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

 

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Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in

Tags

1967, 2016, 8*, abundance, ageing, autumn, birthday, blackberries, branches, brown, change, childhood, climbing, clouds, cows, earth, elm, field, gate, ghosts, gold, grey, hedge, ivy, lark, leaves, legs, life, listening, memory, mist, path, red, rook, rose-hips, running, seagull, shadow, signpost, silence, singing, sky, skyline, society, trees, wind, yellow

            there are great mountains of cumulus
            towered above, shadows course over
            grey-yellow stubble, gulls hackle rooks
            in leaning elms while red and black-

            berries hang in the hedgerow … run,
            run downhill, stretch my legs in boundless
            stride, stream through the air from boy
            to man, flood the plain with open memory;

            or maybe: scale a furtive upward glance,
            through boughs of avenue, a third
            dimension, to survey, to just survey all
            the song of all to sing ‘laaaaaark’; but

            I’ll just rest here, now, sit beside the gate
            sit under the signpost, and listen … foliage
            turned dark and almost brown, the earth
            awaits the golden plough while dancing

            rose-hips watch skeins of Friesians
            work meticulous across the skyline and
            … everything will change, piped rippled
            through bygone years – there will be ghosts

            in the ditches, there will be paths adrift
            of leaf, the ivy will reach up from the post
            which points only to the wind now leaving
            autumn mists to drift like webs into the

            corners of paddocks; and there is a strange
            silence in the sky … as the new town marches in

 

read the collected work as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – A Sign of the Times

 

 

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

autumn & branches & brown & change & childhood & clouds & field & grey & hedge & leaves & life & mist & path & red & seagull & silence & sky & skyline & trees & wind & yellow wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – A Sign of the Times
birthday wormhole: birthday poem
ghosts wormhole: just saying, is all IV: // lost
gold wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – autumn
listening wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
shadow wormhole: the purple mist between
society wormhole: poessay III: jijimuge

 

birthday poem

Tags

2014, being, birthday, laziness, travelling, writing

                                birthday poem

                can I only write now
                                with change of scene
                                              to be in state of mind to write

                or am I just lazy
                                not being where I am
                                              enough to filter loosely

                in word to see
                                what isn’t apparent
                                              but nevertheless true?

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: sooner or later
birthday wormhole: sit
travelling wormhole: ‘passing overhead …’
writing wormhole: offer the victory and accept the defeat

 

sit

Tags

2010, abandonment, ageing, Batman, bedroom, being, biography, birthday, books, border, branches, cape, carpet, cars, Catcher in the Rye, childhood, children, comics, compassion, counting, cowl, crying, Dad, divorce, father, flower, fog, fracture, French, green, guru, history, house, identity, image, leaf, life, living room, lyric, marriage, moonlight, Mum, music, night, numbers, parents, pattern, planets, posture, power, Salinger, self-compassion, sentient beings, settee, shadow, sitting, skyline, speech, stone, sunlight, superhero, Superman, surrealism, talking to myself, teaching, wife, world, writing, yin yang

 

 

 

                           I stared at the pattern of the carpet
                           driving my cars behind the settee
                           while my parents said final things
                           to each other; the twirl of the branches

                           a better life, the curl of a flower;
                           you’d better go, the border; and
                           never step back in this house again,
                           the shadow of the leaf is also a

                           darker green; I had never studied
                           the pattern before – never had to,
                           never could – I can work it out now,
                           see how it repeats; I think something

                           is happening with Mum and Dad
                           on the other side of the settee; but
                           this pattern continues around the
                           whole carpet, around the whole room;

                           only later – in bed – is it announced
                           what I had already known, and only
                           then could I ask why does it have to
                           happen to us and cry; only when it

                           was announced, only when it was
                           expressed; I had already known
                           but I could only count the patterns,
                           I could only drive the cars; and

                           as I cried, I was numb – pattern
                           before settee – I could fracture
                           from the world, just find a pattern;
                           you’re the man of the house now,

                           someone said to me, so I studied
                           the pages of comicbooks – patterns
                           of power, solving under cowl,
                           jumping under cape, between the

                           skyline and the world: I shall
                           throw stones high, until they
                           don’t come down; I shall dig so low
                           that no one could follow, no;

                           I shall count all numbers; I shall
                           collect all numbers; I shall
                           discover all planets; I shall adopt
                           the posture of heroes, no; I shall

                           number the histories; I shall weave
                           the texture of music; I shall taste
                           the shock of lyric; I shall smell
                           the books, no; I shall sunlight

                           the chorus; I shall cry the biography;
                           I shall see the image, and write them
                           into existence, yes; I shall follow
                           the curl and the twist and the twirl

                           under moonlight all the night long;
                           then, I shall play catch in the rye;
                           I shall alors les boulevards; I shall
                           yin the old yang; I shall surreal in

                           the fog; I shall honour my guru
                           I shall marry my wife; I shall father
                           my children; I shall teach in those classes –
                           but forty two years on, he had still

                           just left; and I still didn’t know how
                           to be the man; time to get out from
                           behind the settee, take a seat with
                           all the others, and
                                                  just
                                                  sit there with them all awhile

 

 

 

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

abandonment & divorce wormhole: … back to the outbreath
Batman wormhole: zok! and pow!
bedroom & Dad wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
being & identity & talking to myself & world & writing wormhole: out!
books wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
branches wormhole: Exceat to Cuckmere Haven
carpet wormhole: Ashdown Forest / 080213 14:47
cars wormhole: after all?
childhood & music wormhole: fantasia
comics wormhole: Detective Comics #345
compassion wormhole: de Boeddha // of light
father wormhole: sight / seeing
fog wormhole: my life / of others
green wormhole: three musicians
history wormhole: Brugges April 2015 – looking lost
house wormhole: House by the Railroad, 1925
life & speech wormhole: “write, let’s break outta here!”
living room wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II
Mum wormhole: dream 230315
night wormhole: mauve / night
posture & sitting & superhero wormhole: exactly equal
power wormhole: the continental stride of trains
shadow & teaching wormhole: … anymore
skyline wormhole: The Louvre in a Thunderstorm, 1909
stone wormhole: Evening Wind, 1921
Superman wormhole: escape from Flat Planet

 

the utter beauty of giving when receiving

Tags

'scape, 2013, 4*, abdomen, Ashdown Forest, beauty, birthday, clouds, giving, November, passing, receiving, September, time, walking

 

 

 

                                                                    abdomen flow
                                                                    through grate
                                                      when moving
                                                      taut when still

                          the utter beauty of giving when receiving

                                      clouds on the forest
                                      bulbous in September
                                                      frazzled in November
                                                      like used scourers

 

 

 

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

abdomen wormhole: amid
Ashdown Forest wormhole: no hat
beauty wormhole: Tulips by Sylvia Plath – How Far To Step Before You Raise The Other Foot
birthday wormhole: happy birthday, my love
clouds wormhole: the echo of / a small box
giving wormhole: Maidstone
passing wormhole: Dr Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
time wormhole: scattered
walking wormhole: consturnation …? // consternation

 

happy birthday, my love

Tags

2014, 4*, birthday, Carol, dress, feet, flowers, grey, hair, love

 

 

 

                                              happy birthday, my love

                                                              I bought
                                my girl two dresses
                                three dresses they slim
                                to her waist and flare
                                from her hips in pleats
                                and linen, shapes of
                                petal in freefall from
                                stem down to the
                                puddy feet in sandals
                                with tanned decisive
                                arms and just tamed
                                hair arcing and
                                cumulating grey
                in all direction

 

 

 

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

birthday wormhole: 2nd November 2011
C wormhole: our life
feet wormhole: in the middle of silence and heat:
grey wormhole: introducing / the stranger
hair wormhole: movement
love wormhole: Tulips by Sylvia Plath – How Far To Step Before You Raise The Other Foot

 

2nd November 2011

Tags

2011, 5*, birthday, divorce, growth, hope, identity, living, renunciation, time

 

 

 

                                   2^nd November 2011

                      forty four years to the day
                      it should have been my day
                                   it wasn’t
                      I had to be understanding
                                   I didn’t
                      everyone else was upset
                                   so was I
                      but I just kept on going
                                   no I didn’t

                      it hasn’t been
                      my day ever since
                      no one listens
                      no one gets me
                      I am ever
                      on my own

            if only I could pretend that nothing was wrong I’d have crowds of friends
                      but I can’t
                      everything
                      is wrong

                      I was 52 today
                      what a fucking waste
                      of time

 

 

 

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

birthday & divorce wormholes: Moebius strip
identity wormhole: staying alive
living wormhole: in sisting / on sitting / in sitting
renunciation wormhole: renounce
time wormhole: afternoon 290613

 

Moebius strip

Tags

2011, 7*, anger, birthday, divorce, family, growth, living, poetry, sleep

 

 

 

                                     Moebius strip

                      I don’t say anything out loud because
                      I haven’t found a way out
                                     of folding
                      inwards keeping quiet since the eighth
                      birthday is how I contribute
                                     to survival
                      of the family I don’t add my questions
                      or my needs to the confusion
                                     some of it
                      emerges in poetry – answered – some
                      of it in anger – unexpressed –
                                     and then
                      there’s the tentative sleeplessness
                      all of it is not-living but then
                                     all of it is

 

 

 

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

divorce & eighth birthday wormholes: eighth birthday // now
family wormhole: currency of generations
living wormhole: I will
poetry wormhole: poetry
sleep wormhole: Birmingham / 030413

 

eighth birthday // now

Tags

2011, 3*, acceptance, birthday, childhood, divorce, identity, lifetimes, time

 

 

 

on my eighth birthday
it should have been about me
but I’ve had to wait
an awful long while
now

 

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: returning home
childhood wormhole: chrysalissing
divorce wormhole: covert being
eighth birthday wormhole: mlewis diptych
identity wormhole: dedication / prayer
lifetimes wormhole: dream / 140603
time wormhole: iffyakan / getawaywi`it / you can `ave it

 

mlewis diptych

Tags

1967, 1968, 2012, autumn, birds, birthday, childhood, Eglinton Hill, garden, ivy, leaves, London, oak, trees

 

 

 

                the oaks
in the triangle of land between
                Eglinton Hill and
                Cantwell Road
grow leaning haphazard out of the raised earth

                it was
fenced off gated and unknown when I was young
                in the sixties
it is fenced off still and littered
                in my fifties

                every Autumn
they shed leaves make the land grow contained
                by the fences

                but they are
                not huge
they are clothed in new arran pullovers of
                thick ivy

 

~~ “mlr” ~~

 

                                          on 2nd November 1967 my Dad left

                                          a little later in 1968 I dug a hole in the garden
                                          a little frightened about how deep I would go

                                          I lobbed stones high up into the air (careful that they land
                                          back in my own garden) and wondered if they could strike
                                          the birds            the planes?

                                          I ran around the edge of the garden over a hundred times
                                          counting the laps (and was made to drink salted squash
                                          to replace the sweat I’d lost)

                                          I wondered: if an alien race conquered the world
                                          and said they would go away if Someone could
                                          answer one single question correctly,
                                          and it was only I who would know the answer
                                          stood there in the garden                           now

 

 

 

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

1967 wormhole: 1967
1968 wormhole: the fingers
autumn wormhole: “bring in as many / different types of leaf / as you can find”
birds wormhole: The Smoker You Drink The Player You Get (1973) – tribute
childhood wormhole: let us mauve a whirl          elongated
Eglinton Hill wormhole: currency of generations
garden wormhole: honest
leaves & oak & trees wormhole: Bob // 1995/2012
London wormhole: lifetime