‘a blacknight fitted perfectly …’

Tags

1967, 2018, 7*, arrival, Batgirl, Batman, beauty, black, books, eyes, glasses, identity, ink, knowledge, looking, mask, night, silhouette, skyline, talking

                a blacknight fitted perfectly
                over the local skyline like spilt ink

                as masks and blindfolds
                drove through the light to where

                silhouettes can talk
                in strictest identity and all the books

                can lean to the right where eyes beautiful look
                over rectangular glasses

 

Detective Comics #363, May 1967, Gardner Fox, Carmine Infantino: oh the rhymes we wend and the bends we play

 

 

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

Batman & skyline wormhole: space for probing thought
beauty wormhole: only
black wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams
books womrhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
eyes wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Pigs
glasses wormhole: we held cold hands
identity wormhole: Victorian pipework
knowledge wormhole: singsong chant
looking wormhole: LIGHT HEARTED WILLIAM by William Carlos Williams
night wormhole: the moon, the moon
silhouette wormhole: despite that
talking wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on

 

Advertisement

we held cold hands

Tags

2018, 6*, acquamarine, airport, bardo, beach, buoy, Carol, clouds, cold, electric, engine, glasses, grey, hands, holiday, horizon, Lanzarote, love, Morecambe, morning, pink, planes, sea, sky, sound, streets, sunset, time, volcano, walking, waves, white

                we walked by the airport with tinted glasses
                flights coming in going out while the

                sun set behind; without tripping
                the waves lapped and swashed as they do

                but broke electric white and fetched
                electric aquamarine all along under

                the gauzy pink and far horizon
                while jet engines cracked their power and

                streets of new villas hung like morning belts
                of cloud before the still-dormant volcanoes;

                finding noway round an air port
                we about-turned to vainly chase the sun

                down; the sea, now, met the sky
                in bardos of grey and buoy, the belts

                of cloud had turned electic, the planes
                taxi’d twice their size before take off and

                we held cold hands through it all
                like first we did in Morecambe decades ago

 

see also: the Last Day of Morecambe Illuminations for the prenouement

 

 

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

beach & sea wormhole: Khandro Tsering Chodron
Carol wormhole: `whappn’d!
clouds & glasses & hands & love & morning & time & waves wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
grey & sky wormhole: THE DESOLATE FIELD by William Carlos Williams
holiday & white wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
horizon wormhole: mauve
pink wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
sound & streets wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
sunset wormhole: that
walking wormhole: PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams

 

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

 

… the underleaves show

Tags

2017, 7*, black, brick, Carol, crank, faces, glasses, grey, hair, Ironbridge, leaves, mirror, progress, purple, railtrack, reading, steam, sunglasses, table, thrust, time, trees, Victorian, walls, wind, windows, wood

                greased and black teeth interlock
                in turn from steam built to release

                to crank the thrust trained to track
                sooner ahead and curving to distant

                future while bricks stack high to
                shape an echoey wall up to 1000 a

                day, coal-faced and sullen and bolts
                sunk into wood that will never be

                undone again all the while
                the wind blows the upper trees …

                                — O —

                bottom of the tall mirror above
                the wooden table tops the back

                of handsome hair let grey with
                sunglasses and purple glasses on

                the end of her nose reading
                something carefully before the

                five-high-four-wide-flank-of
                paned windows all along the front of the Refreshment Pavilion and

                when the wind blows high
                … the underleaves show

 

Blists Hill is a delightfully recreated Victorian industrial town near Ironbridge, Shropshire which tags itself ‘The Birthplace of the Industrial Revolution’ we revisited in May 2017

 

 

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

black & purple wormhole: polystyrene / boulderscape
Carol & hair wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
faces wormhole: sharpened apex
glasses wormhole: Batgirl –
grey wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
leaves wormhole: travelling // arrival
mirror wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
reading & wind wormhole: perspective
table wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
time wormhole: Bridgnorth
trees & windows & wood wormhole: {Ellen Terry’s house}
walls wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye

 

Batgirl –

Tags

1967, 2018, 7*, air, Batgirl, Batman, Batmobile, cape, co-ordinate, comics, cowl, floating, flow, glasses, grass, green, hair, Infantino, leaves, looking, power, running, silhouette, site, sound, thinking, walls

                Batgirl –

                peering over her glasses
                through the fourth wall

                all of a sudden there was
                long grass in silhouette

                over which to run
                and there were foregrounds

                of leaf behind which
                to proceed and she thought,

                I could keep my looks
                under cowl and let

                the quiet and angry hair
                take siting and co-ordinates,

                let the cape field the
                flow of air while

                Batmobiles rev loudly
                and float adrift the green

                and current stalks –
                aimless to behold

 

 

 

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

air & sound wormhole: when the rain has settled / the dust
Batman wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
flow wormhole: concordance
glasses wormhole: city streets
green wormhole: without any buffet at all
hair wormhole: looking ahead
Infantino wormhole: Infantino KO
leaves wormhole: leaves
looking wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
power wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
silhouette wormhole: river
thinking wormhole: sweet chestnut
walls wormhole: is this it // all the time

 

city streets

Tags

'scape, 2015, 3*, city, clouds, Eastbourne, glasses, high, Spring, streets, sun, wonder

                ah, the wonders
                of tinted glasses
                facing fresh into

                spring sun and
                gilded cloud
                high as city streets

 

 

 

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

city wormhole: glide
clouds wormhole: low afternoon
Eastbourne wormhole: still
glasses wormhole: impressionism
Spring wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – On Doing Nothing
streets wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
streets wormhole: Bexhill 140215

 

impressionism

Tags

'scape, 1878, 1880, 1888, 1889, 1890, 1892, 1901, 1935, 19th century, 2015, 20th century, appearance, beer, being, blue, cafe, chair, cypress, decision, doors, Edouard Manet, Edouard Vuillard, emerald, field, garden, glasses, hair, impressionism, leaf, living, looking, mass, passing, Paul Cezanne, people, photograph, posture, profile, rock, shadow, skyline, sound, speech, survival, turquoise, van Gogh, view, writing

 

 

 

                      impressionism

                      when it appeared that being
                      took more than looking
                      to survive in grander scale

                      people froze in pose of living
                      and, standing, turned from the
                      emerald skyline and blue of leaf

                      until the ‘chirrup’-click
                      fit to portrait – maybe landscape –
                      enlarged, reduced (and whopaintedthis ‘click’ gottit) of

                      chair standing but not on
                      the tiles by the
                      turquoise door blue – wassnext! – standing

                      right in front (of the view
                      looking to be written on a notepad) right there
                      to one side of the frame in profile, ‘like I was …’

                      looking in ‘ready’ chirrup – then
                                                                      nudged
                      passing out of everyone’s way – ‘sorry!’

                      glasses on the head before
                      wheatfield with cypresses, hennaered
                      hair before rock shadows, and

                      tell me, is it the transluscent beer
                      or the backward look to another order
                      the point in the corner of the café-concert?

 

witnessed between elbows at the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, London, 030515: La Terrasse at Vasouy, The Garden, Edouard Vuillard, 1901, reworked 1935; Van Gogh’s Chair, Vincent van Gogh, 1888; A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, Vincent van Gogh, 1889; Hillside in Provence, Paul Cézanne, about 1890-2; Corner of a Café-Concert, Edouard Manet, probably 1878-80

 

 

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

20th century & sound wormhole: a theremin note – poewieview #21
being wormhole: dash
blue wormhole: Jon
doors wormhole: through
field wormhole: keep the light off
garden wormhole: the open window
glasses wormhole: new garden
hair & shadow wormhole: 1964
living & skyline wormhole: Doctor Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
looking & posture wormhole: and that’s where I are
passing wormhole: 1963
people & writing wormhole: well,
speech wormhole: quite … / … yet – poewieview #12

 

new garden

Tags

1971, 2011, black, cat, childhood, eyes, fence, future, garden, Genesta Road, glasses, John, light, Nan, thinking, trees

 

 

 

                                              new garden

                wire fencing held up
                by sticks and weeds
                between gardens
                and gentle light

                from between the trees
                plays full on my Nan’s face who has
                taken off her glasses for awhile
                closed her eyes thinking of the future

                and sideways across
                my brother’s face who
                holds a black kitten intent
                not to let it drop

 

 

 

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

1971 wormhole: 1971
black & light wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
cat wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
childhood wormhole: 50 mph
eyes wormhole: Chop Suey, 1929
garden wormhole: all along the blue sky
Genesta Road & Nan wormhole: dream 260815
glasses wormhole: is that so!
thinking wormhole: if left alone
trees wormhole: 1963

 

is that so!

Tags

2013, age, breath, breathing, coffee shop, doing, glasses, hair, lifetimes, mouth, portrait, waiting, work

 

 

 

                                                      is that so!

                           what a discovery
                           the old man
                           glasses case in his shirt pocket

                           enjoying his custard tart
                           crumbs falling
                           combed hair gone awry

                           long finished working
                           doing the crossword
                           tired mouth pursed in each corner

                           waiting for something
                           with each expelled breath
                           but noble and magnificent

                           for the work of a whole lifetime
                           that breathed fibrous
                           through every act invisible

 

second part of the triptych scenes ’round a wedding: // you can only smell the candles / when they have been snuffed out

 

 

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

breath wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 – / the breath of London
breathing & lifetimes wormhole: my life / of others
coffee shop wormhole: start where / you are II
doing wormhole: let’s have some ice creams
glasses 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
hair wormhole: Exceat to Cuckmere Haven
mouth wormhole: [start where you are III] – delve
waiting wormhole: the art of sit and follow
work wormhole: Totnes

 

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

Tags

2014, 8*, anxiety, architecture, being, bench, birch, blue, Bob Hoskins, bridge, buddleia, buildings, Carol, change, crane, dark, doing, education, emptiness, experience, faces, field, fireworks, frost, glass, glasses, green, grey, Have, horizontal, houses, hyperbole, identity, impermanence, journey, life, lifetimes, light, listening, London, love, mouth, not knowing, openness, orange, others, passing, pastel, phone, pink, poetry, pointlessness, politics, red, scaffolding, silver, sky, speech, St. Paul's, station, staying, study, sun, table, talking to myself, Thames, thinking, thought, time, tired, train, travelling, trees, twilight, Uckfield-London line, voices, walking, white, windows, work

                                   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

                                   look out for the throwing up of hands and
                                   the want-only doing it anyway without thought
                                   or fibre thinking you deserve the better after
                                   all the point and anxiety of thinking; rather
                                   stay with the pastel openness of not knowing

                                   what to do; “it’s like they’re doing this to wind
                                   me up” all the mouth-open listening and loud
                                   hyperbole of their being, all app’d and down-
                                   loaded they, obbviously haven’t finished studying
                                   or whatever it is they’ve been bought into

                                   college to do these days; their time’ll come;
                                   frost covers the passing fields and trees, equally;
                                   “t’b’fair-r-rr, I’m not gen–you–in–lee concerned;
                                   I think, if you always stay in the same en–vie–
                                   rhon–meant …” gaze-mouth open … “I think,

                                   you need to have new ex–peer–re:–NCs
                                   nyoopeople nyooplaces” stopping waiting
                                   starting ten-ta-tively slow gliding, while another
                                   train shifts approaching the same station priority
                                   passes for a long time; then on another train,

                                   “it’s like we’re on another train”; frost thawing
                                   equally on the waste grounds between lines,
                                   green and horizontals return, except for the
                                   bare silver birch; so they no longer store parcels
                                   at London stations look how much they’ve

                                   brightly opened them up no more dingy offices
                                   and partitions where people lived their long
                                   and working life; on the stepped bench by the
                                   river across from the Poetry Library somewhere
                                   in the Southbank Centre I struggle with the

                                   vacuous way things have to change but forget
                                   the dark silt accumulated in unused yards
                                   where not even the buddleia grow, as St. Paul’s
                                   becomes dwarfed by glass and leaning building;
                                   all the sun across the riverside architecture –

                                   depth from finial cupola and scaffolding except
                                   the red cranes up into the grey-blue-blue-grey
                                   sky concrete counter-weight and lifting-hods
                                   catching light despite orange lights clean atop each
                                   arm and elbow; crowds walking the bridge under

                                   suspension ties leaning towards the last pillar; tired
                                   now we travel home under neon light on exasperated
                                   faces with no expression past turning houses and
                                   raised embankments, a passenger stands suddenly
                                   to leave, “oh, he’s dropped a tooth” quips Carol out

                                   loud, “I’m joking; it was a mint imperial” rolled
                                   under the table, look, the man with pink-frame
                                   glasses chuckles into his phone like Bob Hoskins,
                                   love him; “this is coach number five of twelve”
                                   we need to make sure we are travelling in the

                                   correct part of the train otherwise we cannot alight;
                                   “please mind the gap”; I cannot retain things that
                                   have passed (I can’t help it: “that are past”) no matter
                                   how much they may chime with the time in
                                   retrospect, during the last leg of “whatever” journey

                                   home looking for more to add to the poem greedy
                                   through the darkening windows, ah, but it’s too late
                                   now, the arc has already formed the spine, all the
                                   particulars falling in fitted pattern like feathers giving
                                   the illusion of lift and flight amid pervasive dissolution

 

 

 

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

anxiety & identity & time wormhole: re lax // me
architecture & bench & buddleia & glasses wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
being & doing & houses & openness & sky & sun & windows wormhole: lobby
birch wormhole: Eridge Station
blue & glass & green wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
bridge & trees wormhole: Kirby’s landscapes
buildings & Have & speech wormhole: great underbelly to the rooftops
Carol & pink & politics wormhole: Luisenplatz
change wormhole: the Last Day of Morecambe Illuminations
crane & grey & light & London & mouth & red & walking wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 – / the breath of London
education wormhole: poessay IX – … just saying, is all II
emptiness & pontlessness wormhole: never there
faces wormhole: – sigh! –
field wormhole: tag cloud poem VII – form new freedom:
life & others wormhole: career came to naught …
lifetimes wormhole: transition
listening wormhole: there are patient listeners
love & poetry wormhole: sometimes
orange wormhole: Christmas
passing & travelling wormhole: dawn
silver wormhole: across the room / through the patio doors / through the conservatory windows / at the bottom of the garden / the still bifurcated trunk of / the oak / before the let-grown hair and fringes / of the fir tree / blown every lifetime in a while by the winter sun // actually
study wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
talking to myself wormhole: yet another sprain / of ‘Jingle Bells’ straining / to propagate yet another / tired Christmas spirit – … / ‘sanner clawsis coming t’ taunn – yeah’ in a / coffee shop with condensation / running off the snowflake transfers / and the iphone at the next table / talking how 50 means 900 a month – not worth / the drive (left his scarf behind – / collateral) … about my age
Thames wormhole: 1967
thinking wormhole: thinking wide enough
thought wormhole: breathe it all / in
train wormhole: is she / looking at me?
twilight wormhole: dream / 301197 // home
Uckfield-London line wormhole: Hever
voices wormhole: ‘green post …’
white wormhole: letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love
work wormhole: corroboration