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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Cocktails in 1951

Tags

1951, 2014, 6*, air, black, cars, clouds, grass, green, grey, leaves, listening, loneliness, moon, ocean, passing, pine, pink, sky, sound, speech, Sylvia Plath, talking, trees, white, writing

                Cocktails in 1951

                down below, that half-curious
                half-comical world on the terrace
                up here the air blurs the syllables
                of conversation like sky-writing

                from a clear pencilled line to a
                puffy cloud; green of grass
                grey of ocean and a deepening
                sky faintly pink; always a roaring

                of sound, cars whirring along
                the turnpike; the moon, now,
                over the green-black tops of pines
                chalkily white, third quarter lunar phase sphere

                amputated optically and neatly;
                below a thick voice, “The moon’s out.”
                The reply ravels and threads
                on the leaves and is lost to you

 

dug into, dug up, found, carefully dusted off and pieced together from entry 87. of The Journals of Sylvia Plath, 1950-1962, but written by Sylvia Plath before the moon really came out

 

 

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

air wormhole: and I lose sight of her into memory
black wormhole: slightly / uphill
cars wormhole: a nice grey woollen picnic blanket
clouds & pine wormhole: volcanic rock
green & trees wormhole: Tara mantras
grey wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
leaves & moon wormhole: between
listening & talking wormhole: reating & wriding
loneliness wormhole: wakeoutofadream
passing wormhole: duty free // chastened
pink wormhole: pink and orange
sky wormhole: good going into / that gentle night
sound wormhole: place
speech wormhole: h’rk ‘eh ‘heh ‘hair ‘yeah ‘eh?
Sylvia Plath wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
white wormhole: greedy
writing wormhole: is there anything to write?

 

a nice grey woollen picnic blanket

Tags

2013, 6*, Ashdown Forest, blanket, bodhisattva, cars, children, driving, feeling, finding, grey, responsibility, roads, safety, sentient beings, sun, talking to myself, teaching, trees, warp, weft, wool

                                              OK
                                I think I get it:
                a nice grey woollen picnic blanket

                                I found the grey
                when crossing the road for the umpteenth time
                                safely

                                I felt the wool
                when I finally allowed that cars will keep driving
                along the road, well where else could they
                                go?

                                I suspect
                that there might be a fascinating check design
                in the warp and the weft but I am too busy
                to explore this now backward and forward across
                                the road

                                there
                are some trees and a sunny glen over there
                I can spread the blanket wide and enjoy
                the meal I carry heavy on my back there
                right after I have crossed my hundred thousand children
                                safely

                                one
                by one as they pop up to the side of the road, w-hupp, here’s
                                another one

 

 

 

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

Ashdown Forest wormhole: memorial
cars wormhole: municipal garden
grey wormhole: every step I take
roads wormhole: 1968
sun & trees wormhole: while
talking to myself wormhole: free
teaching wormhole: ‘let them slide off …’

 

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

 

Luton // couldn’t make a poem out of it

Tags

'scape, 2016, 4*, airport, cars, crane, Luton, noise, passing, poem, rooftops, streets, walking

                Luton

                I walked up your street
                crescendo roar of access
                and arrival from behind

                me and a crane telescoping
                above the nearest rooftop
                straps hanging languidly

                and uselessly, past running
                engines of pick-up and
                delivery but couldn’t make a poem out of it

 

sorry; can’t resist it … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ydVbn0gMk4

 

 

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

cars wormhole: trying to focus / on walking
crane wormhole: time
passing wormhole: open window
rooftops wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
streets wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
walking wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show

 

trying to focus / on walking

Tags

2013, 4*, abdomen, awareness, being, cars, letting go, passing, pavement, walking

                                   trying to focus
                           on walking

                           trying
                     to focus on being
                     I managed to
                           give up

                     and found that the pavement passed
                           through me –
                     through my abdomen even –
                           one way

                     and the cars passed oblivious
                           to me
                           the other

 

 

 

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

abdomen wormhole: training the mind
awareness wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – On Doing Nothing
being wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
cars wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Safe Home
letting go wormhole: even / a second
passing wormhole: passing skies
walking wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I suddenly / remembered

 

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Safe Home

Tags

cars, celebration, city, community, commuting, countryside, evening, eyes, field, harvest, history, industry, life, Longfellow, Michael J Redford, morning, Nag's Head, pipe, pub, Ramsden Heath, smoke, speech, sun, table, talking, the Boats of Vallisneria, tv, village, walking, wheat, windows, work

Safe Home

“Drift from the land continues.”   Thus was I informed by the ‘Farmer’s Weekly’ one Friday morning as it lay open on the breakfast table.   This drift from the land affects not only agriculture but also the structure of the village community.   Of those who leave the land, many also leave the village their forefathers had inhabited for generations and go to the towns to find employment in industry, and of those who stay, most become commuters and spend most of their lives working in and travelling to and from the city.   It is therefore becoming increasingly difficult to find the Coopers or the Charmans, the Thatchers or the Reeves whose descendants had practised their crafts in the same village for centuries, and I am saddened at the thought of these links, these direct human links with the past slowly withering away.   Of the hosts who patronise my own local pub, there are but five or six who are connected in some way with farming or country life.   The normal topics of conversation (apart from the usual British subjects of cricket and the weather) are now the trials and tribulations of a day at the office, the trouble one has had with the car or the recently installed central heating system and a somewhat heated discussion on ‘That’ programme on telly last night.

The truly rural community is not only dwindling but is also being diluted by the absorption of the townsman in the form of new towns and from the expanding ring of the more prosperous classes as they move out further and further from their place of work as life in the city becomes more and more intolerable.

A small but interesting side effect of this movement of the population can be noted not only in the topic of conversation, but also in the mode of dress.   At one time it was only the more prosperous members of the community who could afford smart suits of fine materials and were able to drive around in ostentatious cars while the remainder had to make do with serge or rough tweed or any hard wearing material which could weather many winters.   Now, prosperity has increased to such a degree that, on a Saturday evening, the car park of the Nag’s Head is full of shining cars none of which I swear is over five years old, while inside silk rubs shoulders with worsted.   What is left of the local gentry now distinguishes itself by arriving at the pub in a battered Land Rover covered in muck and mud and dressing in rough tweeds and cords, and if it were not for his public school accent, he could quite easily be mistaken for a tramp.   You will find him mostly in the public bar playing dominoes or cribbage and drinking pints of bitter while his city cousins monopolise the saloon discussing the affairs of the day over a scotch and dry.   No matter how affluent the society or how adamant is one’s denial of the existence of ‘class’, the differences will always be there to be seen.

One such a tramp visited me yesterday to confirm some arrangements with regard to the harvest festival.   He was a man of my grandfather’s generation who had lived in the village in pre-dilution days.   The common bond of farming had drawn us together when I first visited the Nag’s Head in Ramsden Heath, and ever since we have discussed, gesticulated and argued about farming, I, learning something from his methods and he (I am vain enough to assume) learning something from mine.   So it was that two tramps (and I call myself a tramp simply because I had not yet changed from my working clothes, not because I make claim to being part of the local heritage) sat at an open window one late summer’s eve discussing and reminiscing about the harvest.   The heat of the day had left its mark upon the still air and golden rays slanted through the window picking out the curling smoke from my friend’s pipe before it disappeared into the gloom above.   His eyes ascended with the smoke and his thoughts went with them.

“`Course it’s not the same now – never will be, harvest has lost most of its true meaning.   Today it has become merely another chore that has to be dealt with.”

I thought of the congregation that would attend the little grey church on Sunday.   Ninety percent of them would be townsmen whose only connection with harvest is the bread roll eaten at their game of bridge.   My friend was speaking again.

“Nowadays the only people conscious of harvest home are those who reap it and of those few involved, only a fraction are aware of the full solemnity of the occasion.”

That’s true.   In the days of scythes and flails, even up to the time of the threshing machine, harvest time, that milestone of true country life, was steep in ceremony.   First a ‘Lord’ and ‘Lady’ of the harvest would be elected to lead the reapers into the field.   This was a solemn occasion for the sweat, toil and the blistering work was still ahead of them.   The long days of drudgery passed slowly as acre by acre the long stems fell to the scythe and backs bent continually cutting, gathering, binding and stooking.   Finally, upon the last day and in the center of the last acre stood the last sheaf.   If one man was to reap this final sheaf alone, he would be courting disaster.   The entire company therefore, would gather round and, at a signal form the ‘Lord’ or the ‘Lady’ (depending upon local custom), they would all hurl their hooks at the few remaining stems.   The corn dolly would then be woven to appease the spirits, then the back slapping and the chasing and kissing of the girls would begin.   More merriment would take place that evening when the whole company would assemble at the farmhouse for refreshment in the form of rough (very rough) cider and ale.

When the crop was fit for carrying and the last load had been carted in from the fields led by the ‘Lady’ of the harvest, then would come the harvest supper with its eating, drinking, toasting and singing, and soon after, the gleaning bell would ring out across the still fields.

There is always a stillness in the fields when harvest is over and yesterday was no exception.   There was such a calm in fact, that as the old gentleman opposite me knocked out his pipe on the window sill, our Jersey heifer Molly, who lay half asleep on the other side of the hoppit, turned her brown face lazily in our direction.   Nowadays there is no ceremony.   Like most milestones, harvest has been enveloped in the growth of progress and forgotten.   The old man spoke again.

“Of course harvest was of greater significance in those days, for if harvest was poor, hardship and deprivation would be the farmworker’s constant companion throughout the year, that’s why there was such joy and genuine thanksgiving when the crop was safe home.”

I received a mental picture of a field heavy with ripened wheat, the hard fat grains shimmering in the heat of summer and gold sheathed stems, faint bowed by heavy heads, stood as if they themselves were in prayer.   Then I saw beneath this deeply moving scene, the reality of sweat and toil, of aching backs, parched throats and calloused hands.   And yet the workers could still infuse a gaiety into the drudgery; even at the end of the last long day, they still had energy to laugh and sing and chase the girls across the fields.   Although there is still much hard work to be done at harvest time, the worker’s nagging fear of a crop failure is gone; the direct contact between harvester and Mother Earth has been severed and much of the toil has disappeared – but then so has much of the gaiety.

My old friend stood up and stretched.

“Even if it was a bad harvest,” he said glancing at his watch, (it was two hours past opening time), “there would always be a sheaf put to one side for the festival, partly as thanksgiving for that already received, no matter how little this might be, and partly as a prayer for the future.”

I took down my leather-bound jacket from the back door and thought of Longfellow’s words: ‘Like flames upon the alter shine the sheaves,’ flames that took a year to kindle, a year of energy which, if funnelled into a second, could move a mountain.

Strolling towards the Nag’s Head in the cool, green evening, my face stinging from the noon day sun, I suddenly remembered something.

“By the way,” I said, “what exactly was it you came to see me about?”

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

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

cars wormhole: Life on Mars? – poewieview #31
city wormhole: tired
evening wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – moment
eyes & speech wormhole: coagulating
field & sun wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs
history wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
life wormhole: chartless …
morning & walking wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – gull circling out at sea
Ramsden Heath wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Olly
smoke wormhole: being in love – poewieview #26
table wormhole: what life went on
talking wormhole: my seat // now
tv wormhole: “Darling” – poewieview #28
windows wormhole: the purple mist between
work wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – mmpph’

 

Life on Mars? – poewieview #31

Tags

1991, 5*, afternoon, books, Bowie, cars, life, Mars, silence, silver, streets, Sunday, Woolworth's

                                                                      Life on Mars?

                                   silent afternoon silver atmosphere
                                   silver cars on the street

                                   in Woolworth’s the books
                                   slide quietly off the shelves

 

Sunday afternoons – Life on Mars?

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

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: The Boats of Vallesneria by Michael J. Redford – Autumn Thoughts
books wormhole: nothing to write
Bowie & life wormhole: carpet worn / to the backing – poewieview #30
cars wormhole: my seat // now
silence & silver wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
streets wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
Sunday wormhole: Sunday afternoon

 

my seat // now

Tags

2016, 4*, balance, cafe, cars, contentment, doing, giving, grey, hair, Have, identity, joy, listening, mauve, others, Oxfam, patience, pink, red, seat, self-compassion, sitting, sound, speech, talking, vista, walking

                I lost my seat of joy
                in giving, I might have had it yesterday,
                but today I find myself
                gilled by her pink coat to do
                all the talking and irritated by
                the loud-enough heels to do all the walking

                I lost my seat of vista
                when stopping, I might have had it yesterday but
                today I cannot stop hearing
                the all-things-considered voice
                out back of the Oxfam shop wondering if dictatorships aren’t what’s needed in the end, I
                have to leave the shop

                I lost my seat of patience
                in getting, I might have had it yesterday but today
                I clear-the-throat listening to the too-exhaust-[ed] luxury cars
                revving and braking to leave the NCP

                I lost my seat of balance
                when doing, I might have had it yesterday but today I must listen
                to her hold attention with red-mauved hair
                and one greyed temple talk-clear to her back-turned friend,
                from the other side of the crowded room

                `never had a settled seat to miss, that I remember – `still trying to find that one –
                `never lost my seat and been happy about it, until

now

 

 

 

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

balance wormhole: balancing // with a whole lot of deft
cars & pink wormhole: the policies came to nothing
doing wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
giving wormhole: dry rot
grey & identity & sound wormhole: Elektra
hair wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
Have & listening & speech & talking wormhole: listen willya
mauve wormhole: between thoughts
others wormhole: reaching branch
red wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
sitting wormhole: substance
walking wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment

 

the policies came to nothing

Tags

2012, 5*, apartment, beauty, bittersweet, blue, buildings, business, cars, childhood, death, dizzy, emptiness, facade, gigantitude, height, looking, Manhattan, Mum, pink, reaching, roof, society, view, windows

 

 

 

                                          oh

                                   bittersweet beauty
                                   apartment window

                                   at any stage up the
                                   building façade                dizzy

                                   looking further up
                                   the top receding from

                                   view or yet dwarfed
                                   by another block kept

                                   in place by gigantitude
                                   everything kept in place

                                   by gigantitude; when
                                   young I had an image

                                   of a building so many
                                   floors high pinnacling

                                   to a turret roof and
                                   tiny cars going about

                                   their business, on the
                                   pink cover the blue

                                   cover of insurance
                                   policies my Mum kept,

                                   my mother dead now,
                                the policies came to nothing

 

 

 

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

beauty wormhole: 1967
blue & buildings & windows wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Bowl of Gourds
cars wormhole: fine
childhood & Manhattan wormhole: tired
death wormhole: The Boats of Vallesneria by Michael J. Redford – Autumn Thoughts
emptiness wormhole: the coffee shop opportunity
looking wormhole: tripping up to / London town
Mum wormhole: currency of generations
pink wormhole: Drug Store, 1927
roof wormhole: always
society wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark