BLUEFLAGS by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1921, 6*, air, blossom, blue, cars, children, distance, flowers, grapes, green, gutter, light, marsh, mist, petals, reeds, smell, strawberries, streets, sun, voices, water, William Carlos Williams, willow

                                BLUEFLAGS

                I stopped the car
                to let the children down
                where the streets end
                in the sun
                at the marsh edge
                and the reeds begin
                and there are small houses
                facing the reeds
                and the blue mist
                in the distance
                with grapevine trellises
                with grape clusters
                small as strawberries
                on the vines
                and ditches
                running springwater
                that continue the gutters
                with willows over them.
                The reeds begin
                like water at a shore
                their pointed petals waving
                dark green and light.
                But blueflags are blossoming
                in the reeds
                which the children pluck
                chattering in the reeds
                high over their heads
                which they part
                with bare arms to appear
                with fists of flowers
                till in the air
                there comes the smell
                of calamus
                from wet, gummy stalks.

 

from Sour Grapes, 1921
WCW was good enough to let us into his local so much that we found his family there too; he espoused the search for poetry within your own fingernails, within your local yards and backstreets, within your private moments in front of your own mirror, within the loaned experience which can only be borrowed when you’ve brought up children and shown them the world in which you brought them to their own existence … rather than charging off for it rummaging about Europe’s kulture: he was an icognito prince, old WCW

 

 

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

air wormhole: THURSDAY by William Carlos Williams
blossom wormhole: SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams
blue wormhole: coterminalism – there is nothing happens by itself, / 070118
cars wormhole: ash leaves
green & William Carlos Williams wormhole: SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams
light wormhole: A Solitude by Denise Levertov
mist wormhole: that
smell wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – old George
streets wormhole: we held cold hands
sun wormhole: only
voices & water wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough

 

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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

 

TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE by William Carlos Williams

Tags

2017, 7*, blue, brown, church, convergence, flower, jasmine, line, moon, morning, orange, petals, pink, pinnacle, seeing, sky, slate, smooth, steeple, stone, turquoise, weight, William Carlos Williams

                     TO A SOLITARY DISCIPLE

                Rather notice, mon cher,
                that the moon is
                tilted above
                the point of the steeple
                than that its color
                is shell-pink.

                Rather observe
                that it is early morning
                than that the sky
                is smooth
                as a turquoise.

                Rather grasp
                how the dark
                converging lines
                of the steeple
                meet at the pinnacle–
                perceive how
                its little ornament
                tries to stop them–

                See how it fails!
                See how the converging lines
                of the hexagonal spire
                escape upward–
                receding, dividing!
                –sepals
                that guard and contain
                the flower!

                Observe
                how motionless
                the eaten moon
                lies in the protecting lines.

                It is true:
                in the light colors
                of morning
                brown-stone and slate
                shine orange and dark blue.

                But observe
                the oppressive weight
                of the squat edifice!
                Observe
                the jasmine lightness
                of the moon.

 

from Al Que Quiere! 1917

it was me he was talking to, it was me; and although I was young and didn’t really follow him with consciousness, nevertheless, as I grow older I notice, mon cher, that I walk about with my head, tilted;

 

 

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

blue wormhole: new blue porsche
brown wormhole: brown corduroy shirt / and dark redwine tie
church wormhole: oh, alright then
moon wormhole: moon- // washed
morning & seeing wormhole: I don’t need to go out / onto the balcony to see behind me / to know what’s going on
orange wormhole: SPRING STRAINS by William Carlos Williams
pink wormhole: Bridgnorth
sky & William Carlos Williams wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams
stone wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye

 

agreed termination without prejudice

Tags

2016, 4*, bulb, communication, depression, despair, flower, growth, petals, retirement, stalk, teaching

                                how is the growth
                                from thorny stalk

                                to cuppèd bulb to
                                flowered petal made?

                agreed termination without prejudice

 

‘agreed termination without prejudice‘ is the phrase given when a teacher is too broken to try to return to work again for the seventh time in ten years, and both sides are so wearied of ‘the way things are‘ despite all the changes and accommodations made, other than what was actually needed; but I will snatch victory from the razor-sharp fog of defeat, I … shall not-ice

 

 

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

communication wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
depression wormhole: without any buffet at all
retirement & teaching wormhole: after all

 

tremule

Tags

2016, 4*, aggregate of pervasive composition, Bodhisattvacharyavatara, cycle, growth, heat, life, light, opening, petals, sun

                tremule of the first petal
                impuissant and opening

                inexorable and hideous,
                demanding act of decay

                under constant resolve
                of light, heat and sun

 

Bodhisattvacharyavatara, I, 6 (tr. Batchelor): Hence virtue is perpetually feeble, / the great strength of evil being extremely intense, / and except for a Fully Awakening Mind / by what other virtue will it be overcome?

 

 

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

life wormhole: next unexpected step
light wormhole: certainly a Captain, / but not America
sun wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call

 

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

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – introdepthion

Tags

2016, contact, currents, dark, diagram, floating, growth, identity, kiss, knowledge, life, light, London, movement, opening, pattern, perspective, petals, roots, soil, stanza, surface, swimming, the Boats of Vallisneria, uncle, vallisneria, waiting, war, water, waves, work, writing

 

 

 

                                introdepthion

                                filigree roots dissimulate the soil
                                at the bottom of shallow waters
                                (like a diagram – no contact, with
                                 sheath of border); a stalk will grow

                                through water, sure twists towards
                                the light; on the surface petals will
                                open wide without shame and wait
                                for the floret to rise from the bract

                                then release just three boats for to
                                float the potent cargo where the
                                movement of water will hazard the
                                inexorable kiss; but there is no

                                morphology or physiology of
                                vallisneria, only certain quest from
                                darkness to light, and the surface-
                                knowledge retrieved back; I am

                                a Londoner born through war to
                                work the land to look for pattern in
                                life to make, trusting it is there to
                                swim through, but lost in currents

                                to and `fro with only adventitious
                                and god-like perspective when I
                                contemplate in four-line stanza …
                                sometimes

 

read the collected work as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to : The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Introduction

 

 

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

1967 & life & uncle & work wormhole: The Boats of Vallesneria by Michael J. Redford – Autumn Thoughts
identity & knowledge & light & London & water & writing wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Introduction
waiting wormhole: and that’s where I are
war wormhole: the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford
waves wormhole: Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20

 

The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Introduction

Tags

1967, being, consciousness, countryside, dark, experience, farm, flower, garden, identity, kiss, knowledge, life, light, living, London, mind, now, pattern, petals, plants, pond, the Boats of Vallisneria, thought, uncle, unconscious, vallisneria, water, writing

 

INTRODUCTION

The Boats of Vallisneria.   Not the fishing fleet of some remote principality or the landing forces of an invading alien.   Vallisneria is an aquatic plant, the roots of which grow in the soil at the bottom of shallow waters.   The pistillate flower is found at the top of a long stalk which grows up through the water towards the light of day.   Upon reaching the surface, the petals unfold in sheer abandonment to expose the stigmas that await the procreative advances of its male counterpart which is the staminate floret that grows below the surface in a large bract.   When ripe, it emerges and floats to the top where three small petals unfold and curl back to produce the three tiny boats that keep the stamens afloat where, through the movement of the water, the stamens gently kiss the stigmas of the awaiting flower in that final act of consummation.

But this small volume does not concern itself with the morphology or physiology of vallisneria or that of any other flower, in fact there is no direct connection between the title of this book and its contents.   Suffice it to say that the mind is a pond, but a pond of such depth that the sediment of our experiences lays in the bottom in utter darkness.   Every so often a thought is born and speeds hastily from the soil in which it grows to the light of consciousness.   After a brief spell of blossoming the flower returns to the depths taking with it a little food that is the knowledge of the eternal ‘now’.

I am a farm labourer, not because I was born to it (for I am a Londoner by birth) but because I desired from an early age a completion of my being that I knew I could not attain in the artifices of town life.   But soon I fear I shall be leaving the farming life, not through desire or choice, but through the evolvement of that particular pattern that is laid down for each and every one of us, the unalterable pattern that we must all follow no matter how limitless our own personal bounds of freedom.   I shall however, still be living in the countryside and will retain the sense of fulfilment this way of life has afforded me until the end of my days, no matter where I go or what I do in the years to come.

It was while gazing vacantly at a pool one evening two years ago that I first beheld the boats of vallisneria and thought of them as random thoughts released from the depths of the mind for brief spells in the light of consciousness, and it was then that I decided to capture these thoughts and to the best of my ability place them on paper.   This small book then, is a collection of thoughts, a collection of the reflections of a farm labourer who has reaped more than corn from his own particular way of life.

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

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

1967 & mind & uncle wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Contents
being & identity wormhole: zero
garden & life & London & writing wormhole: the coming of ‘The Boats of Vallisneria’ by Michael J. Redford
knowledge wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
light wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23
living wormhole: balancing // with a whole lot of deft
thought wormhole: between thoughts
water wormhole: aghh – we’ve been infected / it’s spreading through the system / we’re losing our files … / it’s taken out the processor … / I, I can’t open with this program anymore … / it’s scanning me – / I’ve got to buy a Virus Protection Program / from it …

 

of a sudden // all the time

Tags

2015, balance, ceiling, flame, form, light, movement, petals, poem, shadow, sitting, stillness, time, walls

 

 

 

                                   of a sudden

                                   the candle flame
                                   shifts and flicks, then
                                   sits in balance, still,
                                   and comsuming, still
                                   and emitting, folded
                                   and recouping, then
                                   sits in adjustment
                                   spliterring and
                                   forming, finding
                                   a perfect petal …
                                   leaning   leaning
                                   spluttering creating
                                   shadow and light
                                   in flux across wall
                                   and ceiling

                                   all the time

                                   whether I can
                                   form the poem or not

 

 

 

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

balance & walls wormhole: on walking through walls
light wormhole: 1971
shadow wormhole: Buddha / Shakyamuni
sitting wormhole: corner of Plum Lane / Eglinton Hill and / Shrewsbury Lane
stillness wormhole: no cars / no planes
time wormhole: the tangles fall apart

 

‘the old chair rocked …’

Tags

1980, 4*, 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