the silent night of the Batman

Tags

2011, 7*, alley, attention, Batman, belief, black, blue, buildings, Christmas, city, east, fear, glass, green, guilt, ink, light, marble, marzipan, night, people, planes, purple, river, rooftops, rose, shops, silence, sky, skyline, smile, south, stars, streetlamp, thought, 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, quiet floors of

                clear-dark 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 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

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: looking back over the tack / and jibe of my life I / notice there is / a fetch // after all … / but certainly not / where I had planned / or where I thought / I’d been
Batman: cape and cowl
black wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
blue wormhole: out
buildings & people wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
Christmas & stars wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
city wormhole: city streets
glass wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
green & sky & smile wormhole: looking ahead
light wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
night & writing wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
purple wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
river wormhole: glide
rooftops wormhole: low afternoon
shops wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
silence wormhole: is this it // all the time
skyline wormhole: clear as vista
thought & windows wormhole: for / the first time

 

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Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211

Tags

2011, 2014, 2017, 6*, architecture, birds, birdsong, blackbird, blue, branches, breathing, brick, bus, cars, change, child, childhood, church, coat, coffee, coffee shop, crane, crows, death, echo, Eglinton Hill, evening, football, friends, green, handshake, Have, hill, houses, lifetimes, light, looking, mother, Mum, newsagent, no effort, notice, passing, pigeons, Plumstead, Plumstead common, quiet, roads, smiling, sound, step, streets, Thames, thought, time, trees, voices, walking, white, windows, Woolwich

        Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211

        the crane holds effortlessly over from behind
        the houses and trees cables thrumming always
        cold and eventually it will all be dismantled;

        the diesel car purred slowly downhill, a pigeon
        dropped down behind it walked around a bit;
        through the leaf-clean branches of the young

        tree the Edwardian cornices and tops along
        Plumstead Common Road, don’t collect thoughts,
        t a s t e them without notice, deep and wet

        with no tice – much less effort – while walking,
        every once in a while the wall steps up a brick
        I search for being clear again … step, while

        walking stop, and breathe the beauty, stop
        and smile a little thought for you; in St. Mary
        Magdalene’s ground the mother has turned

        points to the trees, birds fly off and land, the
        toddler steps and stands among the pigeons
        while the mother brings the abandoned scooter

        but then in New Road holding the handshake
        shaking between exchange the firm friends
        look at each other only occasionally; while he

        he Had a coffee heated sandwich iced bun
        crisps water £8.89, busses passing bulbous
        over the dark green and hanging shade; up

        the hill on the coldstreet stepping downhill
        out the newsagent the bright blue padded
        jacket and the single bounce of a well-inflated

        basketball with simultaneous echo inside; the
        while on a wall opposite his Mum’s flat dead
        almost 12 years now watching a boy with a limp

        and the 53 bus working between parked cars
        and the crossing island with air suspension
        and when it was quiet the dark coat and white

        trainers crossed the road paused and into the
        newsagents but then I didn’t see where she
        went; the constant echo of boys’ voices playing

        football on Plumstead Common off Acacia
        Terrace 1890; and I can’t see 46 Eglinton Hill
        where I’m sat, conifers grow so quick, but

        `doesn’t matter, I can’t see the blackbird singing
        a different collect each time either; crows on the
        chimneys of 40/38; for a minute the blackbird

        stopped no vehicles uphill downhill, lights
        went on across the river and each house had
        the face of lifetimes in their windows;

 

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); walking downhill from Plumstead to Woolwich and around and back, in time; those who know Woolwich and Plumstead (all none of you across the world wide, as far as I can tell, although you have got Google maps, if you’re really interested) will [be able to] recognise as they appear: South Circular coming up to Well Hall roundabout, Eglinton Hill [childhood home], Plumstead Common Road, St Mary Magdelene’s Church, Woolwich New Road, [along A206], Waverley Crescent (top of Griffin Road), Plumstead Common (proper), back up Eglinton Hill …

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: pen and ruler
birds wormhole: open window
blackbird & change wormhole: relief
blue wormhole: low afternoon
branches wormhole: between
breathing & coffee shop & evening & sound & time & windows wormhole: amid
bus wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III
cars & green & trees wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
child & streets wormhole: red / lacquer / door
childhood wormhole: all the sandstone / reflections in the / marble-blue troughs
church wormhole: ‘someone …’
coffee wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop I
crane wormhole: Luton // couldn’t make a poem out of it
crows wormhole: the ancient tree
death & light & Mum wormhole: good going into / that gentle night
echo wormhole: circuitry
Eglinton Hill & Plumstead wormhole: lost and city ground
Have & looking wormhole: found
lifetimes wormhole: cape and cowl
mother wormhole: mother and daughter
passing & roads & leaves wormhole: leaves
pigeons wormhole: municipal garden
quiet wormhole: the quiet whale
Thames wormhole: to rescue something
thought wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
voices wormhole: I keep / waiting to be discovered and get lost in anticipation
walking wormhole: cinnamon / milkshake
Woolwich wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams

 

reading // unstirred

Tags

2011, 6*, dissolving, growth, homoeopathy, letting go, reading, study, teaching, university, words, world

reading

haven’t got the energy to study anymore
university and teaching knocked that out of me
feels unwholesome now
over-eating
over-chewing

                far better now
                to read without trace without
                wholesale shopping and let the worlds*
                flavour my mind homoeopathically the way
                I would always have preferred but that now
                I can just let dissolve like cordial in water

                                                                                 unstirred

 

* sic

 

 

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

letting go wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
reading wormhole: Granada and other poems … continued
study wormhole: ashramas
teaching wormhole: while
university wormhole: Grizedale College
words & world wormhole: south horizon

 

south horizon

Tags

1959, 1967, 1979, 1993, 1999, 2011, 2012, 7*, abandonment, anger, Bowie, childhood, Dad, discovery, divorce, drum, evening, experience, horizon, light, London, Margaret Thatcher, memory, Mum, Nan, pain, parents, perspective, purple, rhythm, river, saxophone, shift, Shooters Hill, south, texture, Thames, travelling, words, world

                south horizon

                out on the river
                the purple is shifting

                but in the evening-bulb light
                the world-shaping words

                of grown ups
                is shifting uncontrollably

                but,          no; it’s OK          look
                there is rhythm, there is

                a saxophone, a hi-hat – shflpt –
                in the crack there

                where words sift
                where worlds shift

 

I submitted this to an online magazine; they didn’t want it; I’ll publish it here again with the copy that supported it:

about the poem: on my eighth birthday (in 1967) my Dad arrived home late from work; my parents had one of their last arguments; my Dad left home that night; I couldn’t remember much of what happened that night – what was said, how much I heard, how much I understood – but I realised that worlds could change quite quickly that night; years later, in 1993, David Bowie recorded ‘south horizon’ on his ‘Buddha of Suburbia’ album, but I didn’t really get to know the piece until 2011; hearing it etched that experience back into my memory – bevelled it up, almost – but it also supplied textures and chord changes to the memory that allowed me a perspective that held me from being just angry or hurt; (‘the river’ is the river Thames; we lived on Shooters Hill in SE London from where we could hear and breathe the river)

author bio: Mark Redford was born in 1959 and grew up in South East London until he bolted to university (like a bat out of hell) in 1979, hot from Margaret Thatcher’s election victory; London was never the same every time he returned back; his mother, who had brought him up with her mother (his Grandmother), died in 1999; since then he has travelled back to London frequently to find the previous 40 years, but only seems to find them when he writes down what he saw; you can see what he sees (possibly better than he can) at: https://mlewisredford.wordpress.com/; if you bump into him there, give him some directions would you?

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: monument to vainglory
Bowie wormhole: new-found love – poewieview #36
childhood & Thames wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
Dad & divorce & texture wormhole: beepbeep
evening wormhole: alighted
horozon wormhole: 1966
light wormhole: so pleased to see you again
London wormhole: 1967
Mum wormhole: 1967
Nan wormhole: work
purple & river wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
travelling wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
words wormhole: breathing out
world wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show

 

[once a] dilemminal [always a dilemminal]

Tags

2011, 6*, being, dilemma, doing, game, groundlessness, identity, pointlessness, role, teaching

                                                                        dilemminal

                        when I work for recognition
                        I am flirting with a game

                        the game is confusing and shifting and
                        I don’t like playing games

                        to go ‘public’ for profile, even so little
                        as acting independently,

                        is to enter a place of breaking ground
                        and flying objects to which I …

have to react

 

I retired at the end of this academic year; I am free – but I will never recover from the damage to my self that being the self that I was obliged to be in order to be recognised that I was doing the job at all, did …

 

 

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

being wormhole: happen//ing
doing wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
game wormhole: we play / the game
groundlessness wormhole: chartless …
identity & pointlessness wormhole: let it all go
teaching wormhole: lonely and free

 

let it all go

Tags

2011, 5*, abstract, centrifugal, centripetal, habit, identity, illusion, interdependent origination, letting go, looking, pointlessness, practice, talking to myself, world

                                              strong habit
                                abstracting
                from a pointless world

                                              me versus the world
                                whenever it solidifies
                centripetal to my centrifugal

                                I should let it all go

                                              by looking
                                where I am
                geographically

                                              emotionally
                                completely
                cleanly

                                              once again
                                hundreds of times
                all the time, and

                                              emerge
                                from it and
                watch myself

                                              and the world
                                spring up
                like illusion

 

 

 

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

identity & looking wormhole: AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!
letting go wormhole: trying to focus / on walking
pointlessness wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
practice wormhole: substance
talking to myself wormhole: happen//ing
world wormhole: travel

 

poessay III: jijimuge

Tags

2011, 7*, agenda, allegiance, choreography, communication, democracy, discussion, facet, gas, glass, inclusion, interdependent origination, jijimuge, knowledge, manipulation, power, reference, relative, semantics, society, understanding, value, words

                poessay III: jijimuge

                to allow any knowledge
                to accumulate
                it must be valued
                as        relative

                therefore       a-valuable
                so that it cannot render
                understanding;
                you cannot find a Way

                with accumulated knowledge
                you become anodyne
                to discussion and open
                to hijack and manipulation of the agenda

                communication becomes a wrestle –
                thrown grunted slammed –
                but nevertheless loosely
                choreographed

                words become the stock of the exchange
                but not the value
                each word just a nickel or a dime
                the value of words today

                is as means to exercise
                power              through allegiance
                to the notion of a freedom
                inherent in democracy

                I would rather look through
                a perfect glass stone
                look through one facet and see
                all other facets either near or distant

                but all related
                and then another facet
                still allincluded but interrelatedly interreferenced intervaluably intersemantically
                not dispersed            like gas

 

The world of ji: one in one, when one is taken-in by all, one enters into all.   The world of ri: one in all, when all is taken-in by one, all enters into one.   The world of ri and ji perfectly interfused: all in one, when one is taken-in by one, one enters into one.   The world where each individual ji is seen as interfused with every other: all in all, when all is taken-in by all, all enters into all.   This last one, jiji muge hokkai, is said to be the highest world of Enlightenment.

adapted from the words found in: http://www.taichido.com/chi/newbud/sato3.htm

 

 

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

communication wormhole: lonely and free
glass & society wormhole: fresh destiny
knowledge wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – On Doing Nothing
power wormhole: the purple mist between
understanding wormhole: listen willya
words wormhole: 1967

 

happen//ing

Tags

2011, 5*, being, chaos, decision, flow, non-doing, non-striving, politics, recognition, ripple, talking to myself, water, will

            happen doesn’t happen
            through will or decision
            creating chaos like an oar in water

            it doesn’t happen
            through positioning becoming part of the chaos
            riding a ripple

            neither does it happen
            by going with the flow
            becoming part of the chaos riding the trough

            or by not caring
            becoming submerged and possibly drowning
            happen happens

            when it is recognised
            amid the will the positioning the caring
            then

            the will the positioning the care happen
            like water poured into water
            ing

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: trying to focus / on walking
flow wormhole: the both passive and transitive / non-presumptive pre-conceptualist attenuation of being
politics wormhole: listen willya
recognition wormhole: ashramas
talking to myself wormhole: magnetic field
water wormhole: one day / in 1956

 

1967

Tags

'scape, 1960s, 1967, 2011, abandonment, beauty, buildings, cornice, lemon, olive, purple, rooftops, silhouette, sky, vermillion, years

 

 

 

                                                              1967

                                                              deepest vermillion
                                              streaked with lemon purple
                                between the dull olive silhouette of rooftops
                wires and cornices

 

 

 

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

1967 wormhole: organ / sunlight in all our eyes – poewieview #11
abandonment wormhole: 1968
beauty wormhole: need
buildings wormhole: Le Pont Royal, 1909
lemon & sky wormhole: being in love – poewieview #26
olive wormhole: thick thick fog
purple wormhole: up on the hill
rooftops wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
silhouette wormhole: Jon
years wormhole: 1965

 

Jericho

Tags

2011, being, defining, emptiness, groundlessness, Have, identity, letting go, life, living, non-doing, play, pointlessness, practice, quiet, realisation, reality, relaxing, seeing, sitting, walls

                                Jericho

                                pointless
                everything is pointless
                                I can see it
                everywhere like a needless wall

                                I don’t chose to
                it just seeps through everything
                                quietly
                makes me feel dank;
                                makes me crumble
                just when I thought I was getting footing

                never anything I can feel good about nothing
                                by which
                I can define myself
                                nothing
                I can’t see through
                                nothing that won’t show me up

                                this is my reality:
                no intrinsic reality
                                to play to, to play in;
                this is my reality

                                this is me; I
                should exploit it fully by not hoping
                                that here
                is where I can find myself at last

                                the point is
                that there is no point
                                to HAVE

                                the struggle
                is in worrying that the point
                                cannot be found

                                the salvation is
                in the relaxing with there being
                                no point

                                really
                really and truly there is nothing
                                to do

                                but to sit
                still in the reality of there being
                                no point

 

 

 

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

being & emptiness & life & pointlessness & sitting wormhole: the both passive and transitive / non-presumptive pre-conceptualist attenuation of being
groundlessness & letting go & seeing & walls wormhole: the writing’s on the wall
Have wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
identity 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 …
living & realisation wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
play wormhole: teached / in the ass
practice wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
quiet wormhole: the breath of London
reality wormhole: Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street