Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211

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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lost and city ground

Tags

2013, 4*, childhood, city, Eglinton Hill, flowers, garden, ground, Plumstead, smell, speech, weeds

                lost and city ground

                ah, the weeds and wildflowers
                overgrown and gummy
                in the ground smells just a little

                acrid before ‘come in from
                the garden, dear, you’ll get
                all dirty; it’s dinner soon’

 

written in response to one of my favourite bloggers who … hasn’t for more than three years now: https://dimsumhearts.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/be-an-architect/

 

 

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

childhood & Eglinton Hill wormhole: to rescue something
city wormhole: 1968
garden wormhole: within
Plumstead wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
smell wormhole: the // orange rose
speech wormhole: Salisbury Cathedral // suspended in everything

 

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

 

alighted

Tags

5*, childhood, clock, cuckoo, Eglinton Hill, evening, life, time

                      of an evening
                I alighted down in the breakfast room
                      and weighed the
                metal cones on chains unequal
                      that made the
                clock cuckoo on the hour and knew
                      that there was
                something I had to do in a life

 

 

 

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

childhood wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
Egliton Hill wormhole: what life went on
evening wormhole: 1967
life wormhole: 1966
time wormhole: comfy

 

what life went on

Tags

1960s, 1997, 2012, 5*, abandonment, aloof, anger, children, Dad, dream, Eglinton Hill, family, flowers, forgiveness, garden, grief, kitchen, life, living room, pride, speech, table, walls, yellow

 

 

 

                                I arrive at the garden wall of Eglinton Hill*,
                                painted yellow, not quite finished; my kids

                                come out to see me, what has been done
                                while I was at work (what life went on

                                while Dad was away, what had been done),
                                straight into the front living room* – it is a

                                dappled kitchen now, 1960s small-flowered
                                and yellow-weave table cloth; I wander around

                                the rooms with the kids, how they have
                                changed; I rise out of sleep with the grief,

                                I still feel the hurt, I cannot forgive, I have
                                high expectations: proud angry and aloof

 

* childhood home; I was in the front living room where I heard my parents argue for the first and last time

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: 1967
children wormhole: ashramas
Dad wormhole: spit / spot
dream wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – moment
Eglinton Hill wormhole: the figure “46” / in frosted glass
family & living room wormhole: currency of generations
garden & kitchen & speech wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – from arm to nature, doing nothing
life wormhole: carpet worn / to the backing – poewieview #30
table wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – the soft canticle of the gourds:
walls wormhole: trellis / and wisteria – poewieview #29
yellow wormhole: the / bright yellow / world

 

the figure “46” / in frosted glass

Tags

'scape, 1999, 5*, air, black, cabinet, childhood, doors, Eglinton Hill, evening, glass, hall, inside, life, lime, lino, morning, outside, time, white, womb

                                              ^{the figure
                                              in frosted glass}

                                                                                              morning

                                              black & white
                                              chequered lino

                                              a single cabinet
                                              in the hall

                                              lime air through
                                              the front door

                evening

 

 

 

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

air & black & evening & morning & white wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
childhood wormhole: ashramas
doors wormhole: Michael Redford: triptych
Eglinton Hill wormhole: currency of generations
glass wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – the soft canticle of the gourds:
life & time wormhole: listen willya
lime wormhole: bavardage

 

currency of generations

Tags

2012, buttons, childhood, clothes, colour, cupboard, echo, Eglinton Hill, family, generation, history, identity, lifetimes, living room, marble, marshmallow, morning, Mum, muse, pastel, sound, speech, stairs, taste, tin, transparent

 

 

 

                                currency of generations

                                ‘fetch the tin of buttons’
                                a quest to the cupboard
                                by the stairwell just outside
                                the room we dressed in
                                and spent all morning
                                because it was warm
                                ‘the one with the fruits’
                                different sorts of fruit
                                pastel-coloured and
                                marshmallowy on a tin
                                ‘they’re petit-fours’
                                something to understand
                                later (the taste had been sugary
                                and pasty and although
                                it looked like fruit it stuck
                                in my throat) now has
                                buttons which are cool
                                and swirly when I run
                                my finger through them
                                and marbled-enough
                                to see history and boiled-
                                sweet transparent-enough
                                to see worlds themed in
                                colour and echo from the clothes
                                of real people from family aunts
                                and uncles in the past who
                                I never knew or can’t remember
                                the lineage from which I came
                                contained under tin-bent lid

 

 

0.62

 

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

childhood & Eglinton Hill & morning wormhole: between thoughts
echo & stairs wormhole: no one – poewieview #24
family & lifetimes & sound & speech wormhole: being in love – poewieview #26
history wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
identity wormhole: too late:
living room wormhole: fine
Mum wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
muse wormhole: and that’s where I are

 

between thoughts

Tags

1978, bedroom, blue, brother, childhood, Eglinton Hill, glass, John, laughing, mauve, morning, pyjamas, rain, reading, shadow, smile, sun, thought, windows, yellow

 

 

 

                            up floated the printed words
                                            lengthening shadows on the page
                                                          light rain fell

                            small mauve sparks
                                            sprayed from the crack
                                                          in the bedroom window

                            charging my smiling brother
                                            in his yellow and blue pyjamas
                                                          laughing in the morning sun

                                            between thoughts

 

 

 

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

bedroom wormhole: where the goblins leered – poewieview #14
blue & sun wormhole: too late:
childhood wormhole: 1968
Eglinton Hill & glass wormhole: the start of adolescence
mauve wormhole: being in love – poewieview #26
morning wormhole: work
rain & windows wormhoe: fine
reading wormhole: b / r / e / a / t / h / i / n / g
shadow wormhole: impressionism
smile wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
thought wormhole: dry rot
yellow wormhole: stacked

 

the start of adolescence

Tags

2009, adolescence, black, childhood, dark, Eglinton Hill, emergence, glass, identity, lamp, red, shadow, stairs

 

 

 

                        the start of      adolescence
                      red smoked-     glass shade
                        of the oil       lamp and
                        the wet-      sharp-black
                       shadow      under
                            the      already dark stairs

 

 

 

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

black wormhole: and that’s where I are
childhood wormhole: mauve
Eglinton Hill wormhole: 1963
emergence wormhole: walking through Lewes
glass wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky
identity & red wormhole: first Spring storm
shadow wormhole: my // shell – poewieview #19
stairs wormhole: top table

 

1963

Tags

1963, 2014, abandonment, bedroom, betrayal, childhood, Eglinton Hill, loss, sound, step, toes, years

 

 

 

                1963

                                  steppin’
                            ‘n’ lope-n’
                            ‘n’ swingin’
                            ‘n’ toe-n’
                            ‘n’ makin’
                            m’ way fr’m
                                one room to n’other
                                   with only a creak to pretend

 

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: sit
bedroom wormhole: the open window
childhood & Eglinton Hill wormhole: ‘the hour before dinner – / the empire of dusk’ – poewieview #6
sound wormhole: dog bark
years wormhole: 1966 … actually sic // of it allllll-bsssssssh – poewieview #8