The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – An Old Piano

Tags

age, childhood, family, history, house, London, Michael J Redford, music, piano, reading, singing, sound, the Boats of Vallisneria, time, tone, walnut, World War

An Old Piano

It will not last much longer now, thought I as I gazed at our old piano standing proudly under a reproduction of ‘The Haywain’. Yes, despite its age it is still a proud instrument, even if it has lost one or two accoutrements such as the candle-sticks that were once hinged to the front panels and the tiny mother of pearl centre of a marquetry flower. Even so, it still stands firm and erect, defiant in its appearance of time. Of course it has been well looked after having been under constant attack from polish and duster and tuned with religious regularity ever since it came into our home.

The old walnut upright was bought for £6 just before the Second World War and although I was four or five years old at the time, I cannot recall its arrival in our midst. I can remember many things down to the age of three, but this piano for some reason had crept into my life so unobtrusively that it may well have been part of the family for generations. Mother had the ability to read music as easily as I can read a book, it was therefore a natural development that both my brother and I should undergo tuition. My brother was the first to sit scowling in concentration beside the music teacher every Thursday night, and I followed suit a couple of years later. Soon little hands were struggling stodgily through ‘The Bluebells of Scotland’ and ‘Minuet in G’, which was a great step forward from the time when my only contribution to the world of music came from putting the cat upon the keyboard.

One evening a year or so ago, while I was browsing through the keyboard discovery new chords and chord sequences, I hurled myself into an impressive arpeggio up the scale and finally landed on top E flat with a dull and toneless plunk. This had a most deflationary effect and I sat back in shocked silence. After composing myself, I explored the dark, humming interior of the piano and discovered a broken string that had coiled itself tightly around its neighbour in a final fit of frenzy, having succumbed at last to the continued battering of a felt-tipped hammer. Since then, the strings have been breaking at the rate of approximately one every three months. The pitch has dropped so much it cannot be brought up again, the tome has taken on a peculiar twang that is somewhat reminiscent of an Indian sitar and when the loud pedal condescends to operate (more often than not it seizes up completely), it does so in creaking protest which somehow doesn’t quite fit in with ‘La Mer’ or a nocturne in E minor.

It cannot last much longer now. This morning I lifted the lid softly and peeped in and saw that it needed re-felting, and in one dark corner was a tiny but ominous mound of sawdust. I do not know the age of our piano for it came into our possession second hand, therefore it may not be as old in years as I imagine. But even if it isn’t old in years, it is certainly old in use, for it has been played upon almost every single day for the past twenty five years. I will not, therefore, feel ashamed should a silent tear fall when that sad day of parting eventually arrives.

I have often toyed with the idea of keeping it even when every note has hammered its last, and retiring our faithful friend to the front room. But pianos are large instruments and I shall undoubtedly want another and there is certainly not enough room for more than one piano in this house. How is it that one can become so attached to an old piece of furniture? It is of course the associations and memories that bind them to us tighter than any cord, and what sort of memories can a piano bring but happy ones. Memories of distant family gatherings when no one thought of the inevitable days of parting to come; birthday parties that were once looked forward to; carols at Christmas. The piano on such occasions was the centre of all things, chairs, settees and stools were turned to face it and the congregation gathered around the walnut alter.

I remember the family gatherings twenty five years ago that brightened the dark, oppressive evenings of war. I hear father playing his banjo-uke and mother at the piano singing ‘Arm in Arm Together’ and reviving the then old songs ‘Chorus Gentlemen – Just Once More’ and ‘Shipmates O’ Mine. The strings of this old piano have vibrated to ‘Cornsilk’, through a feeble attempt at Rachmaninoff’s second to ‘Oo Bop Shebam’. During the war when this old instrument lived with us in London, the ceiling fell on it more than once and bombs showered it with glass from the windows. And yet it played on. It has been a wonderful friend but, like every member of the family, it has played its part and must soon leave us.

I feel kindly towards a house that has a piano for then a house becomes a home, but without a piano a house has an emptiness about it, to me it is incomplete. I know that this certainly holds true for my house, and each time I play upon its creaking frame, the increasing tenderness with which my fingers touch the keys must surely expose my feelings towards a dear friend who will very soon be gone.

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

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

childhood wormhole: Batman: Oddysey
family wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
history wormhole: looking for the right exit
house & London wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
music wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
piano wormhole: weight of high sash windows – poewieview #33
reading wormhole: breakfast
sound & time wormhole: riders of the night

 

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PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1917, 6*, age, blue, breathing, colour, compromise, fence, furniture, green, growing, houses, identity, looking, love, measure, poverty, progress, rooftops, society, streets, time, walking, weather, William Carlos Williams, yard

                                PASTORAL

                When I was younger
                it was plain to me
                I must make something of myself.
                Older now
                I walk back streets
                admiring the houses
                of the very poor:
                roof out of line with sides
                the yeards cluttered
                with old chicken wire, ashes,
                furniture gone wrong;
                the fences and outhouses
                built of barrel-staves
                and parts of boxes, all,
                if I am fortunate,
                smeared a bluish green
                that properly weathered
                pleases me best
                of all colors.

                            No one
                will believe this
                of vast import to the nation.

 

from Al Que Quiere!, 1917

and he’s right, of course: the ‘import’ of the nation can only progress when it doesn’t have to concern itself with the right and wrong of wealth distribution – but you can’t have progress without competition, otherwise we all just stay where we are; but honouring competition as inviolable is honouring that which is our basest common denominator, surely inequality is less than we could achieve – to try to rise above the process of evolution, the survival of the fittest, is, rather, to surrender to hubris and daydream which doesn’t put bread on the table; but – however; eventually – man up … but to look, and take in, with love and, without scheme, all behind the, dappling cacophany, with which we, mark our height, where we can breathe, without implication, or compromise, free as a glance, single as an ethic, and twice as, selfless

 

 

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

blue wormhole: transferring
breathing wormhole: the turtle and the yoke
compromise wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
green & identity & time & walking wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
looking wormhole: perspective
love wormhole: all // are // none
rooftops wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …
society & streets wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
William Carlos Williams wormhole: and that’s where I are

 

fifty-eight // and silent prayers

Tags

1979, 2017, 6*, age, birthday, blue, Castleton, clouds, cross-section, direction, gold, green, hair, heartbeat, hills, identity, knees, landscape, lifetimes, metal, neck, prayer, ripple, road, shirt, silence, silver, step, sun, time, travelling, walking, wandering

                                fifty-eight times now

                wandering dopey through another landscape

                                (walking) up into the hills
                                to find the golden sun –
                                sheet-metal through
                                flanks of cloud

                                the snaking A-road
                                sunk and cascaded
                                in 1979, petrified cross-
                                sections there to study

                                never travelling far
                                but up in giant gulp-steps
                                heart beats in the back
                                of the neck and down

                                through the knees
                                with the rising pass

                I stand now at fifty eight with clipped and

                                silvering hair with
                                check and green-blue
                                shirt and silent prayers
                                rippling to all directions

 

 

 

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

birthday wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
blue wormhole: I
Cadtleton wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
clouds & hills wormhole: mauve
gold wormhole: so / do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or … / Rumplestiltskin
green & walking wormhole: abandoned sound mirrors
hair & sun wormhole: ash leaves
identity wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
lifetimes wormhole: oh, alright then
silence wormhole: where did the silence go
silver wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
time wormhole: sreet
travelling wormhole: breakfast

 

looking ahead

Tags

2015, 20th century, 8*, age, attention, cypress, dark, daughter, dress, duty, eyes, facade, father, field, fields, green, hair, horizon, house, jaw, land, left, lifetimes, medals, mouth, portrait, Remembrance, sienna, sky, smile, standing, war, white, youth

                                                looking ahead

                at 18 he peered frightened and gentle –
                the high forehead and round jaw of all
                his youth, but that his mouth held duty

                faintly pursed on the left, in reserve and
                to attention, although the epaulettes were
                (the wings of a choirboy) – at the strips

                and strips of field and fields of umber
                and sienna and the deepest darkest green,
                as high as the land was wide, and it was

                wide, to the white-washed house perched
                on the higher horizon flanked by European
                cypresses, at home in the fields; at three

                she looked above the horizon, hair in all
                direction to the sky, the purse to the left,
                in attention and wan smile from above

                the ruffled dress (soon to be outgrown with
                every crumple-ene); the medals were worn
                on the left side, the eyes up to the right;

                they stood together to attention, in profile
                before the wet facades of eleventh hour,
                eyes forward, eyes down, pursed and still

 

three photographs in the house of an old friend: her father when newly enrolled in the army shortly before World War II – he served in Africa; herself in her then-best dress in the very early 1960s; father and daughter standing on a wet street collecting for Remembrance Day …

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
attention & smile wormhole: dear Lucy
daughter wormhole: mother and daughter
eyes wormhole: addictive
father & lifetimes wormhole: granny
field wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
green & white wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
hair wormhole: immeasurable love
horizon wormhole: Bexhill 140215
house wormhole: slightly / uphill
mouth wormhole: over-pink cagoule
sky wormhole: low afternoon
war wormhole: memorial

 

lime crocs

Tags

2014, 3*, age, child, Gran Canaria, lime, Mogan, passing, portrait, sleep, time

                                                buggy
                                pulled backwards over
                                the flat paviours
                of Mogan

                                                toddler
                                asleep like a young
                                granddad in tiny
                lime crocs

 

 

 

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

child wormhole: place
lime wormhole: twilight / and parasols down / within minutes
passing wormhole: concordance
sleep wormhole: darkness
time wormhole: all the sandstone / reflections in the / marble-blue troughs

 

concordance

Tags

2014, 7*, age, armour, discovery, Donald Fagen, expectation, eyes, flow, Gran Canaria, Have, holiday, identity, image, life, looking, music, passing, Salinger, sea, sitting, sun, Sylvia Plath, waves, writing

                                                                                                how to be
                                                                                in a holiday resort
                                                                where the Have is strolled
                                                and swaggered and tattoo’d
                                catching glance like after-image
                when the eyes are closed?

                                                                ~O___,

                                why aren’t I writing?            Well
                                                                I am
                but I was expecting to see something else when I wrote
                                the flow of another holiday
                                                rather than the
                                                                concordance
                                                that I have still yet to discover
                                in my writing eyes wide
                                                closed

                                                                ,___O~

                                                                certainly
                                                the sun and skin keep me
                                                                lapping without gain
                                                                and replaying the chorus from the ‘Nightfly’                
                                                                                unsure if I ever got the verse

                                                                ___“O”—

                                                                but nevertheless
                                                I still worry that I don’t write
                                                                as Plath and Salinger would lifefully so

                                                                I even know the answer
                                but I cannot sit at the moment,
                                                                I thought I had armour by the sea but it has

                                                                so quickly rusted
                                                and I’m overweight and 54 thinking
                                                                of illness and waste

 

 

 

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

eyes & Salinger wormhole: slightly / uphill
flow wormhole: happen//ing
Have wormhole: pass and / fro
holiday wormhole: holiday
identity wormhole: h’rk ‘eh ‘heh ‘hair ‘yeah ‘eh?
life wormhole: I turn to wake up
looking wormhole: Tara mantras
music wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
passing wormhole: ‘someone …’
sea & sun & Sylvia Plath & waves & writing wormhole: jump start
sitting wormhole: woman / has worked in the gym / got a build

 

St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards / with the forelegs hanging down obscene / reaching some height blindly to connect / out from the long-stalk tri-separating up- / to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what / is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know- / what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and- / it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”

Tags

'scape, 2013, 8*, age, being, blindness, blue, books, breeze, Carol, contrapuntal, Derbyshire, flies, flying, grass, hill, mating, plants, seeds, shelf, speech, stone

                St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards
                with the forelegs hanging down obscene
                reaching some height blindly to connect
                out from the long-stalk tri-separating up-
                to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what
                is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know-
                what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and-
                it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”

                stones like grouped books on a shelf
                some fat enough to stand upright by themselves
                some leaning
                some fat ones leaning anyway
                with twisted spine

                various stalks of dried grasses
                reach slightly arthritic and
                inflexible in the breeze
                their seeds spent but ragged contrapuntal

                to the distant hill risen
                too old to read
                too stone-blue to talk with
                there and always there
                and only there by its lone and ever self

 

 

 

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

being & breeze wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
blue wormhole: St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton
books wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
Carol wormhole: ‘quick – she’s gone to pay …’
grass wormhole: prospect
speech wormhole: municipal garden
stone wormhole: prelude: // travel

 

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Olly

Tags

1967, accent, age, beer, chrysanthemums, eyes, hedge, hospital, meadow, Michael J Redford, money, morning, name, pipe, portrait, pub, Ramsden Heath, smell, speech, Sunday, the Boats of Vallisneria, time, village, woodland, words, work, writing

 

Olly

I’ve never found out how he came to be called Olly for his real name is Alfred.   When I first met him he was about sixty years old, short and thin with a face like an old walnut and eyes as wicked as a ferret’s.   There’s an old country rhyme which goes:

            I can drive a plough an’ I can milk a cow,
            I can reap and sow an’ thatch an’ mow,
            I’m fresh as the daisy as lives on the ‘ill
            An’ they calls Oi Buttercup Joe.

This was Olly.   He could do all this and more.   It was a known fact in the village that if there was a job to be done that nobody would not or could not tackle, the cry was ‘Give Olly an oller’ and, in his own sweet time he would appear and ‘set to’.   He would never be seen to hurry, yet the task was always completed in good time.   No doubt every village has a character of Olly’s kind tucked somewhere beneath its roofs and also no doubt, many boring people like myself who are only too eager to interrupt his work and spend a pleasant half hour gossiping over a pipe of herbal.   He grew his own tobacco, a variety of herbs which was as smooth as silk and with a nose as sweet as fresh made hay, and it was for this reason that one could smell Olly approaching long before you could see him.

Depending upon the topic of conversation his accent would be either amusing or confusing, for it was a long slow drawl peculiar to north Essex.   I remember once while passing the time of day with him, he asked if I was going anywhere near the post office.   I replied that I was.

“Well then, I wonder if yewd take some kines down for me.   Tell Mrs. Sharman they’re from me an’ she’ll give yew some noots”.

Although I hadn’t a clue as to what he was talking about, I agreed to his request and he disappeared into his cottage.   A minute later he was back holding a little blue bag knotted tightly at the top with a piece of binder twine.   Not wishing to appear inquisitive or ignorant I accepted the mysterious bundle without comment and bade him good morning.   At the post office, Mrs. Sharman recognised the little blue bag even before I spoke.   She untied the neck and emptied onto the counter a pile of threepenny pieces.   The ‘kines’ then were coins and the ‘noots’ were the three one pound notes given to me in exchange.

Olly was a man of few words and rarely spoke unless spoken to first, even his greeting was more often than not a nod of the head.   To a stranger, I suppose he would appear unsociable, but to those who knew him he could be both amusing and interesting, and one who would always give a hand when help was needed.   Tuesday evenings at the Crown was our regular shove ha’penny meet.   There was Joyce, a middle aged soul of forceful character who kept pigs, Phil, a delightful lady who worked for the Milk Marketing Board, and of course, Olly and myself.   It was the custom that losers paid for a round of drinks and as we all drank bitter, this did not make for a costly evening.   On one particular occasion both Olly and I and our opponents needed one peg apiece to win.

“Better set they drinks up now,” said Olly to Joyce as he crossed to the board.

A sneer of mock contempt appeared on her face.

“Don’t be bloody ridiculous,” she snapped, “you want one in the top bed and I only want one in the bottom.”

Olly polished the halfpenny on his corduroys and, eyeing the tip of his highly polished boot replied,

“I dersay that could be arranged.”

It is a regular pleasure of mine to close my eyes to the garden and the various household chores which inevitably accumulate in a writer’s home, and wend my way on a Sunday morning slowly across the home meadows to the woods below.   When I wander thus, I am constantly picking pieces of the countryside and chewing them.   Sometimes it will be a handful of wheat, sometimes haw leaves or berries, plantain, blackberries or just plain grass – according to season or mood.   On one such occasion I had teamed up with Olly and was thoughtlessly plucking nettle tips and chewing them.   Mistaking his look of pity for one of alarm, I reassured him that the tips of the leaves contained no stings and were quite harmless.

“Ar that’s as maybe,” he said in a knowing voice, “but you’ll jump when it comes out the other end and stings yer arse.”

Nobody could ever do a job as well as Olly.   Mind you, he would never say so in as many words, but after talking with him for ten minutes one would come away with such an impression.   In most cases of course this was true.   If a job was worth doing at all, Olly would do it and do it well, but if for example, my chrysanthemums were five feet tall, his would be six, or if I had bought a bargain for five pounds he would be able to buy the same thing for fifty shillings.   I had recently finished erecting a new fence between my garden and Joyce’s pigs.   The posts were upright, the wire taught as a fiddle string and the strainers set firm.   In fact the whole job had cost me two blistered hands, a strained back, a gallon of sweat and almost as much beer.   I stood back admiring my handiwork and asked Olly, who had ambled across the hoppit with his little spotted dog, what he thought of it.   He stood for a while sucking at his pipe, then, poking the corner post with his stick he conceded:

“Be alright if the wind don’t get up.”

Speaking of the wind reminds me of the time when Olly was taken to hospital.   It was one mid-summer’s weekend when I realised that I hadn’t seen Olly all week.   My inquiries revealed that he had been ‘took in’ for a hernia operation.   When I eventually found time to visit him he was laying in bed swathed in bandages, his eyes brighter and his weather beaten arms darker than ever against the white linen.   Apart from a little discomfort he was enjoying himself immensely.   The ward was comfortable, the food good, and the nurses ‘marvlus’.   He has but one complaint and this came to light when a young nurse arrived at the bedside with a strip of tablets.

“Gawdamighty not more,” he exclaimed and, turning to me he said:

“Y’know, they’ve loaded me with so many pills that if anyone ‘appens to pass when oi farts oi shall kill ‘em.”

The nurse, dodging a backhander from him as she passed, said simply:

“He’s improving.”

He was eventually discharged from hospital and was laying a hedge the very next day.   “Can’t abide sittin’ about all day doin’ nothin’.   And so he progressed from strength to strength to this very day, when he ‘put in’ more hours than people care to think about.

It seems impossible that characters like this should ever pass into oblivion, in fact I’m convinced that some day in the dim, distant future, he will be teaching my great, great grandchildren the art of shove ha’penny in the middle bar of the Crown.

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

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

eyes wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
hedge wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
money wormhole: listen willya
morning & smell & work wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – On Doing Nothing
Ramsdn Heath wormhole: the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford
speech wormhole: what life went on
Sunday wormhole: Life on Mars? – poewieview #31
time wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
words wormhole: substance
writing wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – from arm to nature, doing nothing

 

Doctor Strange II – … things are the same again

Tags

2012, 20th century, age, anatta, beauty, belief, chaos, consolidation, consumerism, Dormammu, Dr Strange, emptiness, Have, health, heart, life, power, society, thought, wealth, world

 

the last few lines from Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street without which the title [and the poem] of Doctor Strange II … will not make much sense; I post these works in anticipation of the Doctor Strange movie which is due to be released this November/October …

                                                                                 the face in the orb implied                
                                that everything had changed and that
                                                              things
                would never be the same again

 

 

                                                              II

                                … things are the same again
                                              always have
                                              always had
                                                              the second half of the twentieth century
                                incorporated it
                                                              you either had it or you wanted it
                                              either way it fed the corporation
                                              everyone fed the corporation
                                                                                 by wealth by health
                                                                                                            by belief
                                                              this is the way things are
                                                                                 dwelt at the very heart of the world
                                                                                                            turning growing fiery
                                there comes a time
                                              when the power and the beauty
                                                                                 become elliptical
                                                                                 to each other
                                                              to themselves
                                                                                                            then chaos will come                
                                              you mark my words
                                thinks the aged Genghis high on the edge of the world
                                                              aged enough in life
                                              to see beyond the self:                                there is nothing there
                there is nothing there

 

Anyhoo, I wrote a series of poems tracking Doctor Strange through a key set of issues written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Gene Colan; (Dr Strange #6-13 (Feb 1975-April 1976)); these issues are some of the best comics I have ever read; they were also seminal in shaping me to become the significantly un-noticeable writer I have become to this day; I posted them in 2012 and then re-posted them again in 2014 because I thought the film was immanent – it wasn’t; but, dammitall, I like these babies so I’m going to post them again, spread out until November 4th …

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
beauty wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
Dr Strange wormhole: my / superpower
emptiness wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
Have wormhole: my seat // now
life wormhole: tiling
power wormhole: tired
society wormhole: the / bright yellow / world
thought & world wormhole: Elektra

 

b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g

Tags

2013, age, air, awareness, blue, breathing, clouds, earth, embarrassment, eyes, grey, ground, growth, identity, life, liquorice, reading, realisation, sky, stone, sun, talking to myself, time, walking

 

 

 

                so
                here I am
                walking through a life
                slightly embarrassed that after
                53 years of candy days and tooth-stick nights like liquorice allsorts
                I’m only just now realising
                how to walk

                but
                on the other hand
                I have pushed through despite
                the buried stone and the now – crumbling-enough – earth
                despite my eyes borrowed (thank you)
                and wide shut and never
                seeing where to go

                   b        the air
                   r        for the very first
                   e        time each time I breathe
                   a        and each time I don’t
                   t         and each time I realise it must be
                   h        the thirty seven times seventh breath
                   i         I’ve taken since
                   n        the last breath
                   g        I knew

                under grey belts of cloud
                under sunny blue sky
                with acres of ground
                underneath me

 

 

 

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

air wormhole: ‘in clear oil air …’
awareness wormhole: keep the light off
blue wormhole: stacked
breathing & reading & realisation wormhole: nothing to write
clouds wormhole: the sounds of 1969 // [would have] seemed that way – poewieview #13
eyes & identity wormhole: my // shell – poewieview #19
grey wormhole: opening
life & sky wormhole: don’t look / at her eyes – poewieview #18
stone wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
sun wormhole: New York, New Haven and Hartford, 1931
talking to myself wormhole: really really
time wormhole: quick inventory after coffee
walking wormhole: really