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_________________________________|—–

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
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

 

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Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III

Tags

2014, 4*, bus, coffee shop, desire, father, joke, Jon, Lewes, raspberry, son, speech

                Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III

‘double-decker bus        gravestone
                dingle berry        fumbling        clutching’

                                hot day in the coffee shop
                                I’ll have something different
                                ah yes, a Double-Decker Dingle-
                                berry Gravestone Cooler
                                would be good, I think,
                                amid the ambient fumbling
                                and clutching of desire,

                                ‘would you like raspberry
                                 sauce with that, sir?’

                                uh, no thank you, I have
                                a bus to catch

 

 

 

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

bus wormhole: municipal garden
coffee shop & father & Jon & Lewes & speech wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop II

 

municipal garden

Tags

'scape, 2013, 7*, Bakewell, branches, breath, building, bus, cars, child, clouds, coach, finials, garden, green, grey, hearing, morning, parent, passing, pigeons, pink, roses, speech, traffic, trees, voices

                                municipal garden

                pigeons along the ledge
                below the finials of the municipal building
                heads collapsed down into their shoulders

                the grey clouds convene
                from all across the morning
                the hangdown branches variously shuffle

                the municipal dustcarts and buses –
                      sorry not in service –
                the livestock carriers the plant carriers
                      and the coaches
                make their careful turn across the
                      mini-roundabout
                and all the cars cannot be seen but
                      are heard behind
                the long screen of pink rose bushes
                      constantly

                ‘can we go on the grass?’, ‘no’,
                inevitable as the next breath ‘why?’
                upturn voice ‘because you’re not allowed’ …

                … ‘why is it so green?’ the pigeons
                flock variously down to under the trees
                forming perfect rounds of pecking heads

 

 

 

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

branches wormhole: ssreet chak-chak
breath wormhole: just saying, is all VIII: keeping up toxic appearences
bus wormhole: 1968
cars wormhole: Luton // couldn’t make a poem out of it
child wormhole: ‘quick – she’s gone to pay …’
clouds & garden & green & morning & trees wormhole: garden
grey wormhole: handsome
passing wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
pigeons wormhole: embodying
pink wormhole: the skyline
speech wormhole: mother and daughter
voices wormhole: singsong chant

 

1968

Tags

1960s, 1968, 2014, 5*, air, avenue, blue, breeze, buildings, Burt Bacharach, bus, city, Dionne Warwick, direction, lemon, life, lime, mauve, mist, morning, openness, possibility, roads, sky, white, years

                      1968

                      the rear of the bus
           moved out of the scene – whitened blue

                      the wide open spring air
           reached between buildings – to grimy lime

                      and avenues rolled down
           in every direction – through flash lemon

                      bolts of mist and haze
           across each intersection – and ankle mauve

                      and slightly too little
           worn – for the morning shift of breezes

 

promises promises – more Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach sustaining another burst of breath-takingly open and naïve possibility from the later 60s

 

 

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

1968 & Burt Bacharach & Dionne Warwick & mauve wormhole: 1968 – orange sand and mauve mist
air wormhole: faintly apricot air?
blue & life wormhole: to rescue something
breeze wormhole: the bench
buildings wormhole: Open – All – Ours
bus wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
city wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
lemon wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
lime wormhole: magnificent salad
mist & sky wormhole: vastly
morning & white wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
openness wormhole: breathing out
roads wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – moment
years wormhole: 1967

 

finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915

Tags

2015, advertising, afterlife, alignment, alley, angel, apartment, architecture, ash tree, Ashlar Place, balcony, baptism, bay window, beech, belief, Beresford Square, Bloomfield Road, boundary, brick, brown, building, buildings, bus, cars, change, childhood, church, compassion, crane, daughter, death, decades, Eglinton Hill, family, glass, God, gold, grass, grey, gurdwara, halo, hedge, hill, history, houses, identity, iron, jet plane, John, khanda, Lee Rigby, leylandii, life, lime, living, London, loneliness, looking, love, memory, mother, Mum, Nan, passing, photograph, pipes, Plumstead, rain, red, rooftops, sandstone, shadow, shop, sky, smile, society, sound, stone, streetlight, streets, suitcase, sun, the British Empire, time, traffic, travelling, trees, true nature, walls, wind, Woolwich, Woolwich New Road, writing

 

 

 

            looking for my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915¹

            these times of being cut loose are more usual than comfortable
            the buzz of contact and identity more potential than actual

            I go up to London to find bits of my true nature somewhere
            deep inside the forty four miles of time that has elapsed,

            past the same street boards advertising new plastic on trend,
            in even more colourful lime but now un-im-bleach-able;

            where grand gable and architrave stand cleanly revealed in all
            of their time from behind trimmed hedge, but window bay and

            fanned lintel remain obscured behind opportune ash (and
            where crickets rasp in raised lawn to ear level off the hill); on

            the hill² a crack in the front wall sinking century-ly downhill
            under sounds of jet somewhere in the sky hidden by dampening

            of leylandii; did I get baptised at All Saints Shooters Hill³,
            or did my brother, when the church was still young, its

            thousand panes held individual by lead, reflecting the
            cubist street, I don’t remember now – fractured memory;

            where sandstone is shaped short in modest Empire-control: in
            niche and ledge and decorative finial, during all the wind of

            cold streets, withstanding the new redbrick of decades; I
            cannot draw the line of brick at the corner of Bloomfield

            Road, true neither to hill nor sky nor shadowed underledge
            to the proud cornice (boundaries to distant-impossible crane)

            or even the sharp roofs clipped to lead-clad valley, let alone the
            ample iron downpipe … but I have learnt to write the architecture

            of odd alignment and cut-through alley; perched now against
            Ashlar Place at just the right angle between sun-wipe and shadow

            (shiny haloes in the indents on the page as I write Gurdwara
             Sahib Ramgarhia Temple⁴ in biro), the architecture of

            eternal Empire highlighted in gold with khandas blowing
            in the wind … still cannot obscure the luxury apartments in

            constant construct: -ING IS BELIEVING;⁵ buses come and
            buses go all along Woolwich New Road before the clapping

            troup of ‘Time for God’ angels and their families stood around,
            full of God’s immanent voices, in and out of sight and chant,

            (I have an old photo: a man crossing the road from Beresford
             Square⁶ with box suitcase in grey [and suggested brown] after

            apparent rain … when the retired newsagent passed by adding
            that he had run that shop opposite for thirty years, how –

            much – it – has – changed); perched, now, on the Metropolitan
            Drinking Fountain & Cattle Trough, oiled and crust stone

            from hide-breath and redundant exhaust; a mother and slinky
            daughter watch the marching bands pass from their third floor

            balcony, height of streetlight, defined before the upright
            sea of tarp covering the next block of the Royal Arsenal

            Riverside in construct (surprise!); ah, Lee Rigby,⁷ under height
            of Elliston House, these cars pass far too quick to get

            to their traffic, those beech trees opposite have grown to
            lean downhill for fifty years and more; I looked at every

            plaque, Mum, found plenty of Jeans and Margarets (and
            even Gladyss) but no Redfords, I can’t think I would have

            missed you sixteen years into other existences … I don’t
            know: I smiled at some of the plaques as I looked for you,

            I shall smile at everyone now that I haven’t found you

 

¹ this peice follows my last visit to London: walking downhill from Plumstead to Woolwich and around and back, driving to Eltham to where my mother (Jean Marguerite Redford 1933-1999, daughter of Gladys Charlotte Conlay 1906-1989) was cremated
² Eglinton Hill, early childhood home
³ All Saints Shooters Hill
⁴ Woolwich Gurdwara
⁵ woolwich new road and buildings
⁶ true nature II
⁷

 

 

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

brown & love & red wormhole: when in Belgium do as the chocolates do
buildings & life & streets wormhole: gotcha
bus & sun wormhole: Christmas lights / around the lamp post
cars wormhole: portrait: / two pigeons
change & gold & Woolwich wormhole: ING IS BELIEVING
childhood & Nan wormhole: new garden
church wormhole: you can only smell the candles / when they have been snuffed out
compassion wormhole: [s]
crane wormhole: com- / mute
daughter wormhole: the retriever the daughter and the mother
death & writing wormhole: Poewieviews
Eglinton Hill & London wormhole: the breath of London
family wormhole: let’s have some ice creams
glass wormhole: ‘in clear oil air …’
grey & identity & time & trees & walls wormhole: walking through Lewes
hedge wormhole: the continental stride of trains
history & Mum wormhole: sit
lime & sky & stone wormhole: David Bowie – Iris
living wormhole: currency: / assent for statement – / ‘smakin’alivvin’
loneliness wormhole: ‘passing overhead …’
looking wormhole: Office at Night, 1940
mother wormhole: gre[wh]y / has Daddy left us?
passing wormhole: clouds
Plumstead wormhole: dream 260815
rain wormhole: “walking …”
rooftops & smile & streetlight wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
shadow wormhole: Seven A.M, 1948
society wormhole: the Growing Man
sound & wind wormhole: the open window
travelling wormhole: Compartment C, Car 193, 1938

 

Christmas lights / around the lamp post

Tags

'scape, 2004, being, buildings, bus, Christmas, corner, lamp post, light, morning, shops, streets, sun, traffic lights, Woolwich, yellow

 

 

 

                                Christmas lights
                                around the lamp post

                                for no apparent reason
                                the block of offices

                                overhangs
                                the street, at the corner

                                the traffic light at yellow,
                                the 291 turning right into the morning sun

                                low on the morning shops
                                between office blocks

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: ‘stunted trees …’
buildings wormhole: the breath of London
bus wormhole: after the storm
Christmas wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
light wormhole: Hotel Room, 1931
morning wormhole: Chop Suey, 1929
shops & streets wormhole: 08:55
sun wormhole: clouds
traffic lights wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
Woolwich wormhole: currency: / assent for statement – / ‘smakin’alivvin’
yellow wormhole: like butterflies on / buddleia

 

after the storm

Tags

1980, air, breeze, bus, evening, haiku, open, sound, storm, windows

 

 

 

                                           after the storm

                                           the evening air
                      wafted in through the window
                           and a bus started up

 

 

 

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

air & open wormhole: the streets just fill with business
breeze wormhole: city twilight
bus wormhole: tag cloud poem III – the journey to BEING and back again
evening wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
haiku(esque) wormhole: ‘blades / articulate all the lonely height / of the sky’
sound wormhole: purpose
storm wormhole: footfall
windows wormhole: what heavy and cantilevered structure

 

tag cloud poem III – the journey to BEING and back again

Tags

2014, 4*, Batman, bedroom, being, bird, birds, birdsong, black, black bat, blue, books, branches, breakdown, breathing, breeze, Brighton, brown, buildings, bus, discernment, identity, path, possibility, reading, tag cloud poem, talking to myself

 

 

 

                between the Batman and the bedroom

                                   are all the possibility of

 

                                                                                 being

 

                                   much like all the discernment between the bird and birds
                                              without getting lost in the song

                                   but beware the long and windy path between black
                                                              the black bat
and blue

 

                                   always remember to read between the books –
                there is many a fall between branches and the open space of breakdown –

                                   and always ground yourself breathing with the breeze

                … especially when insensate in Brighton lost amid the brown brown facades of buildings

 

and never ever forget the moving bus
                                   especially from around the corners

 

 

 

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

Batman wormhole: wha’
bedroom & brown wormhole: … still waving!
being & talking to myself wormhole: the Big Stage
bird wormhole: looking
birds wormhole: the pleasant land / of counterpane
birdsong wormhole: rhetorical inevitability inexorable in both immanent dissipation & implicit effulgence
black & buildings wormhole: still there?
black bat wormhole: LET’S GO!
blue & books & breeze & reading wormhole: transition
branches wormhole: let
breakdown wormhole: I don’t know what to do …
breathing wormhole: again
Brighton wormhole: new life
bus wormhole: ‘spilled out of the nurses’ / quarters …’
identity wormhole: shared anxiety
path wormhole; all the while / the flagpole rope / occasionally flaps / the breeze
tag cloud poem wormhole: tag cloud poem II – acceptance

 

‘spilled out of the nurses’ / quarters …’

Tags

2013, 5*, bus, Carol, Leicester, love, morning, park, seeing, speech, UB40

                                              (Signing Off)

                                spilled out of the nurses’
                                quarters early in the morning
                                by some fire alarm

                                we stood by the bus stops
                                on the edge of the park
                                so quick I’d left my glasses

                                “early shift?” said the ‘shit,
                                it is a policeman’ when close
                                enough, “uh, yeah” … “yeah”

                                while I wondered where we’d live

 

 

 

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

bus wormhole: backseat
C & Leicester & love wormhole: (Little by Little)
morning wormhole: thar she perched
park wormhole: ‘hand / in hand …’
seeing wormhole: a few reflections on / keeping your cow / in a large meadow / while walking round / the streets of Horsham
speech wormhole: mother and child

 

backseat

Tags

'scape, 1976, 2011, 6*, arrival, bus, departure, fog, growth, hill, lemon, river, sun, turquoise, windows

 

 

 

                                                      backseat

                                          lemon-
                                   turquoise wafts
                                   from a front window
                                          fog shifting
                                   river somewhere

                                          bus waits
                                   looking downhill
                                          indicating

                                          pull out
                                          nose down
                                   back up
                                   patchwork of wires
                                          overhead

                                          sun
                                   catches the hand bars
                                   on the back of each seat
                                          glides
                                   like a community
                                   left to right

                                          here
                                   I have arrived
                                          it is
                                   here I get off

 

 

 

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

1976 wormhole: 1976
bus wormhole: the end
fog wormhole: my life / of others
lemon wormhole: 1967
river wormhole: late morning / Saturday
sun wormhole: so lonely
windows wormhole: zen against / the window