quiet river

Tags

2016, 5*, Granada, music, quiet, river, windows

                the dormer window
                of the dilapidated escuela
                de música, a sheet holder,

                perhaps, to turn notation
                to wave, perhaps perched
                above the quiet river

 

part of a sunny melange: Granada & Other Poems

 

 

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

music wormhole: is there anything to write?
river wormhole: river
windows wormhole: ‘when travelling astrally …’

 

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is this it // all the time

Tags

2015, 6*, Bodhichitta, breathing, corridors, depression, emptiness, fear, groundlessness, identity, living, mist, perception, pointlessness, questioning, quiet, rope, searching, self-cherishing, silence, snake, stairs, standing, stone, sun, time, trust, walls

                is this it
                coming again out of the mist

                that in my trust I find I still
                get nowhere that I want to be –

                by the walls along the corridor
                or at the top of silent stairs

                standing on the landing – it
                is not up here after all, nowhere

                else to go …
                is

                it
                this damn mist

                so easy to overlook
                so quiet to breathe

                that I mistake the stones for a figure,
                I fear the rope for the snake, and yet

                this mist will disperse
                the sun will always eventually appear

                I need not wear my collar up
                all the time

 

 

 

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

Bodhichitta wormhole: may the supreme and precious jewel bodhichitta … // … take birth where it has not yet done so … // … where it has taken birth may it not decrease … // … but may it increase infinitely
breathing wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
depression wormhole: to rescue something
emptiness wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
groundlessness wormhole: place
identity & stone wormhole: om muni muni maha muniye soha
living 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
mist wormhole: while
pointlessness wormhole: is there anything to write?
searching wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
silence wormhole: circuitry
stairs wormhole: currency of generations
sun wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
time wormhole: sweet chestnut
walls wormhole: snapshots about Totnes

 

Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211

Tags

2011, 2014, 2017, 6*, architecture, birds, birdsong, blackbird, blue, branches, breathing, brick, bus, cars, change, child, childhood, church, coat, coffee, coffee shop, crane, crows, death, echo, Eglinton Hill, evening, football, friends, green, handshake, Have, hill, houses, lifetimes, light, looking, mother, Mum, newsagent, no effort, notice, passing, pigeons, Plumstead, Plumstead common, quiet, roads, smiling, sound, step, streets, Thames, thought, time, trees, voices, walking, white, windows, Woolwich

        Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211

        the crane holds effortlessly over from behind
        the houses and trees cables thrumming always
        cold and eventually it will all be dismantled;

        the diesel car purred slowly downhill, a pigeon
        dropped down behind it walked around a bit;
        through the leaf-clean branches of the young

        tree the Edwardian cornices and tops along
        Plumstead Common Road, don’t collect thoughts,
        t a s t e them without notice, deep and wet

        with no tice – much less effort – while walking,
        every once in a while the wall steps up a brick
        I search for being clear again … step, while

        walking stop, and breathe the beauty, stop
        and smile a little thought for you; in St. Mary
        Magdalene’s ground the mother has turned

        points to the trees, birds fly off and land, the
        toddler steps and stands among the pigeons
        while the mother brings the abandoned scooter

        but then in New Road holding the handshake
        shaking between exchange the firm friends
        look at each other only occasionally; while he

        he Had a coffee heated sandwich iced bun
        crisps water £8.89, busses passing bulbous
        over the dark green and hanging shade; up

        the hill on the coldstreet stepping downhill
        out the newsagent the bright blue padded
        jacket and the single bounce of a well-inflated

        basketball with simultaneous echo inside; the
        while on a wall opposite his Mum’s flat dead
        almost 12 years now watching a boy with a limp

        and the 53 bus working between parked cars
        and the crossing island with air suspension
        and when it was quiet the dark coat and white

        trainers crossed the road paused and into the
        newsagents but then I didn’t see where she
        went; the constant echo of boys’ voices playing

        football on Plumstead Common off Acacia
        Terrace 1890; and I can’t see 46 Eglinton Hill
        where I’m sat, conifers grow so quick, but

        `doesn’t matter, I can’t see the blackbird singing
        a different collect each time either; crows on the
        chimneys of 40/38; for a minute the blackbird

        stopped no vehicles uphill downhill, lights
        went on across the river and each house had
        the face of lifetimes in their windows;

 

Every year and a while I travel 40 miles up to Woolwich, where I grew up, to check that the journey I make started off in the write direction (HA!); while wandering I write, leaning on peoples’ front walls and making a coffee last in a cafe (and every once in a while I treat myself to an afternoon bench); walking downhill from Plumstead to Woolwich and around and back, in time; those who know Woolwich and Plumstead (all none of you across the world wide, as far as I can tell, although you have got Google maps, if you’re really interested) will [be able to] recognise as they appear: South Circular coming up to Well Hall roundabout, Eglinton Hill [childhood home], Plumstead Common Road, St Mary Magdelene’s Church, Woolwich New Road, [along A206], Waverley Crescent (top of Griffin Road), Plumstead Common (proper), back up Eglinton Hill …

 

 

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

birds wormhole: open window
blackbird & change wormhole: relief
blue wormhole: low afternoon
branches wormhole: between
breathing & coffee shop & evening & sound & time & windows wormhole: amid
bus wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop III
cars & green & trees wormhole: Cocktails in 1951
child & streets wormhole: red / lacquer / door
childhood wormhole: all the sandstone / reflections in the / marble-blue troughs
church wormhole: ‘someone …’
coffee wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop I
crane wormhole: Luton // couldn’t make a poem out of it
crows wormhole: the ancient tree
death & light & Mum wormhole: good going into / that gentle night
echo wormhole: circuitry
Eglinton Hill & Plumstead wormhole: lost and city ground
Have & looking wormhole: found
lifetimes wormhole: cape and cowl
mother wormhole: mother and daughter
passing & roads & leaves wormhole: leaves
pigeons wormhole: municipal garden
Thames wormhole: to rescue something
thought wormhole: ‘God, who am I …?’
voices wormhole: I keep / waiting to be discovered and get lost in anticipation
walking wormhole: cinnamon / milkshake
Woolwich wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams

 

the quiet whale

Tags

2013, 8*, air, breath, community, currents, echo, groundlessness, life, light, passing, quiet, silence, society, sound, speech, superhero, water, whale, windows

                there was a thirty year cacophony
                     storied and canyon
                     full of echo and window
                     and impossible superheroes
                but the giant fin e – ven – tu – all – y
                     passed gliding out of freeze-frame
                     the quiet whale drifting off
                                like a community

                                there is nothing left
                     the after-currents, the dwindling tendency
                     the receding cheers the gears the home-lights
                                                receding bobs
                                                no ground to
                                                stand from
                                                su – spend – ead

                                     but too
                     no need to hold my breath anymore
                                no need to stay submerged down here
                                                let this leaden air out
                                                to rise where
                                                it will
                                I will take in all water
                                                behind my ears
                                                               and reach anywhere
                                                                               through power
                                                                                                   of silent speech

 

 

 

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

air & passing wormhole: too greedy
breath wormhole: municipal garden
echo wormhole: occa / s / i // o / n / a // l // l // y
groundlessness wormhole: ‘let them slide off …’
life wormhole: step
light & society wormhole: Infantino / district of Gotham
silence wormhole: St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton
sound wormhole: where else
speech wormhole: 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”
superhero wormhole: bud
water wormhole: embodying
whale wormhole: gulp // spout // and recede
windows wormhole: to rescue something

 

slow enough / to have love

Tags

2013, adjustment, ageing, breakdown, choice, confusion, consistency, doing, freedom, land, living, love, Martin Luther King, mountain, option, presumption, quiet, recognition, saviour, secret, shame, streets, stumbling, true nature, wasteland, work

                I used to skip and side-step all the
                too-presumptive adjustments
                for consistency and do it all

                in my own sweet way
                secretly hoping for recognition
                shamefully thinking to be the saviour

                now I’m confused and made old
                stumbling and doddering by the
                too-many prescriptive options to

                exercise the choice I am offered
                so I continue to do it all in my
                own sweet way, quiet enough

                to be effective, ignored enough
                to have scope and slow enough
                to have love; I have come to

                the top of the mountain and I have
                escaped a promised land
                four times injured to within

                an inch of my own true nature
                and I roam the streets and wastelands
                now, free at last, free at last

 

 

 

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

breakdown wormhole: strain
doing 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
living wormhole: written relief to / creeping anaesthesia / through palimpsest / and crankled page
love wormhole: handsome
recognition wormhole: not / the Catcher
streets wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey
work wormhole: just saying, is all VII: // `spolitical

 

open window

Tags

'scape, 2013, 5*, birds, birdsong, blue, echo, houses, open, passing, quiet, sky, snow, sound, streets, sun, time, trees, windows

                open window

                in the quiet street
                sun shone against
                the sides of houses

                and began to melt
                the dust of snow,
                at length,

                soft steps pass –
                foot-scrape and
                trouser-scuff – then

                cough once twice
                in upper voice
                down the houses

                and it was only then
                that the birds called
                in different ways

                in different trees and
                all of which echoed
                down the blue blue sky

 

 

 

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

birds wormhole: Is There / Life on Mars? – poewieview #32
birdsong wormhole: relief
blue & quiet & sky & sound & windows wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
echo wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy
open wormhole: fine
passing wormhole: to allow / passage
snow wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow
streets wormhole: familiasyncopation
sun wormhole: 1964
time wormhole: alighted
trees wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose

 

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

 

Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance

Tags

1967, 2016, 8*, air, ale, breathing, countryside, earth, field, gaze, ghosts, grandfather, green, honeysuckle, Kent, life, Michael J Redford, noon, nose, quiet, sound, speech, suburbia, summer, Sunday, time

 

                on Sundays my father downed tools and was
                led by the nose – the Redford bequest –

                drawing us into the quietude of Kent,
                out from the crust of suburbia,

                plunged deepening into green
                carrying bags of sandwiches towards noon;

                when, he would gaze around awhile
                and “let’s try over there” as if he were only

                wondering, “landlord’s name is Bert,”
                he’d trail behind quietly to himself, breathing

                even ghosts in through his live and open nostrils
                (back, even, to the seventeenth century,

                 looking out over the tombstones,
                creaking & checking, drinking, ale); taught me

                to fathom honeysuckle
                on a damp summer’s air carrying far before

                the meet, to flare to the earth
                of a muck heap ‘made’ well, to bask

                and loiter by ammoniac stables
                breathing for to clear the head, to “foller yer nose”

                and find the green bean field –
                cup of sweet wine drunk with intemperance –

 

 

read the collected work as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose; this piece is, of course, written from the uncle-person singular, therefore his ‘father’ was my Grandfather, who died when I was still a baby – I knew him about as much as a ruffle on the head from on high that I can remember; I have grown familiar with him through Mick’s writings and old pictures I have acquired to try and trick time out of its progress – AND IT SUCCEEDED!

 

 

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

air & green & Sunday wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose
breathing & speech wormhole: ah … // oh … // meanwhile … // … // tha ya ta …
field wormhole: ‘field of corn …’
ghosts wormhole: passersby
life wormhole: passing below
sound wormhole: 1967
time wormhole: time

 

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
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

 

through the pane – poewieview #34

Tags

1971, 2016, 5*, afternoon, being, books, Bowie, death, doing, friends, green, life, listening, looking, love, pipes, questions, quiet, sky, square, stain, step, streets, time, Victorian houses, windows

          spikes in constant
          exchange through the pane
          try in vain to
          puncture the sky; sky

          rising
          but – what – shall – I –
          be; steps upwards, steps
          aside, but – what – is – going – on

          look-away-
          turn-head-to-friend –
          check, with love –
          look-back

          shall I leaf the books,
          shall I lengthen the wick,
          interrogate streets, but –
          will – the – streets – listen …

          exiting languidly in the late green afternoon
          amongst the pipes, back windows and
          soot-stained Victorian houses all about
          the lonely square

 

peered through Eight Line Poem & Changes, 1971, after January 10th 2016

Read the collected movements in David Bowie: Movements in Suite Major

 

 

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

afternoon & Bowie & looking wormhole: weight of high sash windows – poewieview #33
being wormhole: travel
books wormhole: Life on Mars? – poewieview #31
death wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] by Mark L. Redford – the soft canticle of the gourds:
doing & windows wormhole: languidly close the portal
green wormhole: fresh destiny
life wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Safe Home
listening wormhole: my seat // now
love wormhole: listen willya
sky wormhole: passing skies
streets wormhole: coagulating
time wormhole: hello, luvvey, do you want a cup of tea?
Victorian houses wormhole: opening