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

 

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St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards / with the forelegs hanging down obscene / reaching some height blindly to connect / out from the long-stalk tri-separating up- / to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what / is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know- / what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and- / it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”

Tags

'scape, 2013, 8*, age, being, blindness, blue, books, breeze, Carol, contrapuntal, Derbyshire, flies, flying, grass, hill, mating, plants, seeds, shelf, speech, stone

                St. Mark’s flies flagpole upwards
                with the forelegs hanging down obscene
                reaching some height blindly to connect
                out from the long-stalk tri-separating up-
                to-seeded rounds of pod like acacia what
                is it called “‘hogweed’ I-don’t-know-
                what-it’s-called-but-goats-love-it-and-
                it-makes-them-burp-a-lot”

                stones like grouped books on a shelf
                some fat enough to stand upright by themselves
                some leaning
                some fat ones leaning anyway
                with twisted spine

                various stalks of dried grasses
                reach slightly arthritic and
                inflexible in the breeze
                their seeds spent but ragged contrapuntal

                to the distant hill risen
                too old to read
                too stone-blue to talk with
                there and always there
                and only there by its lone and ever self

 

 

 

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

being & breeze wormhole: lesson from watching two crane flies work the evening / skating across the panes flying and pushing legs grappling / the glass crossing repulsive over themselves and clinging akimbo / for a rest until lifeless just to get their stickly bodies through to the light
blue wormhole: St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton
books wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
Carol wormhole: ‘quick – she’s gone to pay …’
grass wormhole: prospect
speech wormhole: municipal garden
stone wormhole: prelude: // travel

 

was there a moon / on the alleyway wall / confused in front of / the city skyline?

Tags

2014, 5*, action, Batman, cape, city, connection, faces, light, moon, plants, shadow, silhouette, skyline, thinking, trees, walls

                was there a moon
                on the alleyway wall
                confused in front of
                the city skyline?

                the rising moon over the city
                makes action detached,
                the figure lost in silhouette
                but for highlighted cloth-crease
                and pad of shoulder

                whereas indoors
                the silhouette is lightened on body and wall
                and shadows appear
                across the face of thinking men
                while potted plants look on
                in foreground and detail

                the journey from city to house
                is between two trees as the moon descends
                you need simply lean in lunge and cape and arm
                and you’re there
                under the sole arc of light
                clashing outlines of silhouette
                interconnected and enlightened

 

 

 

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

Batman wormhole: the / bright yellow / world
city wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Safe Home
faces wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – mmpph’
light wormhole: AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!
moon wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – moment
shadow & skyline & trees wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – … as the new town marches in
silhouette wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
thinking wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23
walls wormhole: the 19th century

 

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 …

 

Michael Redford: triptych

Tags

1935, 1970, 2007, 2009, 2012, afterlife, armchair, being, black, brown, carpet, chair, cigar, doing, doors, evening, fire, floorboards, garden, green, horizon, life, living, living room, night, piano, plants, plastic, Ramsden Heath, realisation, sitting, sitting room, smell, sound, table, talking, trees, uncle, windows, wine, wood

 

 

 

                                           Michael Redford
                                           1935-2007

                                           later on
                           he strolled in the garden
                           breathing the night and the plants
                           smoking a fine cigar

                           then he paused
                           and looked back at the armchair
                           where he had been sitting –
                                           Pphffffff

 

—~~M~~—

 

                                              sitting room

                                              plastic-marbled
                                              chest-height handle

                                              smell of sofa-linen
                                              and wood-fire evenings

                                              with company
                                              and dark green wines

                                              cool black boards and
                                              the white patterned carpet

                                              with almost-meeting
                                              crenellated walls

                                              brow-height mantelpiece
                                              on jungle green

                                              and the piano in the
                                              corner with duff bass keys –

                                              plant-shaking

 

—~~M~~—

 

                                                                      1970

                                                                      to my uncle
                                                                      shifting on
                                                                      hardplastic
                                                                      seat of dining
                                                                      chair – crack –

                                                                      elbow uncomfortable
                                                                      on table-edge
                                                                      carving – creak –
                                                                      to execute a
                                                                      perfect tree

                                                                      on the horizon
                                                                      with just two strokes
                                                                      one brown
                                                                      one green
                                                                      I knew then

                                                                      to put down
                                                                      my compass plans
                                                                      for every detail
                                                                      but only just now
                                                                      doing it

 

looking for what to publish today, I found my uncle unassumingly proffering the lesson in life that he always gave, even nine years after he died: that you don’t look for life, you notice it; some teachers teach by being rather than saying, so that you don’t realise you are being taught until you know; wherever he is now, I hope he knows what he gave me/us … in fact I dedicate the clean-ity of all I notice to return the gift to my uncle wherever his lives have led him now

 

 

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

being & doing wormhole: need
black wormhole: the start of adolescence
brown wormhole: London Hearts – poewieview #4
carpet wormhole: ‘the hour before dinner – / the empire of dusk’ – poewieview #6
doors & garden wormhole: impressionism
evening wormhole: well,
green & talking wormhole: bavardage
horizon & life wormhole: tag cloud poem IX – haiku is awkward / the more that is left in / like uncombed hair
living & night & smell & sound & table & windows & wood wormhole: B le tch l ey P ark
living room wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II
piano wormhole: tabla
Ramsden Heath & uncle wormhole: … still waving!
realisation wormhole: dream career // groggy
sitting wormhole: the writing’s on the wall
sitting room wormhole: purple and mauve
trees wormhole: words tumble like / boulders – poewieview #25

 

along

Tags

'scape, 2013, cars, Eastbourne, hawthorne, leaves, passing, plants, red, roads, sound, sun, wind

 

 

 

                                   along

                           the red stem bramble with
                                   no berries
                           woven in basket weave arcs
                                   by the road
                           bright underside of leaves shown
                                   to the sun
                                   and the wind
                           constant nngnrrrsh of the traffic
                                   behind
                           doesn’t quite cover the single cheep
                                   from one
                           of the hawthorn trees with fallen berries

 

 

 

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

cars & passing & sound wormhole: now, have I forgotten anything
Eastbourne wormhole: Exceat to Cuckmere Haven
leaves wormhole: the dash is magnificent / the shadow grotesque
red wormhole: library: start where you are IV // all the distance I have travelled!
roads wormhole: 1977
sun wormhole: Buddha / Shakyamuni
wind wormhole: corner of Plum Lane / Eglinton Hill and / Shrewsbury Lane

 

on sitting / in front of / a hedge

Tags

'scape, 2013, 6*, air, bramble, brown, conifer, death, disappearance, grass, green, hedge, looking, mauve, pink, plants, rain, shadow, shamatha, sitting, vipashyana, wind, windscreen, yellow

 

 

 

                                          on sitting
                                          in front of
                                          a hedge

                there’s nothing to see
                at first, but you keep sitting
                and looking, well there are
                colourful plants rising behind
                dusky pink and mauve and yellow
                conifer-tops beyond

                no, stay looking at the hedge

                OK well the rain switter’s across
                the windscreen veining vaguely within the arched wiper zones
                slowly obscuring and reflecting
                                the hedge away

                still, keep looking at the hedge

                movements of the wind shift the
                grasses grown tall and the hanging
                bramble stem obscene and reaching for advantage
                                probing air

                no, the hedge, the hedge

                has been cut
                during the last month
                some sort of bindweed growing up through it
                in patches hairy new-growth rilled along the top

                OK, not finished, keep looking

                and new-green creeping out the edges
                of the oldgreen and shadow navels other shapes
                stark and clearer because they
                have turned caramac brown and have
                                strangely
                                died

                alright now, time’s up

 

 

 

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

air & brown wormhole: emerged
death wormhole: ‘when it came / time to go …’
green & yellow wormhole: no hat
hedge wormhole: prologue
looking wormhole: titanic
mauve wormhole: moon
pink wormhole: there
rain wormhole: ‘I can hear it raining / but cannot see it …’
shadow wormhole: in the middle of silence and heat:
sitting wormhole: I will eventually drift tectonic
wind wormhole: I find / you find your bones / on the outbreath
windscreen wormhole: Seaford / 280310

 

they find their life growing together –

Tags

2014, 5*, architecture, Darmstadt, earth, field, forest, growth, Jon, life, love, passing, plants, population, portrait, relationship, Sara, society

                                   Sara is sited in
                           the slow growth and diurnal movement
                                          from the earth
                                   cultivating her relationships
                                   wide as a field

                           Jon reads the mechanisms of decline
                                   in the architecture of passing population
                                          finding love
                                   in clean and forest plant

                                   they find their life growing together –
                                          field into forest
                                          forest into field

 

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
field wormhole: “I think I’ll have a nice sandwich”
Jon wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
life wormhole: my fidgety self
love wormhole: HPB
passing wormhole: the declensions of constant possibility throughout times
society wormhole: plethora: the Dark Knight Strikes Again (2002)

 

swifts test the chasm of sky

Tags

'scape, 2013, 7*, anatta, being, breeze, Castleton, clouds, cottage, dark, doors, eyes, feet, grey, holiday, horizon, identity, life, living, mountain, plants, reading, rooftops, searching, sitting, sky, step, swifts, Sylvia Plath, table, tea, white

we ‘develop the stoop’ in the cottage through each door
we sit round the drop-leaf table in the corner elbows down

                                          I carry the mug of tea barefoot up the steps
                                          between upturned horse shoes and trailing plants

                to the patio surrounded and besieged by so many
                colourful plants each one self-contained and unknown

I sit and read of Plath’s life constricting like
an iris around the darkness so hard to achieve

                                            I sit with cushions behind but the chair is so hard
                                            I sit on the cushions but the chair leans back too far

and in between each breeze which scuffles the presence
of each plant the low traffic of cloud makes its way

                           slip above the rooftops orchestrated grey and white
                           tectonic a-glide under the spinal vapour trails and deeper up

                                          the mountain ranges immovable on the edge of horizon
                                          while swifts test the chasm of sky

 

 

 

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

being & clouds wormhole: Saturday
breeze & rooftops wormhole: afternoon 290613
Castleton wormhole: poetry
doors wormhole: anatta
eyes & reading wormhole: the strange mauve relief of / this burgundy-gritty encounter
feet wormhole: bell
grey wormhole: promenade
holiday wormhole: holiday
horizon & Sylvia Plath wormhole: thar she perched
identity wormhole: you fail
life wormhole: 32 years
living & white wormhole: where to find it
sitting wormhole: here
searching wormhole: losing the anxiety
sky wormhole: waiting
table wormhole: twisted / pulled / and chipped
tea wormhole: dawn

 

the strange mauve relief of / this burgundy-gritty encounter

Tags

2013, 5*, Belmer, books, burgundy, Carol, Dali, eyes, John Blofeld, Jung, karma, Leicester, love, mauve, opening, paranoiac criticism, plants, purple, reading, spore, sunset, synchronicity, Tara, UB40, windows

                                                    (Food for Thought)

                      in the university library
                           Jung’s synchronicity opened
                      deep through the pages to Dali’s
                           paranoiac criticism opening the eye
                      to Blofeld’s lone hymning of the goddess Tara
                           beguiled by Belmer’s illustrations –

                           the working through of karma?
                      all while the plants outside wafted their spore
                           through the high open windows
                      which caught behind my glasses as the sun
                           started its purple descent
                      when I could renew the strange mauve relief of
                           this burgundy-gritty encounter

 

 

 

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

books wormhole: grammar
burgundy wormhole: flat
C & Leicester & love & mauve & sun wormhole: we // walk
eyes wormhole: to share
purple wormhole: August / Adventure
reading wormhole: reading // unstirred
windows wormhole: waiting