IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1932, bus, dog, ears, gold, hair, head, love, mouth, neck, passing, portrait, travelling, William Carlos Williams, yellow

                IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS

                      Upon the fallen
                      cheek

                      a gauzy down–
                      And on

                      the nape
                      –indecently

                      a mat
                      of yellow hair

                      stuck with
                      celluloid

                      pins
                      not quite

                      matching it
                      –that’s

                      two shades
                      darker

                      at the roots
                      Hanging

                      from the ears
                      the hooks

                      piercing the
                      flesh–

                      gold and semi-
                      precious

                      stones–
                      And in her

                      lap the dog
                      (Youth)

                      resting
                      his head on

                      the ample
                      shoulder his

                      bright
                      mouth agape

                      pants restlessly
                      backward

 

from POEMS 1932
it was the revelation: that there was of such importance, in the minute observation, with wonder, of the minutest things, with love, and their intersposal with each other, with relationship, quite denuded of any sticky intention, that let’s them so; that has made WCW such an influential poet for me

 

 

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

bus wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
dog wormhole: on / that / day
gold wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Rain
hair & mouth wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
love wormhole: poessay XI – piquant love
travelling wormhole: nowhere / that can be seen
William Carlos Williams wormhole: POEM by William Carlos Williams
yellow wormhole: travelling,

 

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on facing the Have

Tags

2018, 7*, being, block, blue, bone, cause and effect, change, choice, clothes, clouds, Darwin, death, depth, discipline, doing, dream, drifting, economics, emerald, extermination, faces, government, green, grey, hats, Have, head, hills, hinge, humanity, identity, iron, kiss, life, loss, making, mud, music, neck, peacock, photography, power, quotidian, river, roof, settlement, shadow, Shrewsbury, slow, society, statue, stone, streets, tectonic plates, time, trees, violence, walls, war, watching, water, woman, World War, writing

                bone to stone drifting
                catastrophic slow

                lee to face-ward drifting
                shadow to quotidian

                suggesting life
                only when settled

                under branch of roof;
                noticeable change

                comes at the price
                of sheild and pike:

                death-mask disciplined
                to the painted face

                open to the very depth
                of loss, later settled

                to economies of
                plea, barter and

                proliferation of fact
                artisaned superfluous

                to being – faces fixed
                in leer the rest of

                born days, where
                animals are skinned

                under abnegated face,
                where stone walls

                turn green, staining
                clothing and where the

                emerald poise of head
                and neck watches

                the peck of open flay, all
                “exterminated by

                 slow acting and still
                 existing causes …”

                … time begins
                to tick – well it had to

                start somewhere – and
                with time cometh writing

                and with writing the
                topography fades from

                hill-wide face to
                pock-mark street and settlement

                all fitted ingeniously
                with raised wall over arch,

                high to unresolved descant
                always left in minor;

                the woman bends
                to the laundry before

                the rush of water
                released from the mill:

                power is only explicit
                when blocked and

                channelled, tree to
                gable with date

                and signature, silk
                to valence with

                drape of repose and spreading peacock dream;
                so, is there choice

                of governance: cut
                through from neck to child;

                you stay unnatural-still
                your image will be caught,

                you turn, and your
                head will disappear,

                you climb the wall
                and stand still, you

                stay in the mud yard
                and stand still, … only

                hats stay constant, cast-
                iron flanges reach

                from cast-circular
                hinges, woven to corset,

                slave to youth; the
                memorial stone,

                painfully-carved,
                reflects the blue

                of grey cloud, under
                posts of wire

                the death-etched
                face stoops to kiss

                the face of
                wholly mud

 

291218 – spent the afternoon at the Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery to tread time from immemorial to the First World War; the quote is from “Thinking Path” by Shirley Chubb (2004), an exhibition that explores the life and legacy of Charles Darwin, an artwork and series of installations inspired by Darwin’s daily ritual of walking the same path at Down House; “Shadow Stories”, an animated short film by Samantha Moore is not directly referenced but weaves about the whole perambulation; references include the Roman conquest, medieval, Civil War, and industrial exhibits, up to the Open Art Exhibition commemorating the 100th anniversary of the First World War

 

 

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

being & clouds & doing & identity & power wormhole: The Passage of the St. Gothard, 1804
blue & woman wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XI by William Carlos Williams
change & streets wormhole: to let be
death wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
dream wormhole: THURSDAY by William Carlos Williams
economics & society & walls & war wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
faces wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Cows
green & shadow & trees & writing wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
grey & time wormhole: La Route de Louveciennes, 1870
Have wormhole: SPRING AND ALL VI by William Carlos Williams
life wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
music wormhole: JANUARY by William Carlos Williams
river wormhole: quiet river
roof wormhole: breakfast
stone wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
water wormhole: SPRING AND ALL I 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

 

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

 

brown corduroy shirt / and dark redwine tie

Tags

2017, 6*, breath, brown, eyes, hair, identity, life, neck, nose, portrait, red, retirement, shirt, tie, Virginia Woolf, writing

                                brown corduroy shirt
and dark redwine tie

                finding Virginia
                                              young before gathered and drapèd hair
                                              over enquiring philtrum
                old where sternomastoids meet
                below the whole larynx readying to write properly
                                              and hooded eyes half closed to stolidity
                                                              half open to breath

 

 

read the whole sequence: in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …; I bought myself some new shirts with the no-blame severance pay I accepted to make it all stop – one of the shirts is a mid-brown corduroy that naps a darker brown when stroked because it hasn’t washed worn yet; the tie I bought from a charity shop before I even started teaching – deep burgundy red, slim and tonic in the light; I have been meaning to get in to Virginia Woolf for quite some time, but the afternoon light of the parlour has never been quite right; am I pathetic: oh yes, but at least I can write about it; Carol likes to travel as an instinctive way to comb-through the threads of career and life; we planned a trip to the stones in Wiltshire started with the Avebury stones …

 

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

breath wormhole: and smile / like a bud
brown wormhole: occa / s / i // o / n / a // l // l // y
eyes wormhole: darkness
hair wormhole: handsome
identity wormhole: bud
life wormhole: somewhere
red wormhole: love and precision
retirement wormhole: retirement
writing wormhole: no / thing

 

sleep now

Tags

1997, 2012, 7*, breathing, cotton, doing, dream, dress, embarrassment, evening, feet, girl, hands, identity, lap, legs, movement, muse, neck, portal, purpose, quiet, searching, shop, shoulders, sitting, sleep, streetlight, talking, toes, waiting, writing, yellow

I am safe in a corner shop (looking for portals on shelves in racks)
evening gathers inside ending-day-busy streetlights just          on

a girl and myself waiting to be served quiet     I am seated     waiting
the girl is fidgeting her shoe drawing her foot out slightly

to see her veined feet the root of her toes; she notices me noticing
and moves to another part of the shop adjusting         something

I am sorry; she has on a yellow dress; she comes back to the counter
stands beside me talking to the shopkeeper adjusting her tights now

plucking them up raising her dress a little, she steps and sits on my lap
without talking without referring to me still talking to the shopkeeper

clean crumpled yellow cotton neck; oh; a little bashful I put my arms
around her waist, she continues to talk engaged in her business

her hands come to rest on my hands on her legs I am embarrassed
but she is comfortable in my lap moving and leaning as she talks

thank you yellow cotton shoulder, now I know what to write
now I know what to do, now I can breathe      deeply, I think I could

sleep now

 

 

 

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

breathing & doing wormhole: I
dream & girl & muse wormhole: adjustment
evening wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
feet & writing wormhole: returning home handsome
hands wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
identity wormhole: passersby
quiet wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
searching wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35
sitting wormhole: time
sleep wormhole: gone black
streetlight wormhole: well,
talking wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Snow
waiting & yellow wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow

 

recovered

Tags

2015, ageing, cafe, eyes, hair, hope, life, mouth, neck, others, pointlessness, realisation, settling, talking to myself

 

 

 

                OK
                I am not
                recovered from the
                hollow purpose of life
                that makes my neck crick
                and my hair fall out that droops
                my mouth and hangs my liquid eyes
                to gaze above the heads for hope and see

                                that no one else is either at the garden café

 

 

 

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

eyes wormhole: three musicians
hair & mouth wormhole: gre[wh]y / has Daddy left us?
life wormhole: Sunday afternoon
others & talking to myself wormhole: after all?
pointlessness wormhole: now, have I forgotten anything
realisation wormhole: lo
settling wormhole: the stance of Buscema // qualitatively

 

three musicians

Tags

1830, 2104, brother, eyes, gaze, green, guitar, hands, landscape, lips, neck, pink, portrait, silk, sister, sky, sleeve, velvet, white, years

 

 

 

                three musicians

                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

 

Of One Heart – Cornelis Kruseman, 1830

 

 

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

eyes wormhole: gre[wh]y / has Daddy left us?
green wormhole: Morning in a City, 1944
guitar wormhole: city twilight
hands wormhole: recline
pink wormhole: Totnes
sky wormhole: The Louvre in a Thunderstorm, 1909
white wormhole: I do
years wormhole: 1963

 

portrait … // … reading

Tags

2013, 6*, Birmingham, blue, Carol, coffee shop, eyes, hair, mouth, neck, orange, portrait, reading

 

 

 

                                              portrait …

                                              OK
                                quite a study, this
                                let’s start with the elbow
                                on the empty chair back beside her
                                fingertips cradling her hairline
                                thumb nudge cheek forward
                                lids down – visor down –
                                bulbous over those hungry eyes … twitching,
                                (no, slow down), over the
                                anguline bridge and whufff
                                off the slightly pudgy nose leaving
                                draped cheek and pelmet jowl
                                parted pert by the ‘don’t know what
                                you think you’re looking at’ mouth above
                                the neck-ward stanchions pilloried
                                down between the orange-blue check collars …

                                              … reading

 

 

 

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

blue & eyes & orange wormholes: Birmingham / 030413
C wormhole: possible
coffee wormhole: an event
hair wormhole: Leicester
mouth wormhole: man of tomorrow
reading wormhole: accumulation of wisdom

 

the last piece of pop

Tags

2013, 7*, being, breathing, growth, insight, letting go, living, music, neck, shoulders, sitting, thinking

 

 

 

                                I can have an insight
during meditation
                (during anytime)

                                shoulders relax
I can breathe out deeper
                I can smile with my ears

                                but if I collect to recreate the insight
‘I like this, this is the way to be’
                next session next breath

                                my shoulders develop an epicenter with my neck
I breathe in and out in the rock pools and shallows
                and I grit my teeth trying to stop playing the last piece of pop I heard on the radio which I never liked in the first place but the ringing guitars and the chorus refrain just keep skipping and repeating without fade                                

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: muse
breathing wormhole: 0.42
letting go wormhole: emerging
living wormhole: chrysalissing
music wormhole: in the kitchen
sitting wormhole: open / window
thinking wormhole: here is a / whiney accumulation of / wisdom