‘aitches’ touch on quite a few boat-ties to my past: ‘Herbert Road’ was the local shopping high street where I lived in London until I was 19; it is in Plumstead which spreads south over the crest of ‘Shooters Hill’ and merges into Woolwich down to the river Thames; ‘Hillside’ is one of a little cluster of houses where I settled to raise a family and grow a career in Crowborough in the late 1980s – that same 80s that, mean-and-all-the-while, Thatcher was creaking open that casket (‘can’t read the label – “–ora’s Box”?’) which left me alien to my own background and lost in my own riverbank mist, save for the miraculous peek of haiku and the deadened gaze of bay window …
`haven’t published a tag cloud poem in a while: they’re made up of the larger tags of my work built up over the years – this one emerged into a series of haiku[esque] pieces of work – almost inevitably; this one was particularly difficult to form, the tag-words didn’t run off each other smoothly – I must admit I left a few words out; the green links are to those respective tags, the different sized fonts determined by the number of ‘topics’ that pertain to that tab … nerk!
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 …
the velvet sleeve crumpled
from out the musty landscape
the silken collar waven white
from the green velvet bodice
the cinnamon-milky neck from
tremulous-springy collar bones
the chilled-pink ear that
directs her gaze newly upwards
as her sister guides with held
hand-unto lips-engorged sky
past the gaze of brother into
her eyes her eyes from which
berry-sweet new chordings
can be found on the guitar neck
on her side
her arm up-reaching
hand right-angled
away bare toes stretching blue dress banked flowers draped she
looked behind and suddenly slightly
smiled
watching
that woman, there, striding
away from the bench to
peer down the road-works
to see what they’re up to
in her ill-fitting sandals
heel lift and flick-in a little
with slim calves and Hampshire
lope and shuffle
with arms dangling hand-lazy
off sad-mouth shoulders and
shapeless jumper (that she
always wears these days) and
that mad puffball of grey
kept in check only, only by
sunglasses
that woman
married-with for thirty two years
through accumulating betters
and diminishing worses
off to cook a meal
because she’s got an idea
while I rest from the back
I pulled doing nothing significant
on a long short walk hands held
together
I love with all the history and lack of perfections at our command
Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 –
the breath of London
the four storey station at the top of the hill
once housed fire engines high on their tyres
all buffed red and waiting behind folding doors
are flats now; while up by the chimneys a blackbird
sings various songs as the cars pass variegated
along in the quiet morning light under low grey sky
Victorian houses stand four dimensions wide
and chimney flue and pipework deep are also flats
as starlings fight without let without resolve
in the overgrown privacy in front the front garden
when the loading crane on the building supply
truck lurches wrenching over the speed hump
downhill two young boys stalk around the front garden
perched on the brick pillars by the steep pavement
and Canary Wharf tower has new buildings around it
like slow plumes of smoke from a distance; forty years
now and my shadow is still stumpy walking before
me and my left ear still sticks out noticeably …
when the hill turns flat we walk by the water reading
hoardings announcing Woolwich re-generation
along Powis Street where the child veers along
in a straight line c’mere darlin’ c’mere ‘cos I can’t
‘andle that when you ignore me, you know I can’t
‘andle that darlin’ … doosyatold … get off
walking the dog white trainers hat back jaw out eyes
half-closed mouth slightly open – seen – hand out
thumb loose seven steps grasp hold while the greeting
happen huugg! – ‘the road is long …’; there, bellies out
hanging some pregnant one hanging and pregnant
striped tank-top still with ponytail but about my age
“I will step – ” slight push heel up left foot swing
w-i-d-e from right leg shoulder twist evenly in step
alternately arms out “ – because this is all I have to
show f’m’self”; truck: “A tool for every job” teeth
too big for his mouth mouthing at the young mothers
pushing their buggies before him as he changes gear
