… 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

 

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polystyrene / boulderscape

Tags

'scape, 2017, 5*, being, black, change, doing, emotion, green, hills, life, mauve, orange, purple, realisation, sky, Star Trek, transmission, violet

                                                polystyrene
                                boulderscape

                                                under orange skies
                                realisation
                is transmitted

                                                mauve to purple
                                he turns to face
                his life

                                                green and violet
                                over the black hills
                where officers try

                                                to control emotion,
                                nothing happens, and
                every thing changes

 

 

 

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

being wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
black & purple & sky wormhole: ‘when travelling astrally …’
change wormhole: with all love released
doing wormhole: ‘still …’
green wormhole: animus rises – powieview #37
hills wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – reaping
life wormhole: tremule
mauve wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
orange wormhole: cinnamon / milkshake
realisation wormhole: next unexpected step

 

‘when travelling astrally …’

Tags

1964, 2016, 5*, black, clouds, Dr Strange, facade, faces, fingers, purple, sky, Strange Tales, texture, time, travelling, walls, white, windows, world

                when travelling astrally the
                eloquent fingers navigate the
                world which is flat white or
                receding black where the only
                elapse are the hands of time
                and the turn of windows in
                the facades of 3rd dimension
                and gargoyle faces bystand
                on walls; light leans between
                struts and the clouds texture
                the sky like purple worms

 

from Strange Tales #121, ‘Witchcraft in the Wax Museum’, June 1964; Lee & Ditko

 

 

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

black & Dr Strange & time & walls wormhole: coagulating
black & white wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
clouds wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay
faces wormhole: turned backs of saddened victory
purple wormhole: with all love released
sky wormhole: between
travelling wormhole: travelling // arrival
windows & world wormhole: frame

 

with all love released

Tags

2016, 8*, air, anatta, birdcall, blue, breathing, Buddha, change, civilisation, dark, earth, echo, finding, glow, groundlessness, impermanence, inspiration, karma, letting go, looking, lost, love, purple, red, shadow, shelf, time

                I still look for you on the
                shelves and by the way

                head tilted to one side
                feeling in the shadows

                under foliage between
                stems for something lost

                shining darkly red
                pushing up through

                purple earth – fold of
                blue shadow – I knew

                you’d be here somewhere
                without remembering

                where I’d let you go,
                mutated through cycle

                as wax will wane; and
                I know when I find you

                I’ll notice the glow
                where it shouldn’t be

                obvious when discovered –
                I knew it! – but now

                my daylight groping is
                done; I have found no

                ground to stand on
                I must let you go again,

                my friends, and face
                the only task … alone

                I could track back
                through centuries of

                millennia and tectonic
                inch and breathe the

                same air, amid forming
                civilisations, the only

                air replenishable, as
                the man who strolled

                through parklands and
                birdcall, all possible

                echoes collapsed, and
                I could breathe that

                same heir both in and
                out with diminishing

                return dispersing the
                hanging proliferation of

                ténèbres hautes and
                redoubtable as they may

                seem, as known as I
                am not, with all love released

 

 

 

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

air & Buddha wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
blue & time wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
breathing & letting go wormhole: travelling // arrival
change wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – reaping
echo wormhole: looking / ridiculous
groundlessness wormhole: 1964
looking wormhole: between
love wormhole: cinnamon / milkshake
purple wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
red wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
shadow wormhole: low afternoon

 

the silent night of the Batman

Tags

2011, 7*, alley, attention, Batman, belief, black, blue, buildings, Christmas, city, east, fear, glass, green, guilt, ink, light, marble, marzipan, night, people, planes, purple, river, rooftops, rose, shops, silence, sky, skyline, smile, south, stars, streetlamp, thought, vista, windows, writing

                the silent night of the Batman

                even while they carried their
                gift-wrapped parcels and looked
                to each other with smiles of belief

                the shop signs hummed dark
                against the marbled frontage
                while above, quiet floors of

                clear-dark windows looked east
                looked south in the ink-black sky
                enough to write a novel in a

                single sitting, enough to hold
                a fleet of stars above the skyline
                stacking slowly; when the sky

                is ink-green the rooftop
                gathers ink-blue attention
                and leaps without step or

                swing through the glass and
                ledges of city vista, the lingering
                thought to shadow the guilt,

                the alley to streetlamp the
                fear, and over the river the rose
                cast high and wide to the stars until

                marzipan fingers reach across the
                ink-purple sky and marshmallow lights
                go out

 

 

 

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

attention wormhole: looking back over the tack / and jibe of my life I / notice there is / a fetch // after all … / but certainly not / where I had planned / or where I thought / I’d been
Batman: cape and cowl
black wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
blue wormhole: out
buildings & people wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
Christmas & stars wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
city wormhole: city streets
glass wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles
green & sky & smile wormhole: looking ahead
light wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
night & writing wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
purple wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
river wormhole: glide
rooftops wormhole: low afternoon
shops wormhole: in the Java ‘n’ Jazz
silence wormhole: is this it // all the time
skyline wormhole: clear as vista
thought & windows wormhole: for / the first time

 

pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria

Tags

'scape, 2016, 5*, burgundy, butter, communication, gladiolus, green, horizontal, lilac, morning, National Trust, olive, pine tree, purple, Standen, story, time, velvet, white, wisteria

                           pine

            crafted
bourough of uprise through decades
of averted event

                           gladioli

            what are the stories:
chilled petals of lilac from velveted purple
            morning buttercurls from
medicine burgundy?

                           wisteria

            networks
of unconnecting junction
necessary for combed and horizontal trail of olive and green flurry from which to hang the            
            requisite white and tinted
lilac

 

while strolling through the garden one day … at the National Trust house of Standen; I know this is a bit more summery than present-posting, but I just found the piece in a notebook and forgotten I’d written it, so, there …

 

 

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

burgundy wormhole: clouds
communication wormhole: comfy
green & white wormhole: occa / s / i // o / n / a // l // l // y
lilac wormhole: 1968
morning wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
olive wormhole: 1967
purple wormhole: south horizon
time wormhole: darkness

 

south horizon

Tags

1959, 1967, 1979, 1993, 1999, 2011, 2012, 7*, abandonment, anger, Bowie, childhood, Dad, discovery, divorce, drum, evening, experience, horizon, light, London, Margaret Thatcher, memory, Mum, Nan, pain, parents, perspective, purple, rhythm, river, saxophone, shift, Shooters Hill, south, texture, Thames, travelling, words, world

                south horizon

                out on the river
                the purple is shifting

                but in the evening-bulb light
                the world-shaping words

                of grown ups
                is shifting uncontrollably

                but,          no; it’s OK          look
                there is rhythm, there is

                a saxophone, a hi-hat – shflpt –
                in the crack there

                where words sift
                where worlds shift

 

I submitted this to an online magazine; they didn’t want it; I’ll publish it here again with the copy that supported it:

about the poem: on my eighth birthday (in 1967) my Dad arrived home late from work; my parents had one of their last arguments; my Dad left home that night; I couldn’t remember much of what happened that night – what was said, how much I heard, how much I understood – but I realised that worlds could change quite quickly that night; years later, in 1993, David Bowie recorded ‘south horizon’ on his ‘Buddha of Suburbia’ album, but I didn’t really get to know the piece until 2011; hearing it etched that experience back into my memory – bevelled it up, almost – but it also supplied textures and chord changes to the memory that allowed me a perspective that held me from being just angry or hurt; (‘the river’ is the river Thames; we lived on Shooters Hill in SE London from where we could hear and breathe the river)

author bio: Mark Redford was born in 1959 and grew up in South East London until he bolted to university (like a bat out of hell) in 1979, hot from Margaret Thatcher’s election victory; London was never the same every time he returned back; his mother, who had brought him up with her mother (his Grandmother), died in 1999; since then he has travelled back to London frequently to find the previous 40 years, but only seems to find them when he writes down what he saw; you can see what he sees (possibly better than he can) at: https://mlewisredford.wordpress.com/; if you bump into him there, give him some directions would you?

 

 

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

abandonment wormhole: monument to vainglory
Bowie wormhole: new-found love – poewieview #36
childhood & Thames wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams
Dad & divorce & texture wormhole: beepbeep
evening wormhole: alighted
horozon wormhole: 1966
light wormhole: so pleased to see you again
London wormhole: 1967
Mum wormhole: 1967
Nan wormhole: work
purple & river wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
travelling wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
words wormhole: breathing out
world wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – agricultural show

 

the silent night of the Batman

Tags

1970, 7*, attention, Batman, black, blue, Christmas, city, dawn, east, fear, glass, green, guilt, ink, light, Neal Adams, night, purple, quiet, river, rooftops, rose, shadow, shops, sky, skyline, smile, sound, south, stars, streetlamp, vista, windows, writing

                the silent night of the Batman

                even while they carried their
                gift-wrapped parcels and looked
                to each other with smiles of belief

                the shop signs hummed dark
                against the marbled frontage
                while above, the quiet floors

                of stone windows looked east
                looked south in the ink-black sky
                enough to write a novel in a

                single sitting, enough to hold
                a fleet of stars above the skyline
                stacking slowly; when the sky

                is ink-green the rooftop
                gathers ink-blue attention
                and leaps without step or

                swing through the glass and
                ledges of city vista, the lingering
                thought to shadow the guilt,

                the alley divide to streetlamp
                the fear, and over the river the rose
                cast high and wide to the stars until

                marzipan fingers reach across the
                ink-purple sky and marshmallow lights
                go out

 

 

I am so pleased to say that this is the sixth time I have posted this poem, mostly always on Christmas Eve: the poem in which my hero-ego – Batman – doesn’t appear and yet everthing is done by his having been there all along; Batman doesn’t swing across the rooftops, it’s just that we sometimes find the space to change our minds; who is the Santa Claus for the 21st century – Batman (termsandconditionsapply:discussionaboutexistenceis … irrelevant); sculpted out of “The Silent Night of the Batman” in Batman #219 by Gary Friedrich and Neal Adams

 

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

attention wormhole: interim
Batman wormhole: the too big moon
black & skyline wormhole: the skyline
blue & sky & streetlight & windows & writing wormhole: passing below
Christmas wormhole: 1967
city wormhole: 1966
dawn wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – A Precious Moment
glass wormhole: time
green & sound wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance
light wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
night wormhole: “The Lady from Nowhere”
purple wormhole: 1967
river wormhole: pen and ruler
rooftops wormhole: passersby
shadow wormhole: Prajnaparamita // Maitreya
shops wormhole: ‘hope for things to come’
smile wormhole: comfy
stars wormhole: Clea

 

1967

Tags

1967, 2014, 5*, Burt Bacharach, desert, Dionne Warwick, evening, London, mauve, orange, prayer, purple, rock, sand, smell, sound, white

                                1967

                                one early
                                evening
                                in London
                                amid the
                                fug of
                                cabbage
                                and the
                                clack of
                                cleared
                                plates

                the deep orange sand was turning purple
                and the piled rocks remained white and mauve

                                in the
                                desert

 

reaching both from within, and through: I say a little prayer by Dionne Warwick and Burt Bacharach

 

 

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

Burt Bacharach & Dionne Warwick wormhole: 1964
evening wormhole: beepbeep
London & smell wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose
mauve wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
orange wormhole: magnificent salad
purple wormhole: the 19th century
sound wormhole: embodying
white wormhole: con / sum / mate

 

the 19th century

Tags

19th century, 2016, 5*, balcony, black, blue, death, evening, halo, head, portrait, profile, purple, sitting, smile, walls, white, windows, wood

                even into her later years
                the 19th century sat in the
                darkening room with dark wood
                furniture long into the evening

                on warm nights you could
                see her profile and slight-etched
                smile between the balcony railings
                and all the height of window and

                coving above her sometimes-
                nodding head; when she died
                she left a chalk-purple and dark-
                blue halo on the bare white walls

                glistening sometimes
                where her black cap used to be

 

 

 

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

black wormhole: gone black
blue wormhole: magnificent salad
death wormhole: cut while you’re ahead/cut while you’re a thread – poewieview #35
evening wormhole: AT-tennnnnnnn – waitfrit waitfrit – SHUN!
purple wormhole: the purple mist between
sitting wormhole: moment
smile wormhole: and smile / like a bud
walls wormhole: coagulating
white wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Simon Upon The Downs
windows wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
wood wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – from arm to nature, doing nothing