the sitting room

Tags

2014, 5*, anxiety, being, carpet, evening, green, home, looking, pattern, remembering, sitting room, sweet, taste, texture, tired, velvet, windows

                the sitting room

                                in the early evening –
                                                tired and sprangled – I
                notice the pattern of the carpet
                                soothing as a deep mint-green boiled
                                                sweet

                                                that I
                                might have looked through
                                                for quite a while
                before holding it in my cheek as I shuffled about
                                swallowing occasionally
                                                in remembrance and velvet texture

                                                and after so much anxiety
                                of effect and agent
                far outside the windows of the room, it was
                                                                good to be
                                                                back home

 

 

 

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

anxiety wormhole: too much in arrival
being wormhole: work
carpet wormhole: languidly close the portal
evening 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
green wormhole: where else
looking wormhole: just
sitting room wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
windows wormhole: dream I // dream II

 

languidly close the portal

Tags

1964, 2016, 5*, anemone, carpet, curtains, doing, Dr Strange, ellipsis, eyes, finding, Greenwich Village, light, pink, quiet, Sanctum Sanctorum, Stan Lee, Steve Ditko, Strange Tales, tree, window frame, windows

        the Eye in Greenwich Village
        casts elliptic light

        across drape and carpet
        striated by frame – but

        he finds what he needs
        under bough of quiet tree;

        in the hostel room, light
        was triangular and leaning

        but when came time to act,
        the sole witness, pink

        anemone in branching shrub,
        saw the beautiful eyes

        languidly close the portal

 

held within from Strange Tales #118 outwards, ‘The Possessed’, March 1964; Lee & Ditko

 

 

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

carpet wormhole: carpet worn / to the backing – poewieview #30
curtains wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – moment
doing wormhole: magnetic field
Dr Strange & windows wormhole: fresh destiny
eyes wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Safe Home
light wormhole: the purple mist between
pink wormhole: coagulating

 

carpet worn / to the backing – poewieview #30

Tags

2016, 4*, Bowie, breeze, carpet, charcoal, clouds, grey, horizon, life, trees, warp, weft

                                   carpet worn
                                   to the backing

                                   warps and wefts
                                   blew through
                                   leafing trees while

                                   charcoal belly
                                   of cloud hung
                                   below the horizon

 

the continuance of birth: Kooks, 1971

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

Bowie wormhole: trellis / and wisteria – poewieview #29
breeze & trees wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – from arm to nature, doing nothing
carpet wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
clouds & grey & life wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – On Doing Nothing
horizon wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment

 

Michael Redford: triptych

Tags

1935, 1970, 2007, 2009, 2012, afterlife, armchair, being, black, brown, carpet, chair, cigar, doing, doors, evening, fire, floorboards, garden, green, horizon, life, living, living room, night, piano, plants, plastic, Ramsden Heath, realisation, sitting, sitting room, smell, sound, table, talking, trees, uncle, windows, wine, wood

 

 

 

                                           Michael Redford
                                           1935-2007

                                           later on
                           he strolled in the garden
                           breathing the night and the plants
                           smoking a fine cigar

                           then he paused
                           and looked back at the armchair
                           where he had been sitting –
                                           Pphffffff

 

—~~M~~—

 

                                              sitting room

                                              plastic-marbled
                                              chest-height handle

                                              smell of sofa-linen
                                              and wood-fire evenings

                                              with company
                                              and dark green wines

                                              cool black boards and
                                              the white patterned carpet

                                              with almost-meeting
                                              crenellated walls

                                              brow-height mantelpiece
                                              on jungle green

                                              and the piano in the
                                              corner with duff bass keys –

                                              plant-shaking

 

—~~M~~—

 

                                                                      1970

                                                                      to my uncle
                                                                      shifting on
                                                                      hardplastic
                                                                      seat of dining
                                                                      chair – crack –

                                                                      elbow uncomfortable
                                                                      on table-edge
                                                                      carving – creak –
                                                                      to execute a
                                                                      perfect tree

                                                                      on the horizon
                                                                      with just two strokes
                                                                      one brown
                                                                      one green
                                                                      I knew then

                                                                      to put down
                                                                      my compass plans
                                                                      for every detail
                                                                      but only just now
                                                                      doing it

 

looking for what to publish today, I found my uncle unassumingly proffering the lesson in life that he always gave, even nine years after he died: that you don’t look for life, you notice it; some teachers teach by being rather than saying, so that you don’t realise you are being taught until you know; wherever he is now, I hope he knows what he gave me/us … in fact I dedicate the clean-ity of all I notice to return the gift to my uncle wherever his lives have led him now

 

 

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

being & doing wormhole: need
black wormhole: the start of adolescence
brown wormhole: London Hearts – poewieview #4
carpet wormhole: ‘the hour before dinner – / the empire of dusk’ – poewieview #6
doors & garden wormhole: impressionism
evening wormhole: well,
green & talking wormhole: bavardage
horizon & life wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
living & night & smell & sound & table & windows & wood wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
living room wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II
piano wormhole: tabla
Ramsden Heath & uncle wormhole: … still waving!
realisation wormhole: dream career // groggy
sitting wormhole: the writing’s on the wall
sitting room wormhole: purple and mauve
trees wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25

 

‘the hour before dinner – / the empire of dusk’ – poewieview #6

Tags

1966, 2016, black, blue, Bowie, carpet, childhood, classroom, echo, Eglinton Hill, football, glass, grey, parents, piano, school, separation, sound, time, twilight, walls, white, windows

                           ‘the hour before dinner –
                            the empire of dusk’*

                           the heights of darkening wall
                           below the quietening classrooms
                           cannot stop the echo return
                           within the plastic football

                           the latched-shut of sash-window
                           sealed with lead-white gloss
                           cannot stop the penetration of
                           blue greys through the glass

                           the castor wheels and pillar-leg
                           of the lacquer-black piano cannot
                           stop the hammered strings
                           break across the carpet;

                           the time to stop will come
                           but not yet, not quite yet

 

* title gathered and arranged (ikebana-style) from the words of Chris O’Leary in his article on ‘There Is a Happy Land‘, 1966

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

black wormhole: new garden
blue & carpet wormhole: David Bowie – Iris
Bowie wormhole: London Park in Greenwich town – poewieview #5
childhood wormhole: spit / spot
echo wormhole: 1963
Eglinton Hill & glass wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
grey & school wormhole: bamboo-green boiled sweet / with soft purple filling
piano wormhole: poessay X: soul love – poewieview #2
sound wormhole: ‘went up to London and what did I see; …’ – poewieview #7
time & walls wormhole: London Park in Greenwich town – poewieview #5
white wormhole: sixty four sixty five – poewieview #1
windows wormhole: London Hearts – poewieview #4

 

David Bowie – Iris

Tags

2014, anxiety, arch, blue, Bowie, carpet, eyes, India, iris, lemon, lime, mauve, mist, portrait, sky, south, stone, time

 

 

 

                                Iris

                on the wide steppes
                swathed languid and anxious
                in belts of lime mist before
                an open stone archway

                eyes raise dreadful
                through lemon carpets
                to blueing sky and – mauve –
                washes southwards

 

I wrote this of an iris I found in Darmstadt, Germany; what drew me to it was the notion of the Aryan peoples of central Asia who penetrated into the Indian sub-continent and flowered the Upanishads; but the poem still didn’t feel quite complete until I heard of the death of David Bowie this morning

 

 

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

anxiety wormhole: Eridge – Cowden
blue wormhole: “walking …”
Bowie wormhole: New York Movie, 1939
carpet wormhole: sit
eyes & mauve & sky wormhole: ‘in clear oil air …’
lemon wormhole: Le Pont des Arts, 1907
lime wormhole: [start where you are III] – delve
mist wormhole: Jackie’s slight smile
stone wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
time wormhole: Seven A.M, 1948

 

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

 

Ashdown Forest / 080213 14:47

Tags

'scape, 2013, armchair, Ashdown Forest, blue, carpet, clouds, gorse, grey, pine, sitting, stillness, sunlight, yellow

 

 

 

                                Ashdown Forest
                                080213 14:47

                armchair sit back deep arms
                                pine
                high under long low belts
                                of carpet
                                unmoving
                                upside down
                                and then

                a gap
                sunshine
                wide to the right over the gorse

 

 

 

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

Ashdown Forest wormhole: earthed
blue & grey wormhole: that comicbookshop in dreams,
carpet wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
clouds wormhole: now, have I forgotten anything
sitting wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting
stillness wormhole: of a sudden // all the time
yellow wormhole: silhouette: // second / thoughts

 

library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!

Tags

2014, ageing, being, birdsong, books, carpet, compassion, echo, feet, identity, Lewes, library, life, light, listening, notebook, opening, passing, people, reading, red, roof, settling, shadow, sound, striving, study, table, talking, talking to myself, travelling, walking, windows, writing

 

 

 

                library: start where you are IV

                                time to write –
                                but I’ve come
                                to the table

                                wanting to find
                                the same people
                                the same vistas –

                                foreclosed*
                                before I even open
                                the notebook

                                wanting the talk of feet reading
                                and the scent of sigh tired and the
                                stretching in common embrace

                                but instead I have the constant
                                humm of light high up in the varnished
                                rafters the intermittent beep

                                of the drinks machine and
                                the sway of heavy man with step-
                                energy walking up then down the

                                quiet research balcony
                                which I hadn’t been noticing
                                aha; I see, I hear, I, here.

                                the light doesn’t hum
                                it spreads the ubiquitous
                                plum-red carpet with

                                venn shadows from feet
                                from case; that alarm was it
                                regular between key-tap-return and bird-twit

                                has stopped
                                the heavy man went downstairs
                                and I noticed the girders and ties

                                (that such mass can move so decisive
                                 and change without wheel or haul
                                 through all the planes we have riveted

                                 and braced about our life)
                                at last I am settled and
                                my table still empty

                                              I’ve

                                been trying to get
                                from here to there,
                                where there would really

                                make here much better and
                                connect them together,
                                reduce their distance,

                                dissolve any distinction,
                                              I
                                have studied this extensively

                                in all those books, composed it, even;
                all the distance I have travelled!
                                from here to there

                                marking myself wrinkled tired
                                and echoed in my own space
                                              … actually quite nice here, if I let open some windows

 

* this piece is a sequel to [start where you are III] – delve which was quite cute; happened in the same library in the same town, but in entirely different lives

 

 

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

being & writing wormhole: hot chocolate
books & compassion & reading & settling & table & talking to myself wormhole: [start where you are III] – delve
carpet wormhole: Trinity Arts
echo wormhole: ‘in the midst of winter …’
feet & identity & sound & travelling wormhole: Totnes
life wormhole: lifetime
light & people & windows wormhole: up here
listening wormhole: purpose
passing & talking wormhole: ‘discution poli / d’orage …’
red wormhole: on the raised patio reading Plath
roof wormhole: prologue-ing
shadow wormhole: the dash is magnificent / the shadow grotesque
striving wormhole: re lax // me
study wormhole: new year’s eve 2014; train up to London to / walk the bridges across the Thames, and / listen to the voices say it is, and was, like, / but get back home before the fireworks / obliterate it all in the emptying twilight
walking wormhole: ambling around / the garden centre

 

Trinity Arts

Tags

2015, art, being, breathing, career, carpet, church, creativity, doing, Dylan, gothic, identity, life, light, pink, recognition, Spanish, talking, time, Tunbridge Wells, writing

 

 

 

                                              Trinity Arts

                carpet tiles on a concrete floor,
                feeling flat but cannot remember why

                in the old church arts centre finding
                no legacy in doing or creating beside

                dark pink uplight gothic archway
                wondering why ever I needed My Day

                hearing Dylan between long blows
                of Spanish from the next table like a bebop line far far beyond required staves and clefs who

                wrote the songs at the time and
                cannot craft them now whishing

                there was less career in my being
                and more breathing

 

 

 

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

being & identity & writing wormhole: addicted / compulsive / identity
breathing & doing wormhole: Hypnopompia
career wormhole: the lines are not that straight / after all
carpet wormhole: poised patiently for / hours
creativity wormhole: the Apple
life wormhole: oh,
light wormhole: 1972
pink wormhole: dream 260713
recognition wormhole: what to do
talking wormhole: letters to Mum VI – Years / after you have gone. Still.
time wormhole: I’ve only just realised / after so many decades / that the smell of neglected land is lilac buddleia
Tunbridge Wells wormhole: dream / 221297