• Bodhisattvacharyavatara
    • Introduction
    • Chapter 1
    • Chapter 2
    • Chapter 3
    • Chapter 4
    • Chapter 5
    • Chapter 6
    • Chapter 7
    • Chapter 8
    • Chapter 9
    • Chapter 10
  • collected works
    • 25th August 1981 – count Up
    • askance From Hell
    • Batman
    • The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford
    • Bob 1995-2012
    • Edward Hopper: Poems at an Exhibition
    • David Bowie Movements in Suite Major
    • Eglinton Hill
    • FLOORBOARDS
    • Granada
    • in and out / the Avebury stones / can’t seem to get / a signal …
    • Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters]
    • Miller’s Batman
    • mum
    • nan
    • Portsmouth – Southsea
    • Spring Warwick breezes / over Bacharach fieldwork and boroughs with / the occasional shift and chirp of David / in the pastel-long morning of the sixties
    • through the crash
  • index
    • #A-E see!
    • F–K, wha’ th’
    • L-P 33 1/3 rpm
    • Q-T pie
    • U-Z together forever
  • me
  • others
    • William Carlos Williams
  • poemics
  • poeviews
  • teaching matters
  • wormholes

mlewisredford

~ may the Supreme and Precious Jewel Bodhichitta take birth where it has not yet done so …

mlewisredford

Tag Archives: red

‘she shook the sweets …’

05 Saturday Sep 2020

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

'scape, 1981, 6*, bed, blog, buildings, Carol, clouds, green, grey, lightning, London, love, marriage, Plumstead, red, seagull, Shooters Hill, silence, sky, smoke, Thames, time, wind

she shook the sweets
onto the bed

the grey sky
washed clean

metal smoke rose
then right-angled

a seagull
flew between the buildings

then

 

lightning

{the sweets were Lindt chocolates, individually wrapped in deep-red; the made bed was covered by a deep-green candlewick bed-spread; she was Carol, shortly before or after we were married, staying in what had been my bedroom, halfway up Shooters Hill, overlooking the Thames basin; this was the first poem I published on this blog, almost exactly ten years ago, and, in those early days, she got very little … no views; I think she deserves more than that; want a sweet?}

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

buildings & red & Thames wormhole: travel // when I die
Carol wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
clouds wormhole: here today and …
green & sky & time wormhole: meanwhile
grey wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
lightning wormhole: a crack of lightning / in the dark of night
London wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – tenderness
love wormhole: IN THE ‘SCONSET BUS by William Carlos Williams
Plumstead wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
seagull wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
silence wormhole: silence
wind wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley

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travel // when I die

02 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ Leave a comment

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2019, 7*, accountability, afterlife, afternoon, architecture, bardo, being, black, brick, brown, buildings, capitalism, century, clouds, crane, data, death, decades, dedication, depth, doing, echo, fields, floating, green, ground, Have, height, horizontal, identity, industry, interdependent origination, iteration, length, lintel, London, magenta, mind, notice, orange, passing, perspective, pillars, presence, purple, rain, rainbow, red, reference, ripple, rooftops, russian vine, samsara, sandstone, sapphire, self-cherishing, self-grasping, silence, sill, sky, sound, speech, Thames, thought, tide, time, train, travelling, trees, Uckfield-London line, utility, walls, white, world, writing

                                                                                travel

                                                                                noticing
                                                                at all is a product of
                                                                shifted perspective
                                                                related to behold;

                                                                when I’ve nothing to write
                                                                I’ve lost any perspective,
                                                                cornered by both these walls
                                                                I’ve walked along

                when I die
                this mind will no longer whorl about this pinchèd self
                in a world of diminished return and profusion of iteration

                                                                cranes atop
                                                                pulling them further up and up
                                                                from the ground on which they
                                                                balance on receding point;

                                                                communities of them
                                                                each taller than the last and the next
                                                                all along the wharfs
                                                                of endless account

                it will be expansive
                high and up in industrial and sandstone sky
                it will fathom all the deep of brown kelp in shifting purple

                                                                kilometres long
                                                                courses of brick
                                                                grimed black and utility-studded
                                                                updown onoff foothold and wire

                                                                ripple along nicely
                                                                across right-angled centuries
                                                                and occasional shot bolts
                                                                of deepest russian vine

                with no sound
                save diminishing echoes of a pleading late self
                having nothing left to refer to and nothing left to here, and

                                                                believe it or not
                                                                a rainbow exponential
                                                                to the white arch of Wembley
                                                                we’ll chase for miles

                                                                orange shimmering to
                                                                magenta through staccato tides
                                                                out and over flat roofs
                                                                on and into the fields

                all data wiped –
                suds off my hands from my shoulders –
                and did I back enough up for some grander vector to reach?

                                                                where trees grow from ground
                                                                shaping over decades
                                                                green-flamed cupolas
                                                                clamped to the sky

                                                                and from perspective passing
                                                                of open field
                                                                turn – creak –
                                                                the whole world

                I may well
                have built pillars of cleverness and thought:
                plinthed, fluted, capitaled and giddyingly architraved …

                                                                and there
                                                                Lancashire red brick
                                                                with high and whitey
                                                                sills stale and lintel

                                                                before washed-out
                                                                sapphire-afternoon of steely sky
                                                                and horizontal fingers of
                                                                scud-rain

                … but they’d just
                floated there upright in space ‘neither use nor ornament’
                straining on the string in my baby-fat hands, I’ve

                                never really
                                made stuff happen
                                and didn’t have to try

                                more than let more and more
                                of stuff happening anyway
                                happen through me

 

train trip; East Sussex to London to Lancaster to Ulverston, Cumbria; where we lived for three years and started a family; stay at Swarthmore Hall; visited Conishead Priory where we lived for 18 months after marriage and graduation; notes and observations on the journey, sense of bridging 32 years of lifetime(s); notes > (maybe) two poems, but two which could nevertheless not be separate, although distinct, like train tracks; three years retired, still processing if I achieved anything in this capitalist and samsaric world …; London centuries old, still processing …; architecture as the stage-scenary of endeavour; the ‘here’ in the 9th stanza is definitely (sic); this is, positive

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

afternoon & sky wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
architecture & thought wormhole: “And anger it is that lays in ruins / every kind of mental goodness.”
being wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
black & sky wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
brown & green & walls wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley
buildings & crane & rain & red & speech wormhole: riders of the night
capitalism wormhole: `whappn’d!
clouds wormhole: at Kreukenhof
death & identity wormhole: psssssh
doing wormhole: writening
echo & mind & passing & sound & time wormhole: – creak —
Have wormhole: on facing the Have
London wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – An Old Piano
orange wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
purple wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
rooftops wormhole: Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896
samsara & trees wormhole: breakfast
silence wormhole: window
Thames wormhole: London, 1809
train & travelling wormhole: beneath
Uckfield-London line wormhole: early // Minoan & Mycenaean Exhibitions in the British Museum – diptych
white wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
world wormhole: none and all
writing wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later

 

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riders of the night

03 Thursday Oct 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2019, 7*, buildings, cars, coat, continent, crane, dark, docks, dualistic conception, hats, headlights, ideas, inexplicable, light, living room, making sense, morning, night, paper, pink, propaganda, rain, red, ships, silhouette, sound, speech, streets, sweat, thinking, time, Tintin, truck, waiting, war, water, waves

                riders of the night

booms of inexplicability
                had spattered velvet stars and shredded cloth all morning

despite the raised-brow
                consternation of the smartest of overcoats and the darkest of hats

that startled drops of sweat
                could devise in the presence of impending war, it was only   th-  

  at night   by the docks where
                the cargo waited unknown and the ships floated above the water,

that one could think a thing between them
                before any further dénouement under filigree refinery of silhouette;

                the   next  morning   the ship sat in the water, content to the
lapping red line,

                waiting fast and moored under the single ribbon of exhaust
from the funnel f’ard;

                but it is only   later   that water ranges continental across stepped and geologic                
wave, under relentless rain,

                that solitary lights lolling will make any sense at all;
and there were some

                had ideas like a living-room on a pivot that housed raised cranes
but the cars drove through streets

                like they owned them and the trucks travelled in straight trail
of their antecedents’ front headlights

                and although buildings always pointed up, the propaganda usually
ended up on pink paper:

                ‘Me, drive ‘round something that is nothing, but something you think is something,                
 but is nothing …?’

 

{image not mine, found on the internet, can’t remember where, happy to take down if a problem}

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

buildings wormhole: everything is caused by something, which / something is caused by something else, nothing / stands alone where all pass as phantoms
cars wormhole: travelling / back
crane wormhole: ‘don’t look at it …’
light wormhole: breakfast
living room wormhole: what life went on
morning & sound & streets & time & water wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – valley
night wormhole: THE ATTIC WHICH IS DESIRE: by William Carlos Williams
pink wormhole: beneath
rain wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – sooner; / and later
red wormhole: 11/1 by William Carlos Williams
silhouette wormhole: window
speech wormhole: the blessings of the Buddhas
thinking wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
waiting wormhole: my uncomfortable life
war wormhole: in deed
waves wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – The Valley

 

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11/1 by William Carlos Williams

13 Thursday Jun 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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'scape, 1928, 8*, being, billboard, blue, faces, giant, lamp, moon, night, poetry, red, running, sky, speech, stars, weeds, William Carlos Williams, writing

poetry should strive for nothing else, this vividness alone, per se, for itself. The realization of this has its own internal fire that is “like” nothing. Therefore the bastardy of the smile. That thing, the vividness which is poetry by itself, makes the poem. There is no need to explain or compare. Make it and it is a poem. This is modern, not the saga. There are no sagas–only trees now, animals, engines: There’s that.

11/1     I won’t have to powder my nose tonight `cause Billie’s gonna take me home in his car–

                The moon, the dried weeds
                and the Pleiades–

                Seven feet tall
                the dark, dried weedstalks
                make a part of the night
                a red lace
                on the blue milky sky

                Write–
                by a small lamp

                the Pleiades are almost
                nameless
                and the moon is tilted
                and halfgone

                And in runningpants and
                with ecstatic, aesthetic faces
                on the illumined
                signboard are leaping
                over printed hurdles and
                “¼ of their energy comes from bread”

                two
                gigantic highschool boys
                ten feet tall

 

the billboard credo of William Carlos Williams from The Descent of Winter, 1928 by William Carlos Williams, luminary to my early wonder

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

being & night wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
blue wormhole: in turgid reflection
faces & red & stars wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields
moon wormhole: Impression of Winter: Carriage on a Country Road, 1872
poetry & writing wormhole: writening
sky wormhole: Great Bridge, Rouen, 1896
speech wormhole: Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902
William Carlos Williams wormhole: 10/30 by William Carlos Williams

 

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Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – I took my camera into the fields

10 Monday Jun 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

2019, 7*, birdsong, camera, clouds, corridor, dancing, drifting, elm, evening, faces, fields, focus, forest, gold, grey, hills, horizon, leaves, nebula, nightingale, photography, planet, purple, red, skeleton, sky, space, spire, stars, sun, thinking, trees, words

                                I took my camera into the fields

                but it was only after the
                purple-grey clouds drifted
                across the horizon and the

                wilted leaves had turned
                their face once more to the
                evening sky, when the sun

                broke low across the fields –
                old gold across the treetops –
                that I’d dansed macabre

                with the tripodial skeleton
                before the red hemisphere,
                reclined upon distant hills,

                extinguished like a farce
                and the populace of the
                heavens radiated above me

                and behind, the grates of
                all space between the two
                sentinel elms, it was there, I think,

                I left this planet
                at a tangent (glow of a
                lantern disappearing down the corridor)

                deep, until whole nebulae
                were within my pluck,
                but even before Antares

                had touched the nearby
                spire, the nightingale had
                been deep in construction

                of the following day’s forest façade,
                free free of all possible words and
                zoomed foci

 

read the collected work of ‘Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters]‘ as it is published: here
this is an appliquiary to: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

clouds & evening & gold & grey & hills & horizon & leaves & red & sky & space & stars & sun wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky
dancing wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
faces wormhole: on facing the Have
purple wormhole: SPRING AND ALL I by William Carlos Williams
thinking wormhole: writening
words wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877

 

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The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Sky

05 Wednesday Jun 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in announcements

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

1967, afternoon, air, beauty, being, birdsong, black, breathing, camera, candle, church, clouds, colour, comet, consciousness, corridor, countryside, dance, dawn, depth, earth, elm, emotion, evening, eyes, fields, fire, gaze, gold, grey, heat, hills, horizon, identity, jade, leaves, life, light, mauve, Michael J Redford, mind, night, orbit, painting, photography, planet, rain, red, silence, silhouette, sky, space, spire, stars, storm, sun, sunset, the Boats of Vallisneria, thunder, trees, turquoise, valley, west

Sky

One evening about two years ago, there was, in my part of the country, one of the most magnificent sunsets that I have ever been privileged to witness.   Being a keen photographer (although not a very good one, for other peoples’ photographs always seem better than mine), I took my camera into the fields to capture the scene in colour.   It all began when the grey broken clouds, the ‘left overs’ of a stormy day, drifted slowly across the horizon, taking with them the tumult of the heavens.   It had been a somewhat dismal day with an atmosphere that clung like a warm damp blanket, enveloping all with an oppressive heat that made even the unconscious act of breathing an effort.   The day thus sulked its way through the hours, stifling the energy of life and suffocating the songs of birds until at long last, at about three o’clock in the afternoon, the sky, no longer able to contain its pent up emotions, savaged the countryside with a violent storm.   In fact three storms had tumbled into the valley that afternoon that gave rise to a continuous end-of-the-world -like thunder that reverberated about us for an hour and a half.   Fearful though the storms were, the rain felt good, the soil quenched its thirst and the air became cool, and when the storm had flung its final volley of anger contemptuously at us, I saw that the wilted leaves had renewed vigour and had turned their faces once more to the sky.   Suddenly, the late evening sun broke loose and shone low across the fields, igniting the treetops with a blaze of old gold and adorning the scene with the tint of an old master’s painting. Screwing tripod to camera, I raised it to my eye and squinted through the view-finder.   For some moments I indulged in a danse macabre around the field with the tripodial skeleton stiff within my embrace, searching for the most artistic composition to enter the field of view.   By now the sun was an enormous dull-red hemisphere reclining upon the distant hills, infusing the undersides of the remaining clouds above with a heavy mauve the deepened perceptively as I gazed.   The solar chord became shorter and shorter until finally the perimeter of the disc was extinguished suddenly by the horizon as one snuffs out the flame of a candle.   Then, in a most abrupt and startling manner, the populace of the heavens turned to fire.   The clouds appeared to radiate from a point somewhere below the horizon in the vicinity of the sun and spread out above and behind me, plumbing the very depths of space itself.   It was as if Earth had entered the tail of a super comet that had passed close by on its elliptical orbit about the sun.   Hurriedly I set the tripod firmly on the ground and framed the sunset between the jet-black silhouettes of two sentinel elms.

After taking the photograph, I packed the equipment in its case, stood up and looked once more through the elms.   My gaze passed by the silent trees, through the sunset and beyond into space, leaving the great orb of this planet at a tangent.   The moment developed into one of those rare intervals in time when an overwhelming consciousness of the beauty about one descends and becalms the mind.   Although my gaze flew past the elms at incomprehensible speed, I was aware of their crisp outlines against the sky, and as it passed on through the sky into the depths of space, I could see the fire shrinking before me like the glow of a lantern disappearing down a long, dark corridor.   My eyes were now being lifted by a power exterior to my own being.   Up, up they went until I was craning my neck and gazing out into the zenith of space.   I had always been conscious of the great depths of space about me, but could not help regarding the heavens as anything but a dome viewed from a central point, the stars being spattered over the surface of this invisible hemisphere, all equidistant from me.   But on this particular occasion, I became aware of the three dimensionality of space, each planet, star and nebula standing out in such relief from each other, that I felt I could lift my hand and pluck them from their ethereal settings.   Immediately above my right shoulder the crooked W of Cassiopeia pierced the depths with startling clarity and midway between this and the great square of Pegasus, there glowed faintly the spiral nebula of Andromeda, so far flung into the void as to make the magnificent gold and blue binary system of Gamma Andromeda appear but ten steps distant.

Becoming dizzy from the depths above me I turned and cast my eyes down to the eastern horizon.   The Pleiades had just shown itself above the distant trees and was discernible only by averted vision, but its presence was sufficient to tell me that within the hour Aldebaran, the red eye of Taurus, would begin its journey above the horizon to dissolve overhead in the light of tomorrow’s dawn.   But even before Antares had touched the distant church spire in the darkening west, the night air became chill and with a shudder I headed for home.

Some days later when I had the film processed, I discovered much to my dismay, that I had become so involved with the scene before me that I had forgotten to remove the dust-cap from the lens, consequently I have no visual proof to offer my friends of the glory I have witnessed.   Often I am accused of exaggeration when describing a scene that has made an impression on me, yet I experience difficulty in finding adjectives of sufficient depth, colour or subtlety to use in such instances.   How can one convey to others the emotions that rise to greet the song of a nightingale, or to what depths the heart yearns to fly with the swift and embrace all three dimensions.   How can one possibly convey through the medium of the written or spoken word the sight of an evening sky washed with the faint mauve streaks that herald a sunset, or describe the background tint of the sky that is somewhere between a shade of jade and turquoise?

My attempts at describing this beautiful sunset to a friend met with very little response.   Emotion is a very personal thing and that which gives rise to emotion in one, may leave another completely cold.   Even so, I was completely taken aback when my friend said, “what sunset?”

 

read the collected work as it is published: here

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

afternoon & grey & rain & red & sky wormhole: Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902
air & silence & trees wormhole: 10/30 by William Carlos Williams
beauty wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
being & black wormhole: in deed
breathing wormhole: there will be ovations
church & silhouette wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873
clouds wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
dawn & storm wormhole: birth in the world
evening & life wormhole: threshold to behold
eyes wormhole: mandala offering
gold wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
hills wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
horizon & sunset wormhole: in turgid reflection
identity wormhole: quietly in my quiet house
leaves wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
light & sun wormhole: Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890
mauve wormhole: travelling / back
mind wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
night wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
space wormhole: the reach turned to love
stars wormhole: TREES by William Carlos Williams
valley wormhole: coterminalism – there is nothing happens by itself, / 070118

 

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Pont Neuf, Paris, 1902

26 Sunday May 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

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1902, 2018, 6*, afternoon, autumn, branches, bridge, grey, Paris, rain, red, river, sky, speech, statue, steps, umbrella, woman

                the afternoon autumn skies
                had red taint in their greys

                from sodden divested branches
                grown warped and wet

                before the river – turn away,
                don’t look at me like this – but

                the iron rider on horse had
                none of it atop graceful steps,

                ‘pah’ said the old woman
                as she shook out her umbrella

 


de l’avantaged de Pont Neuf, Paris, 1892 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

afternoon wormhole: La Route, Effet d’Hiver, 1872
autumn & grey wormhole: 10/28 ‘in this strong light …’ by William Carlos Williams
branches wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
bridge wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
Paris wormhole: looking / ridiculous
rain wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
red wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
river & sky wormhole: Cours La Reine, Rouen, 1890
speech & woman wormhole: A Corner of the Garden at the Hermitage, 1877

 

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Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877

07 Tuesday May 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

1877, 2018, 5*, blue, clothes, clouds, hill, house, Pissarro, Pontoise, portrait, red, roof, trees, walking, woman

                she walked from the
                red-tiled house and the

                ruddy hill behind, in her
                dark blue finery, upright

                as the trees which reached
                high to the squally clouds

 

stepping out from the Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877 by Camille Pissarro

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

blue wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
clouds wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
house wormhole: Entry to the Village of Voisins, Yvelines, 1872
red wormhole: 10/22 by William Carlos Williams
roof wormhole: The Diligence at Louveciennes, 1870
trees wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
walking wormhole: the old man;
woman wormhole: Female Peasant Carding, 1875

 

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10/22 by William Carlos Williams

20 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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'scape, 1928, 7*, barrel, bayberry, birch, dog, field, grass, green, leaves, orange, rain, red, water, white, William Carlos Williams, yarrow, yellow

                that brilliant field
                of rainwet orange
                blanketed

                by the red grass
                and oilgreen bayberry

                the last yarrow
                on the gutter
                white by the sandy
                rainwater

                and a white birch
                with yellow leaves
                and few
                and loosely hung

                and a young dog
                jumped out
                of the old barrel

 

out and not wet from The Descent of Winter, 1928

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

birch wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
dog wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
field wormhole: ‘… plane is upright …’
green & water wormhole: Puerto del Carmen
leaves wormhole: travelling / back
orange & red & white & William Carlos Williams wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
rain wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
yellow wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees

 

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The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams

12 Friday Apr 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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1928, 6*, arms, Atlantic City, beauty, being, black, blue, candle, cheek, city, colour, communication, daisies, dress, ears, eyes, fingers, glass, green, grey, hair, hands, hips, knuckles, lips, looking, matches, mirror, mouth, movement, open, orange, others, portrait, poverty, red, reflection, ring, ruby, sea, seagull, silence, skin, sound, speech, temptation, thinking, walking, waves, white, William Carlos Williams, windows, woman, wrists, writing

                            1. THE WAITRESS

                No wit (and none needed) but
    the silence of her ways, grey eyes in
    a depth of black lashes–
    The eyes look and the look falls.

    There is no way, no way. So close
    one may feel the warmth of the cheek and yet there is
    no way.

    The benefits of poverty are a roughened skin
    of the hands, the broken
    knuckles, the stained wrists.

                Serious. Not as the others.
    All the rest are liars, all but you.
                                        Wait on us.
    Wait on us, the hair held back practically
    by a net, close behind the ears, at the sides of
    the head. But the eyes–
                            but the mouth, lightly (quickly)
    touched with rouge.

    The black dress makes the hair dark, strangely
    enough, and the white dress makes it light.
    There is a mole under the jaw, low under
    thr right ear–

                And what arms!

                                        The glassruby ring
    on the fourth finger of the left hand.

                                        –and the movements
under the scant dress as the weight of the tray
    makes the hips shift forward slightly in lifting
    and beginning to walk–

    The Nominating Committee presents the following
    resolutions, etc. etc. etc. All those
    in favor signify by saying, Aye. Contrariminded,
    No.
      Carried.
                And aye, and aye, and aye!

    And the way the bell-hop runs downstairs:
          ta tuck a
                ta tuck a
                      ta tuck a
                            ta tuck a
                                  ta tuck a
    and the gulls in the open window screaming over the slow
    break of the cold waves–

                O unlit candle with the soft white
    plume, Sunbeam Finest Safety Matches all together in
    a little box–

                And the reflections of both in
    the mirror and the reflection of the hand, writing
    writing–
                Speak to me of her!-

                –and nobody else and nothing else
    in the whole city, not an electric sign of shifting
    colors, fourfoot daisies and acanthus fronds going from
    red to orange, green to blue–forty feet across–

                                        Wait on us, wait
    on us with your momentary beauty to be enjoyed by
    none of us. Neither by you, certainly,
                                                nor by me.

 

with love from Poems, 1928

 

 

————w(O)rmholes________________________________|—–

beauty & speech wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
being wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
black wormhole: Impression of Winter: Carriage on a Country Road, 1872
blue & grey & writing wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing
city & William Carlos Williams wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
communication wormhole: agreed termination without prejudice
eyes wormhole: between
glass & red wormhole: travelling / back
green & woman wormhole: on facing the Have
hair wormhole: SPRING & LINES by William Carlos Williams
hands wormhole: THE LONELY STREET by William Carlos Williams
looking wormhole: waiting to be heard
mirror wormhole: What You Are by Roger McGough
mouth wormhole: glamour of saṃsāra
open wormhole: animus rises – powieview #37
orange & others & walking wormhole: Rain, Steam and Speed – the / Great Western Railway, 1844
reflection wormhole: I
sea & seagull & waves wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
silence & sound wormhole: Vue de Pontoise, 1873
thinking wormhole: there will be ovations
white wormhole: alabaster balustrade
windows wormhole: birth in the world

 

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