to rescue something

Tags

2017, 20th century, 7*, anxiety, blue, chair, childhood, Dad, depression, dining room, divorce, Eglinton Hill, family, feeling, Genesta Road, great aunt Mary, life, purpose, talking, Thames, visit, windows, World War

                Mary came to visit one year,
                I think before Dad left, sense

                of anxiety and visitation to
                get things right; we gathered

                in the dining room, she sat
                regal in one of those blue

                wing-back chairs to one side
                of the fireplace; they talked

                of things and the way things
                were while the war built up

                and the way things are now,
                we crawled about under the

                legs of the chairs while they
                talked, through the tunnels

                to rescue something with
                several teddies in tow; we

                kept one of those blue chairs
                when we moved, I remember

                sitting in it feeling the coarse
                knap and the horsehair stuffing

                in the lonely bedroom with
                my back to the high windows

                anxious about the purpose
                to do with my life … is

 

quite naturally, but unforseeably, this was written quite considerably, and apocryphally, after: green-wine, but then everything knits together eventually

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
anxiety wormhole: ‘never look up’?
blue wormhole: occa / s / i // o / n / a // l // l // y
childhood & Dad & divorce & Thames wormhole: south horizon
depression wormhole: what wounds have you got?
Eglinton Hill wormhole: alighted
family wormhole: familiasyncopation
Genesta Road wormhole: work
life wormhole: darkness
talking wormhole: embodying
windows wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams

 

while

Tags

2015, 5*, care, career, chair, conservatory, professionalism, sunlight, table, teaching

                marking books
                during the holiday –

                                because I’m a professional, I suppose –
because I give a care nevertheless

                while sunlight breaks through
                like chalk over the upturned chair legs

                and the folded table top
                in the conservatory

 

retirement #5: written, of course, before I retired, but only now does the significance break through the clouds and the smokey grey perspex roof

 

 

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

career & teaching wormhole: what wounds have you got?
conservatory wormhole: balance
professionalism wormhole: listen willya
table wormhole: returning home handsome

 

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

 

impressionism

Tags

'scape, 1878, 1880, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1892, 1901, 1935, 19th century, 2015, 20th century, appearence, beer, being, blue, cafe, chair, cypress, decision, doors, Edouard Manet, Edouard Vuillard, emerald, field, garden, glasses, hair, impressionism, leaf, living, looking, mass, passing, Paul Cezanne, people, photograph, posture, profile, rock, shadow, skyline, sound, speech, survival, turquoise, van Gogh, view, writing

 

 

 

                      impressionism

                      when it appeared that being
                      took more than looking
                      to survive in grander scale

                      people froze in pose of living
                      and, standing, turned from the
                      emerald skyline and blue of leaf

                      until the ‘chirrup’-click
                      fit to portrait – maybe landscape –
                      enlarged, reduced (and whopaintedthis ‘click’ gottit) of

                      chair standing but not on
                      the tiles by the
                      turquoise door blue – wassnext! – standing

                      right in front (of the view
                      looking to be written on a notepad) right there
                      to one side of the frame in profile, ‘like I was …’

                      looking in ‘ready’ chirrup – then
                                                                      nudged
                      passing out of everyone’s way – ‘sorry!’

                      glasses on the head before
                      wheatfield with cypresses, hennaered
                      hair before rock shadows, and

                      tell me, is it the transluscent beer
                      or the backward look to another order
                      the point in the corner of the café-concert?

 

witnessed between elbows at the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London, 030515: La Terrasse at Vasouy, The Garden, Edouard Vuillard, 1901, reworked 1935; Van Gogh’s Chair, Vincent van Gogh, 1888; A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, Vincent van Gogh, 1889; Hillside in Provence, Paul Cézanne, about 1890-2; Corner of a Café-Concert, Edouard Manet, probably 1878-80

 

 

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

20th century & sound wormhole: a theremin note – poewieview #21
being wormhole: dash
blue wormhole: Jon
doors wormhole: through
field wormhole: keep the light off
garden wormhole: the open window
glasses wormhole: new garden
hair & shadow wormhole: 1964
living & skyline wormhole: Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
looking & posture wormhole: and that’s where I are
passing wormhole: 1963
people & writing wormhole: well,
speech wormhole: quite … / … yet – poewieview #12

 

quick inventory after coffee

Tags

'scape, 2013, attention, bowl, chair, coffee, computer, cups, horizontal, legs, morning, phone, spoon, time, timelessness, up, white, wires, wood, work

 

 

 

                                quick inventory after coffee

                                rear legs of the wooden chair
                                splay gently outwards to form
                                the back held apart by three

                                curved braces before the edge
                                of the desk on which rests a
                                worn wooden tray slightly

                                overhanging; beyond the slats –
                                brief shadow – and plywood
                                edges stand two cups handle

                                facing 4:30, handle facing 8:00
                                horizontal and a white bowl,
                                spoon handle leaning upwards

                                at 9:00 there are wires from the
                                computer and phones but
                                that’ll be enough for now …

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: strange / tarnish
coffee wormhole: com- / mute
morning & white wormhole: stacked
time & wood wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky
work wormhole: nothing to write