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mlewisredford

~ may the Supreme and Precious Jewel Bodhichitta take birth where it has not yet done so …

mlewisredford

Tag Archives: coffee shop

Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211

16 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 3 Comments

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________________________________|—–

architecture wormhole: pen and ruler
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
quiet wormhole: the quiet whale
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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amid

15 Wednesday Nov 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2014, 5*, being, breathing, circular poem, coffee shop, evening, life, practice, realisation, settling, sitting, sound, time, windows, zafu

                                                      my practice
                            anyway                      my being
                 all the time                               off the cushion
I breathe it all amid                                   starts here in the
                   to come                                      coffee shop in the
  wait for settlement                                   evening by the
           I don’t need to                               window and the fug
                 to realise that                       and the foot scuffs and the
                             spoon slinks

 

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

being & evening & time wormhole: good going into / that gentle night
breathing wormhole: cape and cowl
circular poem wormhole: circuitry
coffee shop & sitting wormhole: found
life wormhole: leaves
practice wormhole: tragic and archival
realisation wormhole: such such potential
settling wormhole: jump start
sound wormhole: humm
windows wormhole: glide

 

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found

05 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2014, 4*, buying, coffee shop, conformity, finding, Have, hidden, life, looking, purposelessness, sitting, society, town, writing

                I’ve seen those looking
                for what they don’t have
                around town and flaunting
                whatever they have got    desperately

                I’ve seen those hiding
                all that they have
                in town in conformity
                and brightly-coloured trousers

                and I have sat
                in the coffee shop writing about them both and
                neither three of us have found
                what we’re looking for

 

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

coffee shop wormhole: immeasurable love
Have wormhole: clear as vista
life wormhole: cape and cowl
looking wormhole: is there anything to write?
sitting wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
society wormhole: circuitry
writing wormhole: at table 21 in the garden centre thinking to / replicate Hughes’ exercise for Plath about / the Yew Tree

 

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immeasurable love

27 Friday Oct 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

2014, 5*, coffee shop, eyes, hair, Haywards Heath, identity, lost, love, mauve, portrait, table, texting

 

                immeasurable love

                thumbs texting (in her lap under
                the table at a terrace) like
                an old knitting machine,
‘I-am-at-the-coffee-shop?-I-have-too-much-make-up-on-and-my-hair-has-a-mauve-tint-but-is-dreddy-round-the-roots-and-I-don’t-know-where-I-am’
                                                                she sends and looks up
                                                                through make-up eyes
                                                                which say, ‘please come
                                                                and get me’

 

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

coffee shop wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
eyes wormhole: is there anything to write?
hair wormhole: place
Haywards Heath wormhole: on
identity & table wormhole: at table 21 in the garden centre thinking to / replicate Hughes’ exercise for Plath about / the Yew Tree
love wormhole: all the sandstone / reflections in the / marble-blue troughs
mauve wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey

 

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in the Java ‘n’ Jazz

02 Saturday Sep 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2014, 6*, afternoon, Ashdown Forest, balance, bay window, bossanova, clockwork, coffee shop, Forest Row, guitar, jazz, music, openness, pavement, Saturday, shops, Sunday

                                                                                in the Java ‘n’ Jazz the
                                                                                                                bossanova
                                                                                                guitar

                                                                chorded and semi toned (down the
                                                                                                neck) and
                                                                                always regained on the

                                                minor before the bay window-front
                                                                                onto
                                                                a muggy Saturday afternoon

                                like Sunday used to be with all the shops
                                                                closed and
                                                with clockwork

                the pavement shop sign is folded up
                                                and returned closed
                                by the door

with next week’s opening times

 

first published in the Poetry Jar 160914; the Java ‘n’ Jazz is a coffee shop that relaxes in the small village of Forest Row in Ashdown Forest

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

afternoon wormhole: make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let
Ashdown Forest wormhole: a nice grey woollen picnic blanket
balance wormhole: balance
coffee shop wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
guitar wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25
music wormhole: ‘someone …’
openness wormhole: this time
Saturday wormhole: time
shops wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
Sunday wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance

 

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Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles

31 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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Tags

2014, 3*, coffee shop, father, glass, Jon, Lewes, looking, posture, shirt, shop, son, streets

                Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles

                ‘fat            nervous            stupid            rich’

                in the side-glass entrance to the shop
                I watch down the street two men
                amble up the street – same shirt
                same posture they both turn to
                look in a shop window fat nervous
                stupid and rich

 

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

coffee shop & father & Jon & Lewes wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III
glass 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
looking wormhole: the sitting room
posture wormhole: !
streets wormhole: I turn to wake up

 

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Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III

30 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

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

 

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Mark & Jon at the coffee shop II

29 Tuesday Aug 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

2014, 3*, coffee shop, father, joke, Jon, Lewes, poem, son, speech, words

                Mark & Jon at the coffee shop II

                ‘I’ve got to give you five words and you’ve
                 got to work them into a poem:

                fluffy       popsicle      Nostradamus
                carcinogenic      parasite’,      so I said

                                it can’t be done

 

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

coffee shop & father & Jon & Lewes & speech & words wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop I

 

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Mark & Jon at the coffee shop I

28 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2014, 4*, coffee, coffee shop, father, joking, Jon, Lewes, notebook, rhyme, son, speech, words, writing

            Mark & Jon at the coffee shop I

               ‘write, what rhymes
                  with coffee’ said Jon
                     taking the piss of my
                        notebook out in the coffee shop
                           but I had my own back
                              by messing with his words

 

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

coffee wormhole: too greedy
coffee shop wormhole: with endless love
father wormhole: singsong chant
Jon wormhole: magnetic field
Lewes wormhole: relief
speech wormhole: make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let
words wormhole: reading // unstirred
writing wormhole: over-pink cagoule

 

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with endless love

29 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

'scape, 2016, 5*, arrival, coffee shop, dog, found, hoping, identity, Ironbridge, love, passing, pavement, poem, talking to myself, tongue, walking, wandering, wondering, writing

 

 

 

                           so don’t just arrive here and wander
                           about hoping for the poem ready-made
                           and reasonably priced to be la-la laa la
                           found and claimed with a waving flag rather

                           be the scruffy dog with tongue-out-pulling
                           the leash-sniff every leaf-post along the
                           narrow pavement blocking-awkward-step-
                           over walk of its owner with endless love

 

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

coffee shop & passing & walking & writing wormhole: reaching branch
dog wormhole: dog bark
identity wormhole: more than effigy
love wormhole: 1964
talking to myself wormhole: zero

 

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    • Introduction
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    • askance From Hell
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    • in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …
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