The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1928, 6*, arms, Atlantic City, beauty, being, black, blue, candle, cheek, city, colour, communication, daisies, dress, ears, eyes, fingers, glass, green, grey, hair, hands, hips, knuckles, lips, looking, matches, mirror, mouth, movement, open, orange, others, portrait, poverty, red, reflection, ring, ruby, sea, seagull, silence, skin, sound, speech, temptation, thinking, walking, waves, white, William Carlos Williams, windows, woman, wrists, writing

                            1. THE WAITRESS

                No wit (and none needed) but
    the silence of her ways, grey eyes in
    a depth of black lashes–
    The eyes look and the look falls.

    There is no way, no way. So close
    one may feel the warmth of the cheek and yet there is
    no way.

    The benefits of poverty are a roughened skin
    of the hands, the broken
    knuckles, the stained wrists.

                Serious. Not as the others.
    All the rest are liars, all but you.
                                        Wait on us.
    Wait on us, the hair held back practically
    by a net, close behind the ears, at the sides of
    the head. But the eyes–
                            but the mouth, lightly (quickly)
    touched with rouge.

    The black dress makes the hair dark, strangely
    enough, and the white dress makes it light.
    There is a mole under the jaw, low under
    thr right ear–

                And what arms!

                                        The glassruby ring
    on the fourth finger of the left hand.

                                        –and the movements
under the scant dress as the weight of the tray
    makes the hips shift forward slightly in lifting
    and beginning to walk–

    The Nominating Committee presents the following
    resolutions, etc. etc. etc. All those
    in favor signify by saying, Aye. Contrariminded,
    No.
      Carried.
                And aye, and aye, and aye!

    And the way the bell-hop runs downstairs:
          ta tuck a
                ta tuck a
                      ta tuck a
                            ta tuck a
                                  ta tuck a
    and the gulls in the open window screaming over the slow
    break of the cold waves–

                O unlit candle with the soft white
    plume, Sunbeam Finest Safety Matches all together in
    a little box–

                And the reflections of both in
    the mirror and the reflection of the hand, writing
    writing–
                Speak to me of her!-

                –and nobody else and nothing else
    in the whole city, not an electric sign of shifting
    colors, fourfoot daisies and acanthus fronds going from
    red to orange, green to blue–forty feet across–

                                        Wait on us, wait
    on us with your momentary beauty to be enjoyed by
    none of us. Neither by you, certainly,
                                                nor by me.

 

with love from Poems, 1928

 

 

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

beauty & speech wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
being wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
black wormhole: Impression of Winter: Carriage on a Country Road, 1872
blue & grey & writing wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
city & William Carlos Williams wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
communication wormhole: agreed termination without prejudice
eyes wormhole: between
glass & red wormhole: travelling / back
green & woman wormhole: on facing the Have
hair wormhole: SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams
hands wormhole: THE LONELY STREET by William Carlos Williams
looking wormhole: waiting to be heard
mirror wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
mouth wormhole: glamour of saṃsāra
open wormhole: animus rises – powieview #37
orange & others & walking wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
reflection wormhole: I
sea & seagull & waves wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
silence & sound wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873
thinking wormhole: there will be ovations
white wormhole: alabaster balustrade
windows wormhole: birth in the world

 

SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1921, 5*, ageing, blossom, glass, green, grey, hair, leaves, plum, Spring, white, William Carlos Williams

                                SPRING

                O my grey hairs!
                You are truly white as plum blossoms.

 

 

 

                                LINES

                Leaves are greygreen,
                the glass broken, bright green.

 

from Sour Grapes, 1921
there is a beauty to ageing, there is a crack to glass; which cannot be appreciated until one has shifted at right angles to the time it takes or the import it hasn’t

 

 

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

blossom wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
glass wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye
green & leaves & Spring wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
grey wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – both fawn and grey
hair wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
white wormhole: we held cold hands
William Carlos Williams wormhole: THURSDAY by William Carlos Williams

 

fifty-eight // and silent prayers

Tags

1979, 2017, 6*, age, birthday, blue, Castleton, clouds, cross-section, direction, gold, green, hair, heartbeat, hills, identity, knees, landscape, lifetimes, metal, neck, prayer, ripple, road, shirt, silence, silver, step, sun, time, travelling, walking, wandering

                                fifty-eight times now

                wandering dopey through another landscape

                                (walking) up into the hills
                                to find the golden sun –
                                sheet-metal through
                                flanks of cloud

                                the snaking A-road
                                sunk and cascaded
                                in 1979, petrified cross-
                                sections there to study

                                never travelling far
                                but up in giant gulp-steps
                                heart beats in the back
                                of the neck and down

                                through the knees
                                with the rising pass

                I stand now at fifty eight with clipped and

                                silvering hair with
                                check and green-blue
                                shirt and silent prayers
                                rippling to all directions

 

 

 

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

birthday wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
blue wormhole: I
Cadtleton wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
clouds & hills wormhole: mauve
gold wormhole: so / do I keep on writing now I’ve retired, or … / Rumplestiltskin
green & walking wormhole: abandoned sound mirrors
hair & sun wormhole: ash leaves
identity wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
lifetimes wormhole: oh, alright then
silence wormhole: where did the silence go
silver wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
time wormhole: sreet
travelling wormhole: breakfast

 

ash leaves

Tags

2017, 6*, advertising, afternoon, ash tree, branches, cars, girl, hair, head, nose, phone, portrait, reflection, Rome, sitting, speaking, sun, taxi, windows

                sat on the ledge of a display window
                in the via Germanico, she turned her head

                to speak on her phone, for the sun
                to light her half-forehead, her nose, her lip,

                while the old man wiped his car down
                with a wet rag; the girl – now looked

                at her text? – and grown a pony tail
                in her reflection, watched the taxi

                reverse across an open parking space
                with two antennae at the rear

                of the roof aligned under low-hanging
                branches of jagged ash leaves

 

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: low afternoon
branches wormhole: letting them go
cars wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
girl wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
hair wormhole: … the underleaves show
reflection wormhole: chuckling
sun wormhole: breakfast
windows wormhole: tram

 

… 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

 

Sheffield Park Gardens

Tags

2016, 9*, air, black, blue, bluebells, branches, Buddha, Carol, children, contemplation, copper beech, creation, daffodil, dandelions, discovery, duck, eyebrow, face, family, fields, flag, future, garden, gem, girls, glance, green, hair, Have, humanity, India, kalpa, lake, land, life, limbs, living, mauve, May, name, passing, petals, plants, pollen, primrose, promise, rhododendron, seeing, serendipity, settlement, shade, Sheffield Park Gardens, sitting, society, stone-chat, talking to myself, transluscency, tribe, voices, walking, water, yellow

                Sheffield Park Gardens

                we walked
                upright
                across wide fields

                in scattered groups,
                family and tribe,
                private longing

                under shaded
                brim for a land
                of silk and money

                8th May 2016, with

                only childrens’ voices
                we walked into
                the garden

                dispersing to
                our hides to make our own
                discoveries

                by happenstance
                and peripheral glance
                held cold and fresh

                before name:
                that stone-chat
                that makes the

                copper beech
                transluscent;
                the cool stretch of branch

                yet to bud
                before the haze
                of dusty pollen;

                what to make
                of the solitary dandelion –
                butter yellow life –

                amid
                fain clusters of primrose; and
                there in the shade,

                mauve-bells and
                daffodil stalks make in-
                visible a steely blue;

                bluebells
                like raised eyebrows, relaxèd
                to see a future;

adult voices pass, now, talking ways of life; young girls practise handstands and routines in the fields;                

                let’s sit by the lake awhile:
                where a duck’s
                head

                sits
                just out the shade of exotic plants
                (let’s say, from India)

                the water lapping
                anywhere (let’s say, oh,
                 two thousand

                 five hundred
                 years ago), tucked
                immaculate

                black
                letting nothing out
                but the feint

                of blue
                or green that will form a gem
                in kalpas

                of contemplation;
                across the water a willow rests
                like a flag

                (girl’s hair
                 recovers from each upswing from each
                 hand-stand);

                turning home
                Carol stooped
                to smell the rhododendron flower

                “oh, …”

                pushed her face
                into the petals with lust
                was it

                because I’d
                said the branches
                were an orgy of slippy limbs

                or was it just me
                making things up
                as we walked along?

 

I know, I know, it’s mid February, and the poem was written and set in a May; it’s not seasonally right, but this was the next in line to be printed: them’s the chops …

 

 

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

air wormhole: Batgirl –
black & blue & Carol & passing wormhole: travelling // arrival
branches & voices wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
Buddha wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
family wormhole: out
garden wormhole: slightly / uphill
green wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
hair wormhole: two profiles
Have wormhole: Coleton Fishacre
life wormhole: sweet chestnut
living wormhole: ‘still …’
mauve wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
seeing wormhole: glide
sitting wormhole: amid
society wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
talking to myself wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
walking wormhole: loss
water wormhole: without any buffet at all
yellow wormhole: greedy

 

two profiles

Tags

2016, 5*, balcony, being, chair, eyes, face, feet, hair, legs, Lewes, library, mouth, neck, passing, pen, portrait, reading, skyline, step, study

                two profiles

                reading – backdrop of cascade swept back across neck
                line from thinned mouth to pen to poise to foot on
                chair leg to foot step to ground …

                    step past un-laced shoe bounce girder-sprung
                                                            balcony,
                                                    no,
                                          forgot
                                    some
                    thing, got it now, settling down to reception

                studying – cascade over both shoulders crescent face
                with hood eyes and smirky mouth, counter-recline
                of neck to body to outstretch legs crossed at boot

                tinkling the laptop awhile with open-mouthed
                tentation hidden by the handbag, skylined by flask

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: ‘still …’
eyes & mouth wormhole: looking ahead
face wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
feet wormhole: when the rain has settled / the dust
hair wormhole: Batgirl –
Lewes wormhole: reating & wriding
library wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
passing wormhole: “I need help”
reading wormhole: for / the first time
skyline wormhole: river

 

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

 

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

 

immeasurable love

Tags

2014, 5*, coffee shop, eyes, hair, Haywards Heath, identity, lost, love, mauve, portrait, table, texting

 

                immeasurable love

                thumbs texting (in her lap under
                the table at a terrace) like
                an old knitting machine,
‘I-am-at-the-coffee-shop?-I-have-too-much-make-up-on-and-my-hair-has-a-mauve-tint-but-is-dreddy-round-the-roots-and-I-don’t-know-where-I-am’
                                                                she sends and looks up
                                                                through make-up eyes
                                                                which say, ‘please come
                                                                and get me’

 

 

 

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

coffee shop wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
eyes wormhole: is there anything to write?
hair wormhole: place
Haywards Heath wormhole: on
identity & table wormhole: at table 21 in the garden centre thinking to / replicate Hughes’ exercise for Plath about / the Yew Tree
love wormhole: all the sandstone / reflections in the / marble-blue troughs
mauve wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey