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

 

Michael Redford: triptych

Tags

1935, 1970, 2007, 2009, 2012, afterlife, armchair, being, black, brown, carpet, chair, cigar, doing, doors, evening, fire, floorboards, garden, green, horizon, life, living, living room, night, piano, plants, plastic, Ramsden Heath, realisation, sitting, sitting room, smell, sound, table, talking, trees, uncle, windows, wine, wood

 

 

 

                                           Michael Redford
                                           1935-2007

                                           later on
                           he strolled in the garden
                           breathing the night and the plants
                           smoking a fine cigar

                           then he paused
                           and looked back at the armchair
                           where he had been sitting –
                                           Pphffffff

 

—~~M~~—

 

                                              sitting room

                                              plastic-marbled
                                              chest-height handle

                                              smell of sofa-linen
                                              and wood-fire evenings

                                              with company
                                              and dark green wines

                                              cool black boards and
                                              the white patterned carpet

                                              with almost-meeting
                                              crenellated walls

                                              brow-height mantelpiece
                                              on jungle green

                                              and the piano in the
                                              corner with duff bass keys –

                                              plant-shaking

 

—~~M~~—

 

                                                                      1970

                                                                      to my uncle
                                                                      shifting on
                                                                      hardplastic
                                                                      seat of dining
                                                                      chair – crack –

                                                                      elbow uncomfortable
                                                                      on table-edge
                                                                      carving – creak –
                                                                      to execute a
                                                                      perfect tree

                                                                      on the horizon
                                                                      with just two strokes
                                                                      one brown
                                                                      one green
                                                                      I knew then

                                                                      to put down
                                                                      my compass plans
                                                                      for every detail
                                                                      but only just now
                                                                      doing it

 

looking for what to publish today, I found my uncle unassumingly proffering the lesson in life that he always gave, even nine years after he died: that you don’t look for life, you notice it; some teachers teach by being rather than saying, so that you don’t realise you are being taught until you know; wherever he is now, I hope he knows what he gave me/us … in fact I dedicate the clean-ity of all I notice to return the gift to my uncle wherever his lives have led him now

 

 

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

being & doing wormhole: need
black wormhole: the start of adolescence
brown wormhole: London Hearts – poewieview #4
carpet wormhole: ‘the hour before dinner – / the empire of dusk’ – poewieview #6
doors & garden wormhole: impressionism
evening wormhole: well,
green & talking wormhole: bavardage
horizon & life wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
living & night & smell & sound & table & windows & wood wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
living room wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II
piano wormhole: tabla
Ramsden Heath & uncle wormhole: … still waving!
realisation wormhole: dream career // groggy
sitting wormhole: the writing’s on the wall
sitting room wormhole: purple and mauve
trees wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25

 

1963

Tags

2014, Burt Bacharach, Central Park, Dionne Warwick, echo, floorboards, opening, trees, windows, years

 

 

 

                                              1963

                                              she
                                opened the window
                and the still treetops from the city park
                                echoed across the dusty floorboards

 

(wishin’ & hopin’): Dionne Warwick; Burt Bacharach, Hal David

 

 

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

Burt Bacharach & Dionne Warwick wormhole: 1963
echo wormhole: Exceat to Cuckmere Haven
trees wormhole: ‘stunted trees …’
windows wormhole: Automat, 1927 – held
years wormhole: Hotel Room, 1931

 

that comicbookshop in dreams,

Tags

1960s, 2015, anxiety, arrival, bay window, beach, black, blue, buildings, comics, doing, doors, dream, Edward Hopper, eyes, finding, floorboards, frustration, glass, going, grey, growth, hill, home, hope, identity, lemon, lifetimes, lino, looking, moon, morning, numbers, regret, searching, shadow, shops, sky, step, streets, sycamore, Thames, time, town, trees, universe, Victorian houses, walls, windows, wormhole, writing

 

 

 

that comicbookshop in dreams,

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

the ones I try to get to
when I find myself done in town (after
the frustration of trying to get somewhere
or the anxiety of trying to get away from a 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 the bottom (will the glass pane hold) with
step onto lino once lemon and grey with new hope
now one with the floorboards as they sag under warren
of backrooms like forgotten lifetimes (wormholes to everywhere) into
the fust and pulp of paper and number all for the finding,
are closing down

I should have
patronised them more, I suppose;
I still haven’t found that second issue, that elusive fourth,
and the stacks just keep sliding wondering other titles and other
universes pressing their sky and moons into my eyeball as I stand
and scan; but I couldn’t keep up, blinked too soon
have to get on, things to do
places to be

it’s having a sale
clearing all the stock; the sentinels stand
impassive with all find, impassive before all loss: hooded
eyes on somefaraway beach; for old times’ sake I pick up some
mid-60s anthologies with their simple figures reaching out of panel
with all the stance of opera, and maybe a sixth issue, and maybe an early
fanzine for some intertextuality, but I’ll avoid the figurines: too
defined in detail, too static
in marque

I’ll come away
with stash held close to my heart
back out into bustle of street busily in all direction
with all the noise of weak indication and strong giant message;
I’ll work my way uphill by quiet sidestreet past high walls that
impossibly hold the looming sycamore and bay-windowed villas
over the river under skies of grey and blue gantry
home to catalogue my finds on the shelf like
a maze and plot their weave in life
like a stanza

 

 

 

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

anxiety & looking & searching & shops wormhole: lo
beach wormhole: gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared
black wormhole: Black Rook / in Rainy Weather
blue wormhole: Buddha / Shakyamuni
buildings & comics wormhole: escape from Flat Planet
doing wormhole: the endless acts of life
doors & sky & time & windows & writing wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting
dream & moon wormhole: prayer to my self
Edward Hopper wormhole: Dr Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
eyes wormhole: the Conqueror
glass wormhole: heirloom – break / after heavy shower
grey & Victorian houses wormhole: corner of Plum Lane / Eglinton Hill and / Shrewsbury Lane
hill wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 – / the breath of London
identity wormhole: good looking
lemon wormhole: Brugges April 2015 – looking lost
lifetimes wormhole: now, have I forgotten anything
morning wormhole: hot summer / morning
shadow & walls wormhole: of a sudden // all the time
streets wormhole: silhouette: // second / thoughts
Thames wormhole: Jackie’s slight smile
trees wormhole: Exceat to Cuckmere Haven

 

the art of sit and follow

Tags

2013, apple, awareness, being, blue, breathing, ceiling, curtains, distraction, finding, floorboards, following, inclusion, journey, mind, self-love, sitting, sound, table, waiting, words, writing

 

 

 

                                              the art of sit and follow

                                when sitting I’ll fail
                                a hundred times from
                                echoes and wonderings
                                that arrest my only true and being
                                until I notice them
                                all with parental eye
                                and slightly more widened arm
                                enough to find me
                                sitting again with
                                thicker flavour and
                                colourful sprinkling
                                of a kind of love

                                with writing
                I may start with the sweet word
                and follow the phrase like an acolyte
                until I fail
                and I will look at the pen-poise
                and breathe the hesitancy
                and let continue gibbering with whatever leaps a-scaling
                to the judder of fridge
                                          freeze stopped
                                only then to notice the flow of the floorboards follow the beam of ceiling
                until I have found                                                                         fall of curtain
                what I was writing for                                                                             edge of table
                                surprised
                                journeyed
                                and aside
                from where I thought I was heading
                                but fresh as a blue apple

 

 

 

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

awareness & sitting wormhole: ambling around / the garden centre
being & breathing & waiting & writing wormhole: before // writing?
blue wormhole: mass
curtains wormhole: oh,
mind wormhole: hot chocolate
sound & table wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
words wormhole: time proceeds

 

To my Mum

Tags

1970s, 1974, 2008, breathing, brown, Burt Bacharach, clothes, clouds, Dionne Warwick, evening, field, floorboards, friends, green, grey, horizon, houses, journey, kitchen, laughing, Mum, Plumstead common, rain, relationship, sky, smile, snow, streetlight, streets, Thames, time, tv, walking, white, windows, Woolwich, work, yellow

 

 

 

To my Mum who breathed deep the day she got a good set of saucepans in her pantry in 1974.   To my Mum who walked the long tunnel at Woolwich to and from work every day for twenty five years.   To my Mum who smiled on Plumstead Common when the white clouds were on the horizon and the grey cloud seamless in all the windows.   To my Mum who ate chops and beans every evening to hold off weight but who always wore smart coats.   To my Mum who was never quite sure if it was OK to laugh and relax in the seventies as the possibility suggested,

                – yes, it was okay,

and every time she did,
there were plastic raincoats in the evening high street,
there was Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach,
there were floorboards and wooden stepladders and wallpaper,
there were empty milk bottles on the doorstep,
there was a thin of snow on the housing estate under the green grey sky,
there were bowls of crisps and crackers and twiglets for the Cup Final,
there were high sash windows overlooking the Thames,
there were phone wires in front of the skies where she would never go
there were car journeys on wet roads by deep green fields,
there were yellow streetlights of new relationships and new-found friends,
there were bulbous patterns of brown and green to match the seasons.

My Mum cried when it all went wrong but went to work anyway.

 

To my Mum, who died 20th March 1999, far too early to realise the extent of her own patience and the width of her generosity; who typed up invoices for cargo ships in and out of London and taught me to leave three spaces after a full stop, which I honour to this day.

 

 

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

1974 wormhole: 1974
breathing & green & horizon & streetlight & white & work & yellow wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
brown wormhole: the dash is magnificent / the shadow grotesque
[Burt] Bacharach & Dionne Warwick wormhole: 1962
clouds wormhole: purpose
evening wormhole: after the storm
field wormhole: the edge has come …
grey wormhole: hinged
houses & white wormhole: bottom of Herbert Road to the / foot of Eglinton Hill dream
kitchen & sky & snow & streets & walking wormhole: dream 260713
Mum wormhole: just words wiped across a line
rain wormhole: the four whores of the apocalypse
Thames wormhole: H e a v e
time wormhole: between
tv wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
Woolwich wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II

 

‘in the centre of the bare room …’

Tags

1980, dancing, floorboards, light, puppet, red, room, wine, wineglass

 

 

 

                      in the centre of the bare room
                      a glass
                      filled with redwine

                      through the redlight a marionette
                      feet nailed to the floor
                      dancing

 

 

 

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

dancing wormhole: tag cloud poem V – draft-ness
light wormhole: what heavy and cantilevered structure
red wormhole: silence

 

‘a spark from the empty light socket …’

Tags

1980, death, floorboards, glass, life, orgasm, sand, socket, spark, sunlight

 

 

 

                                a spark from the empty light socket
                                jumped down to the floor and
                                flashed inside the stem
                                of a wineglass in
                                the sun on
                                its side

                                              – orgasm –

                a small pile of sand filters through the floorboards

 

 

 

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

death & life wormhole: what heavy and cantilevered structure
glass wormhole: the dash is magnificent / the shadow grotesque

 

‘the old chair rocked …’

Tags

1980, floorboards, garden, looking, petals, portrait, rocking chair, sound, walls, windows

 

 

 

                                the old chair rocked
                                on the floorboards
                                the petals in her lapel
                                shuffled and humpphed the cucumbers
                                in the patch by the wall
                as she winced through
                                              the window

 

 

 

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

garden wormhole: tag cloud poem VIII – growth
looking wormhole: ‘never a dull moment …’
sound wormhole: ‘the walking stick …’
walls & windows wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II

 

just words wiped across a line

Tags

2015, abandonment, angle, childhood, divorce, echo, Eglinton Hill, emergence, eyes, floorboards, identity, juxtaposition, Mum, pointlessness, seeing, speechless, superpower, tragedy, writing

 

 

 

                out of the numbness from nothingness
                                the tragedy that was drugged stable
                                but couldn’t speak
                                              the empty floorboards that held no echo

                a head reared and cast around
                                mouth sealed with a conjunctivitis
                                and eyes seeing all the angle and juxtaposition
                                              there was to see

                but found the power to leap buildings
                                and act with super human subtlety
                                but in lessening gradations of effect until
                                              just words wiped across a line

 

 

 

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

abandonment & childhood & divorce & Eglinton Hill & eyes & identity & Mum wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
echo wormhole: the echo of / a small box
emergence wormhole: tag cloud poem VIII – growth
pointlessness 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
seeing wormhole: crumpled / notebooks / at the end of a gentle retreat
superpower wormhole: wakey wakey / time to get up
writing wormhole: “out of step is useful because / that means you get to notice / what others have missed; out / of line is no use to anyone”