writening

Tags

2018, 4*, blogging, discovery, doing, happening, identity, legacy, metaphor, page, poetry, publishing, thinking, writing

                writening

                I like to find what I think
                in kinaesthetic metaphor
                and surprise myself;

                nothing more, not trying
                to be the best, or visionary
                or even to write poetry –

                it just happens; I have
                taken to sharing it – nice
                of you – but, also,

                attached to how it is received –
                not nice, a little ugly;
                I should just do it naturally –

                wash ‘n’ go, shake ‘n’ vac –
                just discover, let it fall
                and spill all over the page,

                not to write the Body
                of Work to blithely leave
                to posterity …

 

the penultimate of my 2018 pieces of work … and they’ve not been coming thick and fast during 2019 either … well’s drying up!

 

 

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

doing wormhole: Renunciation
identity wormhole : The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
poetry wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XXII by William Carlos Williams
publishing wormhole: scintillating to mind’s content
thinking & writing wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams

 

Advertisement

so / do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or … / Rumplestiltskin

Tags

2017, 6*, consummation, discovery, fingers, gap, gold, grasshoppers, Have, life, light, mind, retirement, Rumplestiltkin, talking to myself, weaving, words, writing

                                                                so
                do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or …
                                Rumplestiltskin

                                                oh,
                                I have a mind and
                                                oh,
                I can weave gold from any old fibre

                whether you give me your life or not – never
                                a consummation to be made,
                                                never a consummation to be had

                                but
                they have some charm
                                and they have some light
                                                to decipher

                                                makes them sparkle if I twinkle the words finely enough                
                                between the gaps
                fingers working like grasshoppers

 

 

 

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

gold wormhole: mauve
Have & life wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
light wormhole: chuckling
mind wormhole: all the low clouds keeping pace / through the train window, / always arriving, whether fast or / slow, but never actually moving
retirement & talking to myself & writing wormhole: letting them go
words wormhole: turned backs of saddened victory

 

Sheffield Park Gardens

Tags

2016, 9*, air, black, blue, bluebells, branches, Buddha, Carol, children, contemplation, copper beech, creation, daffodil, dandelions, discovery, duck, eyebrow, face, family, fields, flag, future, garden, gem, girls, glance, green, hair, Have, humanity, India, kalpa, lake, land, life, limbs, living, mauve, May, name, passing, petals, plants, pollen, primrose, promise, rhododendron, seeing, serendipity, settlement, shade, Sheffield Park Gardens, sitting, society, stone-chat, talking to myself, transluscency, tribe, voices, walking, water, yellow

                Sheffield Park Gardens

                we walked
                upright
                across wide fields

                in scattered groups,
                family and tribe,
                private longing

                under shaded
                brim for a land
                of silk and money

                8th May 2016, with

                only childrens’ voices
                we walked into
                the garden

                dispersing to
                our hides to make our own
                discoveries

                by happenstance
                and peripheral glance
                held cold and fresh

                before name:
                that stone-chat
                that makes the

                copper beech
                transluscent;
                the cool stretch of branch

                yet to bud
                before the haze
                of dusty pollen;

                what to make
                of the solitary dandelion –
                butter yellow life –

                amid
                fain clusters of primrose; and
                there in the shade,

                mauve-bells and
                daffodil stalks make in-
                visible a steely blue;

                bluebells
                like raised eyebrows, relaxèd
                to see a future;

adult voices pass, now, talking ways of life; young girls practise handstands and routines in the fields;                

                let’s sit by the lake awhile:
                where a duck’s
                head

                sits
                just out the shade of exotic plants
                (let’s say, from India)

                the water lapping
                anywhere (let’s say, oh,
                 two thousand

                 five hundred
                 years ago), tucked
                immaculate

                black
                letting nothing out
                but the feint

                of blue
                or green that will form a gem
                in kalpas

                of contemplation;
                across the water a willow rests
                like a flag

                (girl’s hair
                 recovers from each upswing from each
                 hand-stand);

                turning home
                Carol stooped
                to smell the rhododendron flower

                “oh, …”

                pushed her face
                into the petals with lust
                was it

                because I’d
                said the branches
                were an orgy of slippy limbs

                or was it just me
                making things up
                as we walked along?

 

I know, I know, it’s mid February, and the poem was written and set in a May; it’s not seasonally right, but this was the next in line to be printed: them’s the chops …

 

 

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

air wormhole: Batgirl –
black & blue & Carol & passing wormhole: travelling // arrival
branches & voices wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
Buddha wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
family wormhole: out
garden wormhole: slightly / uphill
green wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
hair wormhole: two profiles
Have wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
life wormhole: sweet chestnut
living wormhole: ‘still …’
mauve wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
seeing wormhole: glide
sitting wormhole: amid
society wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
talking to myself wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
walking wormhole: loss
water wormhole: without any buffet at all
yellow wormhole: greedy

 

concordance

Tags

2014, 7*, age, armour, discovery, Donald Fagen, expectation, eyes, flow, Gran Canaria, Have, holiday, identity, image, life, looking, music, passing, Salinger, sea, sitting, sun, Sylvia Plath, waves, writing

                                                                                                how to be
                                                                                in a holiday resort
                                                                where the Have is strolled
                                                and swaggered and tattoo’d
                                catching glance like after-image
                when the eyes are closed?

                                                                ~O___,

                                why aren’t I writing?            Well
                                                                I am
                but I was expecting to see something else when I wrote
                                the flow of another holiday
                                                rather than the
                                                                concordance
                                                that I have still yet to discover
                                in my writing eyes wide
                                                closed

                                                                ,___O~

                                                                certainly
                                                the sun and skin keep me
                                                                lapping without gain
                                                                and replaying the chorus from the ‘Nightfly’                
                                                                                unsure if I ever got the verse

                                                                ___“O”—

                                                                but nevertheless
                                                I still worry that I don’t write
                                                                as Plath and Salinger would lifefully so

                                                                I even know the answer
                                but I cannot sit at the moment,
                                                                I thought I had armour by the sea but it has

                                                                so quickly rusted
                                                and I’m overweight and 54 thinking
                                                                of illness and waste

 

 

 

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

eyes & Salinger wormhole: slightly / uphill
flow wormhole: happen//ing
Have wormhole: pass and / fro
holiday wormhole: holiday
identity wormhole: h’rk ‘eh ‘heh ‘hair ‘yeah ‘eh?
life wormhole: I turn to wake up
looking wormhole: Tara mantras
music wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
passing wormhole: ‘someone …’
sea & sun & Sylvia Plath & waves & writing wormhole: jump start
sitting wormhole: woman / has worked in the gym / got a build

 

south horizon

Tags

1959, 1967, 1979, 1993, 1999, 2011, 2012, 7*, abandonment, anger, Bowie, childhood, Dad, discovery, divorce, drum, evening, experience, horizon, light, London, Margaret Thatcher, memory, Mum, Nan, pain, parents, perspective, purple, rhythm, river, saxophone, shift, Shooters Hill, south, texture, Thames, travelling, words, world

                south horizon

                out on the river
                the purple is shifting

                but in the evening-bulb light
                the world-shaping words

                of grown ups
                is shifting uncontrollably

                but,          no; it’s OK          look
                there is rhythm, there is

                a saxophone, a hi-hat – shflpt –
                in the crack there

                where words sift
                where worlds shift

 

I submitted this to an online magazine; they didn’t want it; I’ll publish it here again with the copy that supported it:

about the poem: on my eighth birthday (in 1967) my Dad arrived home late from work; my parents had one of their last arguments; my Dad left home that night; I couldn’t remember much of what happened that night – what was said, how much I heard, how much I understood – but I realised that worlds could change quite quickly that night; years later, in 1993, David Bowie recorded ‘south horizon’ on his ‘Buddha of Suburbia’ album, but I didn’t really get to know the piece until 2011; hearing it etched that experience back into my memory – bevelled it up, almost – but it also supplied textures and chord changes to the memory that allowed me a perspective that held me from being just angry or hurt; (‘the river’ is the river Thames; we lived on Shooters Hill in SE London from where we could hear and breathe the river)

author bio: Mark Redford was born in 1959 and grew up in South East London until he bolted to university (like a bat out of hell) in 1979, hot from Margaret Thatcher’s election victory; London was never the same every time he returned back; his mother, who had brought him up with her mother (his Grandmother), died in 1999; since then he has travelled back to London frequently to find the previous 40 years, but only seems to find them when he writes down what he saw; you can see what he sees (possibly better than he can) at: https://mlewisredford.wordpress.com/; if you bump into him there, give him some directions would you?

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: monument to vainglory
Bowie wormhole: new-found love – poewieview #36
childhood & Thames wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
Dad & divorce & texture wormhole: beepbeep
evening wormhole: alighted
horozon wormhole: 1966
light wormhole: so pleased to see you again
London wormhole: 1967
Mum wormhole: 1967
Nan wormhole: work
purple & river wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
travelling wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
words wormhole: breathing out
world wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show

 

prayer to my self

Tags

2010, adjustment, anger, breath, care, career, dedication, discovery, dream, injustice, legacy, letting go, life, light, listening, moon, others, prayer, reputation, self, space, talking to myself, tragedy, vindication, work

 

 

 

                                prayer to my self

                                I had my stab at life – obdurate and rarefied –
                                I glimpsed the moon and captured its light
                                but nobody wanted it

                                let the tragedy go, let the injustice go
                                let the anger and indignation go
                                they are not the self

                                let the devastating ripostes before whole crowds go
                                let the overlooking and insignificance go
                                they are not the self

                                let the secret work and its Discovery – the Legacy – go
                                let the live-on-with-open-wounds-and-dejection go
                                let the career and the reputation go
                                they are all not the self

                                let there be the space from where all of this came
                                to let go and adjust, let there be the breath for new dreams
                                and the listening to declare, the pause for resolution
                                and the care to let go

 

 

 

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

breath wormhole: the Conqueror
career wormhole: the stance of Buscema // qualitatively
dedication wormhole: dedication
dream wormhole: dream 260713
letting go wormhole: lo
life wormhole: the endless acts of life
light wormhole: of a sudden // all the time
listening & talking to myself wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting
moon wormhole: up here
others wormhole: good looking
space wormhole: fall
vindication wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
work wormhole: I do