wormhole: Automat, 1927 – held
time wormhole: the both passive and transitive / non-presumptive pre-conceptualist attenuation of being
work wormhole: Teaching career: much like Monet’s ‘Impression: soleil levant’ or, in the long run, de Chirico’s ‘The Red Tower’

 

Jackie’s slight smile

Tags

1978, eyes, Genesta Road, Jackie, light, mist, open, portrait, smile, sound, Thames, walls, white, windows, wine, Woolwich

 

 

 

too much wine

the light from the lamp
spilt across the wall too quick
to notice

Jackie’s slight smile

the boats on the river
the white mist wafted
through the back of her eyes

 

 

 

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

eyes & sound & windows wormhole: [start where you are III] – delve
Genesta Road & white wormhole: hot summer / morning
light wormhole: heirloom – break / after heavy shower
mist wormhole: thar she perched
open wormhole: after the storm
smile wormhole: really old
Thames & Woolwich wormhole: To my Mum
walls wormhole: prologue-ing

 

city twilight

Tags

'scape, 1978, 5*, being, breeze, city, guitar, music, passing, traffic, twilight

                city twilight

                by the slow traffic
                he played his guitar
                in descending sevenths and diminisheds

                down in jazz-skuffle beat
                up in the breeze

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: crumpled / notebooks / at the end of a gentle retreat
breeze wormhole: Jean Miller kissed Salinger
city wormhole: where the real action // always is
guitar wormhole: day off
music & traffic wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
passing & twilight wormhole: new year’s eve 2014; train up to London to / walk the bridges across the Thames, and / listen to the voices say it is, and was, like, / but get back home before the fireworks / obliterate it all in the emptying twilight

 

corroboration

Tags

1978, 2014, 3*, childhood, chimney, garden, Genesta Road, growth, home, morning, oak, photograph, pink, rooftops, sandstone, sun, time, work

 

 

 

                corroboration

                                arriving home
                                I took a photo
                                of the sun low
                                behind the oak
                                and found that
                                chimneys and
                                rooftops were
                                deeply pink and sandstone after all

 

 

 

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

childhood & rooftops wormhole: cloud
chimney & morning & sun wormhole: sunny morning
garden & oak wormhole: ‘“ruddy crows!” / said my Dad …’
Genesta Road & work wormhole: letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love
home wormhole: quest in brown
pink wormhole: deeper
time wormhole: a known from without the unknown

 

the air of architecture

Tags

1978, 1979, 2013, 4*, architecture, being, experience, eyes, Paris, reading, summer, time

                           I read a book during the summer of ‘78
                           or ’79 I cannot remember the title I can-
                           not remember the author I cannot rem-
                           ember the plot or any of the characters
                           I cannot remember the cover and am
                           not sure I would recognise it again if I
                           found it in a second hand bookshop –
                           it was set in Paris, I think, and involved
                           prostitutes, possibly, but nevertheless
                           left a slight flavour at the back of my
                           eyeballs which I haven’t been able
                           to blink away no matter how deep
                           I breathe the air of architecture

 

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: titanic
being wormhole: posture
eyes wormhole: city-centre-coffee-shop / talk
Paris wormhole: wide-open / concentration
reading & time wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate

 

the zen of grandmothers

Tags

1978, being, muse, Nan, openness, portrait, Zen

 

                                          here is a triplet of early poems
            evoking a different season in a different time by a younger mlr
                      of my eternal grandmother
                      who died in 1989 but remains
                      one of the strong threads that
                                completes me through time

 

‘my grandmother’s …’ the zen of grandmothers

 

morning a pastel sketch with word-highlighting

 

morning / through the / open door my grandmother lived through open doors and allowed the puffs of air in that we might breathe

 

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

being wormhole: “crop / rotation”
muse wormhole: ‘how beautiful …’
Nan wormhole: ‘standing astride …’
openness wormhole: travelling is fresh

 

‘the quiet boy …’

Tags

'scape, 1978, 3*, brown, portrait, silence, smile, streets

 

 

 

                      the quiet boy
                      who sat fingering
                a tube of Rolos (the man
                who stepped out of the
                      street-corner shop
                      took one
                      smiled
                and gave him the pack)
                      who told his sister
                      not to eat them
                      the next one was bottom-up
                      and wasn’t smiling

 

 

 

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

brown wormhole: 20^th century
silence wormhole: Marion Park
smile wormhole: 200310
streets wormhole: hands in pockets

 

hands in pockets

Tags

'scape, 1978, 20th century, 3*, doors, faces, fire, hell, streets, Thomas Merton

 

 

 

                           hands in pockets

                on the street
                at the door
                to the cellar

                he pulled open a flap
                and the fire of hell
                blew up in his face

 

 

 

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

20^th century wormhole: Have
doors wormhole: ‘after the war …’
faces wormhole: brown suit
streets wormhole: a mid-afternoon

 

‘his shadowy eyebrow …’

Tags

1978, 2*, blue, eyes, portrait

 

 

 

            his shadowy eyebrow
            settled over his eye
            and small blue cubes
            tumbled from his hanging lip

 

 

 

^{————w}(O)rmholes_________________________________|—–
blue wormhole: grain
eyes wormhole: daybreak // midday