What You Are by Roger McGough

Tags

1967, accident, advertising, apple, blood, books, buildings, canal, cat, cattle, children, city, clock, clouds, cuckoo, curtains, dawn, death, depth, derelict, dew, distance, duty, eyes, feet, fish, flesh, flowers, found, frog, glasses, God, goldfish, grass, green, hands, heartbeat, Hiroshima, humanity, innocence, ivy, kiss, leaves, library, love, Lusitania, madness, measure, midnight, mirror, moment, morning, moth, mother, murder, neurosis, peace, petals, plastic, poem, politicians, power, prayer, pride, Roger McGough, rosary, sand, seeds, silence, Spring, stage, station, subconscious, sun, sword, symbol, teacher, tears, teeth, time, torpedo, treason, trees, van Gogh, voices, walls, war, water, waves, wind, windows, winter, womb, world, World War, yellow

                What You Are

                you are the cat’s paw
                among the silence of midnight goldfish

                you are the waves
                which cover my feet like cold eiderdowns

                you are the teddybear (as good as new)
                found beside a road accident

                you are the lost day
                in the life of a child murderer

                you are the underwatertree
                around which fish swirl like leaves

                you are the green
                whose depths I cannot fathom

                you are the clean sword
                that slaughtered the first innocent

                you are the blind mirror
                before the curtains are drawn back

                you are the drop of dew on a petal
                before the clouds weep blood

                you are the sweetfresh grass that goes sour
                and rots beneath children’s feet

                you are the rubber glove
                dreading the surgeon’s brutal hand

                you are the wind caught on barbed wire
                and crying out against war

                you are the moth
                entangled in a crown of thorns

                you are the apple for teacher
                left in a damp cloakroom

                you are the smallpox injection
                glowing on the torchsinger’s arm like a swastika

                you are the litmus leaves
                quivering on the suntan trees

                you are the ivy
                which muffles my walls

                you are the first footprints in the sand
                on bankholiday morning

                you are the suitcase full of limbs
                waiting in a leftluggage office
                to be collected like an orphan

                you are a derelict canal
                where the tincans whistle no tunes

                you are the bleakness of winter before the cuckoo
                catching its feathers on a thornbush
                heralding spring

                you are the stillness of Van Gogh
                before he painted the yellow vortex of his last sun

                you are the still grandeur of the Lusitania
                before she tripped over the torpedo
                and laid a world war of american dead
                at the foot of the blarneystone

                you are the distance
                between Hiroshima and Calvary
                measured in mother’s kisses

                you are the distance
                between the accident and the telephone box
                measured in heartbeats

                you are the distance
                between power and politicians
                measured in half-masts

                you are the distance
                between advertising and neuroses
                measured in phallic symbols

                you are the distance
                between you and me
                measured in tears

                you are the moment
                before the noose clenched its fist
                and the innocent man cried: treason

                you are the moment
                before the warbooks in the public library
                turned into frogs and croaked khaki obscenities

                you are the moment
                before the buildings turned into flesh
                and windows closed their eyes

                you are the moment
                before the railwaystations burst into tears
                and the bookstalls picked their noses

                you are the moment
                before the buspeople turned into teeth
                and chewed the inspector
                for no other reason than he was doing his duty

                you are the moment
                before the flowers turned into plastic and melted
                in the heat of the burning cities

                you are the moment
                before the blindman puts on his dark glasses

                you are the moment
                before the subconscious begged to be left in peace

                you are the moment
                before the world was made flesh

                you are the moment
                before the clouds became locomotives
                and hurtled headlong into the sun

                you are the moment
                before the spotlight moving across the darkened stage
                like a crab finds the singer

                you are the moment
                before the seed nestles in the womb

                you are the moment
                before the clocks had nervous breakdowns
                and refused to keep pace with man’s madness

                you are the moment
                before the cattle were herded together like men

                you are the moment
                before God forgot His lines

                you are the moment of pride
                before the fiftieth bead

                you are the moment
                before the poem passed peacefully away at dawn
                like a monarch

 

from The Mersey Sound, 1967
when I first read this poem in 1978 I was too young to let go associations enough to get the metaphor; after a lifetime of being obligated to associations which stood idly by while I wildly floundered without ground, I can let them go with glee and relish and relish the metaphors to the portrait’s content (… still not sure about the ‘lost day of the child murderer’, however, and I’m still not sure why I’m not sure, but I’m not; but I can’t think McGough just slipped up over one couplet … (and I can’t find any discussion of this line in the pages-that-proliferate-like-spores-wafted-across-their-own-private-amphitheatres))

 

 

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

books & love wormhole: `whappn’d!
buildings wormhole: cowled
city & windows wormhole: moon- // washed
clouds & green & silence & time & wind wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
curtains wormhole: ‘the Bat-Signal …’
dawn wormhole: between
death wormhole: beguiled / desire
eyes wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Cows
feet wormhole: ‘oh my girls and muse …’
glasses wormhole: … the underleaves show
hands & water & world wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
leaves wormhole: sufficiently away
library wormhole: two profiles
mirror wormhole: DANSE RUSSE by William Carlos Williams
morning wormhole: TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams
mother wormhole: granny
power wormhole: I
Spring & sun wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
trees & voices & yellow wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams
walls wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
war wormhole: to arms, then;
waves wormhole: Khandro Tsering Chodron
winter wormhole: where did the silence go

 

Advertisement

cowl

Tags

2017, 4*, Batman, breathing, control, cowl, duty, eyebrow, jaw, looking, struggle, thinking, white

                                cowl

                to look with semi-circular whites
                to breathe under the whitened prow

                breaking waves, to think with
                whitened arching eyebrows requires

                the hanging jaw of duty and struggle
                and unerring muscular control

 

 

 

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

Batman & thought wormhole: sometimes
breathing & looking wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
thinking wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams
white wormhole: I

 

looking ahead

Tags

2015, 20th century, 8*, age, attention, cypress, dark, daughter, dress, duty, eyes, facade, father, field, fields, green, hair, horizon, house, jaw, land, left, lifetimes, medals, mouth, portrait, Remembrance, sienna, sky, smile, standing, war, white, youth

                                                looking ahead

                at 18 he peered frightened and gentle –
                the high forehead and round jaw of all
                his youth, but that his mouth held duty

                faintly pursed on the left, in reserve and
                to attention, although the epaulettes were
                (the wings of a choirboy) – at the strips

                and strips of field and fields of umber
                and sienna and the deepest darkest green,
                as high as the land was wide, and it was

                wide, to the white-washed house perched
                on the higher horizon flanked by European
                cypresses, at home in the fields; at three

                she looked above the horizon, hair in all
                direction to the sky, the purse to the left,
                in attention and wan smile from above

                the ruffled dress (soon to be outgrown with
                every crumple-ene); the medals were worn
                on the left side, the eyes up to the right;

                they stood together to attention, in profile
                before the wet facades of eleventh hour,
                eyes forward, eyes down, pursed and still

 

three photographs in the house of an old friend: her father when newly enrolled in the army shortly before World War II – he served in Africa; herself in her then-best dress in the very early 1960s; father and daughter standing on a wet street collecting for Remembrance Day …

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
attention & smile wormhole: dear Lucy
daughter wormhole: mother and daughter
eyes wormhole: addictive
father & lifetimes wormhole: granny
field wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
green & white wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
hair wormhole: immeasurable love
horizon wormhole: Bexhill 140215
house wormhole: slightly / uphill
mouth wormhole: over-pink cagoule
sky wormhole: low afternoon
war wormhole: memorial

 

inner / hegemony

Tags

2013, 5*, connection, doing, duty, effort, identity, samsara, subliminal

                it is the spent
                of favour

                that I anchor
                to effort

                subliminally to render line
                to

                all my inner
                hegemony

 

 

 

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

doing & identity wormhole: being / doing
samsara wormhole: child

 

after all?

Tags

2014, autumn, being, breath, cars, duty, finding, found, glimpse, identity, journey, leaf, lost, mantra, others, passing, poetry, quiet, seeing, self, service, sound, streetlight, talking to myself, tarmac, writing

                is it really worth me writing isn’t it
                just finding wisps and glimpses
                between which to find the outline
                of my wan and piquant poetic self

                no great find and no great journey
                wouldn’t I be better found lost in
                duty and service to the others
                I seek to identity myself sic from

                defined by all common denominator
                factored through by breath and mantra
                to find the being before the breath and
                after the sound or is there a self

                nevertheless to be recognised in the
                scrape of dried leaf under streetlight
                across the tarmac the first to herald
                autumn business and quietly passing cars

                after all?

 

 

 

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

autumn wormhole: under silent direction of architecture
being wormhole: Morning in a City, 1944
breath wormhole: Summertime, 1943
cars wormhole: along
identity & sound wormhole: … anymore
others & talking to myself wormhole: it is complete
passing wormhole: 1963
poetry wormhole: like butterflies on / buddleia
quiet wormhole: Sunday afternoon
seeing wormhole: wriving
streetlight wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting
writing wormhole: that comicbookshop in dreams,

 

it is complete

Tags

2013, acceptance, beauty, career, doubt, duty, giving, hierarchy, identity, others, talking to myself, tragedy

 

 

 

                it is complete
                I can listen to all the pain
                                all the doubt and all the diminish
                                where the Venn diagrams
                                              overlap rather than merge
                                              convening a local hierarchy
                                                              always inverse to the myriad
                                                              always averse to the area left
                                              uncovered and unknown but
                                              I cannot expect the same from others
                                I can give            and become wide but
                                it will not be reciprocated
                up down or sideways
                and that is my duty

                                (and that is my beauty)
                                but not my tragedy
                                and not my failure

 

 

 

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

acceptance wormhole: nothing // matters
beauty wormhole: my beauty
giving wormhole: truly invisible
identity wormhole: I can say / that I do all sorts of dance
others & talking to myself wormhole: prayer to my self

 

between

Tags

2015, being, between, blessing, Buddha, cliffs, duty, identity, letting go, looking, manfestation, meditation, non-doing, openness, power, realisation, sea, self, space, time, trust, Vajrapani

 

 

 

                                I learnt
                           a while ago that power
                                is to be
                           found between what it lets
                                manifest:
                           the blessing of Vajrapani when
                                I wasn’t
                           even looking for it but was
                                actively
                           open to it should it come along,
                                although
                           there is always space if you
                                don’t look
                           too carefully and there’s always
                                the duty
                           of not looking too carefully if you trust
                                the space
                           between enough to let it go to be
                                without
                           getting the needy self all tangled
                                up in it

                                I had a
                           hunch about this earlier* when
                                looking
                           back at the cliffs while floating on the sea and
                                watched
                           the Buddha sit in meditation
                                for hours
                           that seemed like geologic eras

 

* poem called ‘Buddha Shakyamuni’; yet to be published

 

 

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

being wormhole: purpose
Buddha wormhole: silence
identity wormhole: under silent direction of architecture
letting go & realisation wormhole: relapse
looking wormhole: ‘the old chair rocked …’
meditation wormhole: tong // len
openness 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
power wormhole: Dr Strange II – … things are the same again
sea wormhole: September – silhouette of leaf // the / inside and the / outside
space wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II
time wormhole: what heavy and cantilevered structure

 

the 20th century

Tags

2015, 20th century, Alan Moore, commerce, compromise, crane, duty, economics, Eddie Campbell, From Hell, Have, life, river, secret, society

                                the 20th century

                                and so everything’s for getting
                                and it’s business as usual as long as

                                the denominator remains common
                                enough, high and low, because it is

                                so much easier to re-circuit a life
                                at the mere implication of a switch

                                (no need to call ‘howzat’ anymore)
                                it makes certainty very difficult, even

                                inappropriate; some thrive in it,
                                most live with unanswered questions

                                and awful duty (well, someone’s got to
                                do it); but the cranes on the riverside
                                                                             must
                                                                             keep
                                                                             lifting

 

askance from chapter eleven of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

a little snippet from askance From Hell, askance from chapter ten of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, gwn’n’avvalook

 

 

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

Alan Moore & society wormhole: darkness
20th century wormhole: the dash is magnificent / the shadow grotesque
compromise & life wormhole: our whore-y little compromises
crane & Have wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
economics wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
river wormhole: start where you are I
 

September – silhouette of leaf // the / inside and the / outside

Tags

2015, 6*, ageing, Alan Moore, beach, cliffs, clouds, duty, Eddie Campbell, friendship, From Hell, honour, houses, leaf, meaning, others, passing, sea, secret, September, silhouette, sky, society, talking, time, twilight, walking, world

                September – silhouette of leaf

                                in time soon passed
                                men walk slowly
                                side by side out
                                from nowhere
                                talking shaping
                                the only portents
                                they knew
                                without guile or
                                ghastly duty
                                bonded by
                                aged to speak
                                safe ever if no one
                                hears of it
                                let it be be

                gathering cloud over clifftop sea and houses

                                tween them
                                and the world
                                the importance
                                of honour kept
                                where twilight
                                covers the
                                whole of sky
                                the balance of
                                importance – the
                                inside and the
                outside

 

askance from the prologue to From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

a little snippet from askance From Hell, askance from chapter ten of From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, gwn’n’avvalook

 

 

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

beach wormhole: fully clothed
clouds & talking wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
houses 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
meaning wormhole: un … able
others & society wormhole: 1962
passing wormhole: ‘never a dull moment …’
sea wormhole: Vajrapani
silhouette wormhole: great underbelly to the rooftops
sky wormhole: ‘blades / articulate all the lonely height / of the sky’
time wormhole: relapse
twilight wormhole: city twilight
walking wormhole: step
world wormhole: Dr Strange VI – to hold my face to the world

 

letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love

Tags

1960s, 1999, 2014, 7*, bedroom, black, books, breathing, child, Christmas, comics, courage, crying, Dad, death, duty, Eglinton Hill, friendship, Genesta Road, heart, hospital, ideas, illness, kitchen, laughing, Lesnes Abbey, letter, life, living, love, morning, mother, Mum, Nan, orange, parent, parenting, Plumstead common, reading, rebirth, roads, sadness, Saturday, sharing, son, speech, streets, Sunday, talking, time, typewriter, white, Woolwich, work, writing, yellow

 

 

 

                                                                                    060399

Dear Mum,

it was a shock to see you in hospital, overstretched just
                                living at home
                                and still I hadn’t admitted just
                                              how ill you are
                                and the meet to make the final arrangements
                for whenever they become and seeing you face up to this yourself
                                              has shown me dealing with icing and marzipan
                                                              and not a lot much courage

                it is almost guaranteed that we will not say goodbye as we would like
                                I’d like to say all the things that a Grand Goodbye at the End of a Life
                                                              should
                                              through the choke and early mourning wisp of times
                                                              we grew together in Genesta Road
                                that will always remain

                                              that you are coming to the end of your life
                                is so definitely sad, you said that
                                              you don’t want us to be too upset
                but I am going to be anyway, and already am
                                I will be losing a dear parent
                                I will be losing a dear friend
                                              and I have to be sad about that
(with Nan I came through the crying by learning the times we spent together
                like a lesson, sharing and doing
                                I wish I had shared this with her)
                                              I will be sad losing you
                but I won’t be sad because I am losing our lives together
                                these things which have already happened
                                              which cannot be lost
                                even when you die
                                even when I die:

                your fight to bring us up after Dad left
                                the sacrifices moving down from Eglington Hill
                                              a posh meal only on Sundays
                you said to me one day that we were only a paper delivery away
                                              from the standard of living as when Dad was there
                                as we crossed a road doing shopping for here and there
                the happy stores we had in for Christmas
                                you having to go to work every day
and making the best of it coming home
                                              to the sparse meal to help with the diet
                                                                                    hundreds of times
                hundreds of times which I cannot remember and never experienced
but stay in my heart
                                              somewhere
                it wasn’t effort in vain
                it wasn’t not noticed
                it wasn’t not valued

Thank you.   I was aware

                                from quite early that
                                I was one of very few children
                                whose parent had left them in the 1960s
                your bringing me up is one of the most treasured things in my life
                                              you taught me this
                                although I still haven’t mastered
                or even learnt it very well: carrying on in duty and love
                                you have had much to be bitter about
                                but I have seen you – visibly – emerge
                                like a Phoenix “come on, this is no good …”
                (I am a depressive and a self – indulger and “aren’t you ever going to smile again …?”
                                              that child still does it – far too serious when there is anything to do
                                with him) and I treasure the laughs we had when younger
                                              I will learn to have them in my own family
                because I will miss you when you go
                                and every time I miss you I will have silly time with them
                I remember aching stomach at times
                                I remember you squealing with laughter
                                              I remember Nan’s joy at seeing you laugh so much when you did;
                                I know you hadn’t perfected it yourself
                                I know I only remember the times when it just happened
                                              but it is a valuable lesson
                                                              nevertheless

                the magic of Eglington Hill
                                with its many rooms, its endless floors
                                              become a symbol
of possibilities of life, the ‘scene’ of your providing and care
                the magic of Genesta Road
                                where I grew to learn how to see
                                the bedroom decorated orange and yellow
                                then black and white because you asked us
                with shelves to put my comics and books
                                the kitchen to study with the smell of meal
                                              the lounge to book and write and type …
                                                              flavours of my life
                my development now the space which you clothed me in
                                you are those flavours and
                                as I ‘develop’ into the future
                                you are always here
                                              (you always started from what I was
                                               and letting me do what I needed whether you liked it or not
                I try the same with my own kids
                but only remember when I fail
                                yet another lesson, Mum,
                                you have been so wise
                                              and neither you nor I have
                                              fully appreciated it)

                                the magic of reading:
                                the mere presence of books
                                the unfold of opening paper
                                the rocky uphill of snatched syntax
                the scent of travel the pride of cover
                                I try to have the same for my kids
                so that even if they never read them
                                              they will line their walls with book
                (Joe has satire and sci-fi and atlas
                                Jon has earth and struggle and revolution
                                              Charlotte has stacks and stacks of comic)
                                I will be satisfied with that and I hope you had a similar hope
                                              and yes, Mum, it worked
                                                              and it was valuable
                                                                                    another job well done, I think

                                invigoration of sheets over ourselves and haunting the Common one morning
                putting all the milk bottles from the street on the doorstep of one house a few doors down
                                              planning the front room when you won some money, allowing ourselves gift of ideas on wheels
                letting me go hitch – hiking when I suddenly said I needed to go – I still don’t know how you did that
                                friendship of strolling the park, the ruined Abbey, wandering Woolwich on a Saturday morning
                                                              Mother and Son strolling

                and yes, I can agree with you, you have had a good life
                wherever you go we will meet again in some way
                and these specks of our lives will intrigue us
                                              in some form familiar but unrecognisable
I am very sad to be losing you but comforted with what we have shared
                it is probably only now that I realise how much I love you
                                              and how closely we lived

                I shall miss the Mum who taught me a life
                                but I shall always be breathing the lesson

love from,

 

Mum died 20th March 1999; I wrote this letter but hesitated sending it – a regret of my life; I ‘send’ it now hoping she’ll read it somewhere.   Having marked her would-be 81st birthday the day before yesterday, I thought it high time …

 

 

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

part of the ongoing life and page of … Mum
bedroom wormhole: sitting up in bed s i m u l t a n e o u s l y
black wormhole: capes flying
books wormhole: Tulips by Sylvia Plath – How Far To Step Before You Raise The Other Foot
breathing wormhole: whirlpool
child & Christmas & Dad & Eglinton Hill & Genesta Road & mother & Mum & talking wormhole: letters to Mum IV – healing comes in smiling
comics wormhole: introducing / the stranger
death wormhole: we’re born // to die
kitchen wormhole: sounds // suddenly / stop
life wormhole & writing time: no exit
living wormhole: letters to Mum III – ongoing-term // eventually
love wormhole: a cup of tea, gov
morning & streets wormhole: oh-pen too
Nan & work wormhole: letters to mum II – family // like a grate
orange wormhole: the precision // the gentleness // and / the letting go
reading wormhole: stuck free to move within
roads wormhole: I could step / more open
Saturday wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
speech wormhole: we’re all the same age really
Sunday wormhole: zazen in everyday life
white wormhole: Bat-Shadow
Woolwich wormhole: ‘like a piece of ice on a hot stove / the poem must ride on its own melting’
yellow wormhole: on sitting / in front of / a hedge