that comicbookshop … // … in dreams

Tags

1960s, 2015, 8*, anxiety, bay window, black, childhood, collecting, comics, doing, doors, dream, Edward Hopper, eyes, floorboards, frustration, grey, heart, high, hill, labyrinth, lemon, life, lifetimes, lino, message, moon, morning, numbers, path, pipes, Plumstead, power, reaching, searching, shadow, shops, sky, smell, society, streets, sycamore, Thames, universe, walls, windows, Woolwich, wormhole, writing

that comicbookshop …

where the sidestreets meet together off the highstreets
under slanting shadows down the rear pipework of façades and blackened window
from so much higher up than could never concern us it’s frightening,
the morning after Hopper’s Nighthawks,
is closing down

the ones I try to get to when I find myself done in town
(right after the frustration of trying to get somewhere or the anxiety of trying to
get away from somewhere that always follows me) but never arrive at;
I make my various ways there, I know the routes
like the back of my hand

the ones with warped door stuck at the top or stuck at the bottom
(will the glass pane hold), with step onto lino once lemon and grey with hope
now one with the floorboards sagging under warren of backrooms (forgotten lifetimes
wormholes everywhere) to the pulp of paper and number for finding,                
are closing down; I

should have patronised them more, I suppose;
`still haven’t found that second issue, that elusive fourth, and the stacks
just kept on sliding: lettering and universes pressing their skies and moons into my eyeball
but I couldn’t keep up with them, blinked too soon, have to get on,
things to do, places to be

it’s having a sale, clearing all stock; the sentinels stand impassive
to all find, impassive to all loss, hooded eyes on somefaraway beach;
for old times’ sake I pick some up, figures reaching stanceofopera out of panel,
maybe a sixth issue, maybe an intertextual fanzine, avoid the modern
too defined in detail, too static in marque,

and come away with stash held to heart, out
into the bustle busily in all direction, weak indication and giant message
I’ll work my way uphill by quiet sidestreet past high walls holding sycamores and
bay windows over the river home to catalogue my finds like a labyrinth and
plot their weave like a stanza

… in dreams

 

 

 

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

anxiety & searching wormhole: pocket
black & shops wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
childhood & life wormhole: alighted
comics wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
doing & dream & lifetimes wormhole: comfy
doors wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
Edward Hopper wormhole: El Palacio, 1946
eyes wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
grey & morning & Plumstead & shadow & sky & streets wormhole: faintly apricot air?
lemon wormhole: 1967
moon wormhole: the too big moon
path wormhole: Clea
power wormhole: the skyline
smell wormhole: 1967
society wormhole: this sodden land
Thames wormhole: time
walls wormhole: familiasyncopation
windows wormhole: open window
Woolwich wormhole: up on the hill
writing wormhole: writing: // in turn

 

El Palacio, 1946

Tags

'scape, 1946, 2015, balcony, black, blue, daylight, detail, distance, doors, Edward Hopper, grey, looking, Mexico, mountains, red, sky, streets, windows

 

 

 

                El Palacio, 1946

                the perpendicular signage
                plainly black and red
                in the dirty daylight

                and the tall windows
                and doorways down
                the street with their

                proud back-painted
                balcony rails looking
                out over empty flat-

                roof streets one floor
                up, submerged before
                the mountains under

                unrelenting pressure
                of the blue and grey
                sky so that distance

                is sharper than the
                foreground in all of
                its vague detail

 

 

 

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

black & grey wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
blue wormhole: the / bright yellow / world
doors wormhole: the figure “46” / in frosted glass
Edward Hopper & red wormhole: Drug Store, 1927
looking wormhole: substance
sky wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
streets wormhole: Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
windows wormhole: reaching branch

 

Drug Store, 1927

Tags

'scape, 1927, 2015, 6*, apothecary, black, blue, city, corner, Edward Hopper, glass, green, heart, Hindu, key, light, lintel, name, orange, pink, red, sandstone, shadow, shrine, sound

                                   Drug Store, 1927

                                   Silbers Pharmacy
                                   attractive as a Hindu shrine

                                   apothecary of light
                                   key to laxation

                                   at the sound of coin
                                   on glass-top counter

                                   on the corner in the heart
                                   of sandstone city

                                   shadows etched into
                                   its uprights and lintel

                                   red and orange-pink
                                   phial, green and turning

                                   blue-black phial

 

 

 

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

black wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
blue & sound wormhole: The Boats of Vallesneria by Michael J. Redford – Autumn Thoughts
city & pink wormhole: constant hummm
Edward Hopper wormhole: Le Pont Royal, 1909
glass & shadow wormhole: between thoughts
green wormhole: the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford
light wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – introdepthion
orange wormhole: 1963
red wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23

 

Le Pont Royal, 1909

Tags

'scape, 1909, 2015, architecture, bridge, buildings, Edward Hopper, façade, morning, Paris, sunlight, trees, veins, walking

 

 

 

                                Le Pont Royal, 1909

                                the thing is: the morning sun
                                which meets the facades face

                                on and sculpts them – fine-
                                hewn – into their architecture

                                and makes the bare trees into
                                manly veins, is not brought

                                by the bridge despite all its
                                pedestrian traffic to work

 

 

 

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

bridge & sunlight wormhole: 1965
buildings wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25
Edward Hopper wormhole: Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
morning wormhole: fine
Paris wormhole: Le Pont des Arts, 1907
trees wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
walking wormhole: while walking

 

Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street

Tags

2012, avoidance, change, comics, conventional reality, Dr Strange, Edward Hopper, ellipsis, encounter, eyes, Gene Colan, hands, humanity, life, living, moment, quotidian, reality, seeing, skyline, step, Steve Englehart, streets, time, trees, walking

 

 

 

                                                              I

                                the always-aslant encounter
                                                              of humans and street
                                              making their lives
                                                              in the grounds they see
                                making their lives in the grounds they are given
                                                                                 constant encounter
                                              as variable as the daily

                                                                                 for those who see
                                elliptical to the happenstance –
                                                              the skyline to the treeline
                                                                                 the glide to the cobble
                                              the palm to the point
                                                              the both-step-aside to avoid each other’s path
                                                              and collide –
                                                                                 Hopper saw it
                and Colan saw it and Strange had already
                                                              stepped into it
                                                                                 stepped through it stepped out again

                                              moment

                                                                                 but now
                                his pupils are that much more round
                                              the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
                                                                                 the face in the orb implied
                                that everything had changed and that
                                                              things
                would never be the same again

 

I am psyched that the first trailer for the Doctor Strange film has just been released; I think this is going to see me lose my 56 year old jaded-cool; I am more excited about this than I was for the Batman movies, even though Batman is my character (oh, sorry, didn’t you know?), (in fact, I envisage Batman, ideally, as more akin to Doctor Strange, the character should be more mystical than he is generally presented); I am glad to see the trailer dealing with kaleidoscope-reality, this has a lot to go for it from the start; Tilda Swinton as the Ancient One is a genuinely creative piece of casting but I hope she is not as ‘explainey’ and active as this trailer suggests (or even as dynamic as she was Gabriel in ‘Constantine’, a female sage should have more devastating effect but with less of the door-slamming); (and talking of door-slamming: I was disappointed that the trailer starts of with the ubiquitous iron door slam portending dire catastrophe for gawp-eyed Humanity, I was hoping Doctor Strange, at least, would approach tale-telling differently, but I suppose superhero movies have hit their formula now, no one’s going to play with it with that much money going in … mind you, Stark’s humour, and the first Avenger’s humour were interesting innovations, I might hope for something innovative in Strange, not humour, so much, as power through deft and understatement, rather than grunt); the round loft-window gave me The Smile at the end; Cumberbatch has a Good Walk as he broaches realities, he has the right eyes to see-through fingers for the part as well; I once hoped that David Lynch might write and direct Doctor Strange … that would have been interestingly different and so right … it was not well-received (have a look in the comments section of https://longboxgraveyard.com/2012/11/28/76-superhero-greenlight-doctor-strange/) … actually, dab’n’abbit, here is my tender, but I’ll settle with what this film seems to promise:

Dr Strange operates in worlds which are ‘mystical’ in the sense that they function within natural laws and forces which are alternate to our own – they are worlds which we just don’t get and it would be better for us that we didn’t know about them so we can continue functioning ourselves.   And yet Stephen Strange is of and from this world – he is all too human but has mastered the Mystic Arts.   He therefore lives between the two worlds – the physical/political and the occult worlds – or rather he lives amid, at the same time.   He is ‘strange’ because he bridges these two worlds, and this is the central pull of the character for me.   In comics the ‘occult’ world was depicted fantastically (the floating-island footsteps of Ditko, the swirls of Colan) because it was a visual medium meant for younger audiences (growing up); but the occult world doesn’t so much ‘look’ strange (like a childishly re-arranged physical world), in fact it isn’t even a different world it is the same world ‘seen’ (and ‘heard’ and ‘felt’ and acted in) differently.   What was equally attractive about Dr Strange (and under-used in the comics) was the depiction of the character in ordinary, recognisable surroundings but knowing he was actually operating in a world out of the space-time continuum.   I would conceive that Strange’s ‘battles’ took place while he was strolling through a park, while walking on the street, in the blink of an Eye (herm).   I once heard David Lynch talk about how he achieves perspectives in his work by ‘filming through the eye of a duck’ meaning that he doesn’t just film ‘lineally’ he films simultaneously/alternately – he shoots a scene/whole films which physically depict one narrative but which affectively show an alternate landscape in which they play out.   What better ‘mise-en-scene’ist than David Lynch to depict the life of a character who has ‘mastered’ the arts of living bridged across two worlds-in-one?   No need of CGI, no need of costumes, not even much need of action!   I know, I know, not the ingredients for your standard superhero blockbuster money-maker.   But they have been done and will continue to be done under their own momentum.   Dr Strange has always been a peripheral character because he is so … strange.   Perhaps this would be time to make a different take on the comics-to-film translation formula …

Anyhoo, I wrote a series of poems tracking Doctor Strange through a key set of issues written by Steve Englehart and drawn by Gene Colan; (Dr Strange #6-13 (Feb 1975-April 1976)); these issues are some of the best comics I have ever read; they were also seminal in shaping me to become the significantly un-noticeable writer I have become to this day; I posted them in 2012 and then re-posted them again in 2014 because I thought the film was immanent – it wasn’t; but, dammitall, I like these babies so I’m going to post them again, spread out until November 4th …

 

 

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

change wormhole: top table
comics wormhole: Poewieviews
Dr Strange & Gene Colan wormhole: Dr Strange VII – the madness of Mordo
Edward Hopper wormhole: New York, New Haven and Hartford, 1931
eyes wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
hands wormhole: really
life & reality & streets & time & walking wormhole: 1964
living wormhole: dash
seeing wormhole: rhymed
skyline wormhole: miss / ad / venture – poewieview #22
trees wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23

 

New York, New Haven and Hartford, 1931

Tags

'scape, 1931, 2015, chimney, decades, Edward Hopper, façade, house, lawn, morning, New York, railtrack, sky, sun, trees

 

 

 

                      New York, New Haven and Hartford, 1931

                      morning sun appears in fat fingers along the
                      railway track, along the lawn getting somewhere:

                      it fringes the finials of the trees and brush
                      phlanged in all directions but splats façade-

                      on and aspectedly against the sited house for
                      decades reaching 3D chimneys high to the sky

 

 

 

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

chimney wormhole: … the discipline of shamatha / the waft of vipashyana
Edward Hopper wormhole: Seven A.M, 1948
house wormhole: sit
morning & sky wormhole: library windows
sun wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
trees wormhole: train journey // like a branch

 

Seven A.M, 1948

Tags

'scape, 1948, 2015, clock, depth, doors, Edward Hopper, letting go, light, morning, Nightmare, opening, right angle, shadow, time, trees, years

 

 

 

            Seven A.M, 1948

            too early to open,
            the shadow off the clock
            is too long

            the trees at
            the edges of nightmare
            have yet to release

            the light worries
            the door handle and would
            feign entry already

            but the
            conspiracy is deep, as
            dimension takes a right angle

 

 

 

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

doors wormhole: the open window
Edward Hopper & time & years wormhole: Office at Night, 1940
letting go wormhole: if left alone
light wormhole: ‘in clear oil air …’
morning wormhole: 1967
shaadow wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
trees wormhole: … the discipline of shamatha / the waft of vipashyana

 

Office at Night, 1940

Tags

1940, 2015, blind, daylight, Edward Hopper, eyes, faces, identity, light, looking, night, office, portrait, seeing, streets, time, walls, work, years

 

 

 

                      Office at Night, 1940

                      you cannot see your own eyes while looking
                      or your face when working late
                      macabre with its daylight paint

                      because the light across the wall from the street
                      will not work its way over the room
                      only the blind will lean

                                inwards
                                slightly and
                                briefly

 

 

 

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

Edward Hopper & identity wormhole: Hotel Room, 1931
eyes & light wormhole: new garden
looking wormhole: my way
night & years wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
seeing & time wormhole: … the discipline of shamatha / the waft of vipashyana
streets wormhole: Christmas lights / around the lamp post
walls wormhole: 1967
work wormhole: the warp and the plumbing

 

Hotel Room, 1931

Tags

1931, 2015, books, Edward Hopper, evening, hotel, identity, life, lifetimes, light, night, time, wind, woman, years

 

 

 

                                but then it was a further
                                two years until she found

                                herself half dressed between
                                lifetimes marked between the

                                pages of a book found in the
                                Hotel Room, in 1931, so long

                                since the promise of the evening
                                wind ten years earlier when she

                                could stand to have the lights
                                out

 

third of a triptych (1. Automat, 1927 – held, 2. Chop Suey, 1929) tucked quietly within an anterior quadriptych

 

 

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

books wormhole: com- / mute
Edward Hopper & light & time & years wormhole: Chop Suey, 1929
evening wormhole: Automat, 1927 – held
hotel wormhole: the endless acts of life
identity wormhole: grrr
life wormhole: we play / the game
lifetimes wormhole: de Boeddha // of light
night wormhole: sit
wind wormhole: Le Pont des Arts, 1907
woman wormhole: Compartment C, Car 193, 1938

 

Chop Suey, 1929

Tags

1929, 2015, Edward Hopper, eyes, light, morning, realisation, sitting, time, years

 

 

 

                           Chop Suey, 1929

                           it wasn’t until late morning
                           the following two years later

                           when she sat alone at the table
                           washed ghastly in the daylight

                           that she raised her eyes at last to
                           recognise what had happened

 

second of a triptych (1. Automat, 1927 – held) tucked quietly within an anterior quadriptych

 

 

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

Edward Hopper & light & time & years wormhole: Automat, 1927 – held
eyes wormhole: the Growing Man
morning wormhole: the breath of London
realisation wormhole: plop!
sitting wormhole: ‘stunted trees …’