where did the silence go

Tags

2017, 6*, breathing, brick, Eastbourne, gables, passing, question, red, seagull, silence, sound, streetlight, the British Empire, time, traffic, trees, windows, winter

                where did the silence go
                along the rows of gables
                and chimes on the hour

                calls the seagull on the cornice
                to the seagull on the lamp post
                once, looking one way, twice,

                three times as the traffic
                feeds through the roundabout
                and winter trees branch

                and fibrillate before the
                turrets and windows of
                past red-brick Empire

 

 

 

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

breathing wormhole: with all love released
Eastbourne & red & time wormhole: growth
passing wormhole: olive trees
seagull & sound & streetlight wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
silence & trees wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay
windows wormhole: quiet river
winter wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow

 

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and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call

Tags

19th century, 2016, 20th century, 8*, access, air conditioning, alley, architecture, back, balcony, bay window, being, black, blindness, blue, burgundy, carlights, chimney stacks, clouds, compromise, contemplation, cross-section, distance, down, Eastbourne, eyes, facade, Ford Cortina, foreground, front, Have, height, hierarchy, history, hope, hotel, houses, inside, life, living, outside, passing, pier, pipes, privacy, prologue, promenade, sea, seagull, seeing, sky, society, sound, streetlight, sun, time, tree, up, Victorian houses, walking, walls, waves, white, windows

                and naerrgh a mention of a seagull’s call

                prologue

                the fetch of uneventful league to
                mingle with pier piles nonchalant;

                the borderline lightbulbs strung for
                decades between promenade lamp

                and stack of height and white façade
                of black-wrought balcony for where to stay

                setting

                frontage shows the way-to-look-
                ing blind to what is seen amid

                all the detail of hierarchy, eye
                turned to what it hopes, while

                rear windows, set central in
                the shapèd drop, look inward

                to find the fit to be; in time
                the rear extension of amenity

                cut fresh cross-sections of life
                turned 90° deep with windows

                unadorned; but then
                were added storey, creating alley

                to hidden access whenever
                contemplating the corners

                that encourage right angle
                where you can serve your

                down and truncating down-
                pipe blind to abutted wall

                perambulation

                                but, I’m in luck

                eye caught by extractor flaps
                in the foreground venting downwards

                venting upwards, sun neatly off
                the downpipes to the right

                on the left long-painted white pipes
                rusting, and between, a leafing tree

                undecided which way to lean
                the background, the monolith back

                of the seafront hotel, conditioning
                air; later, passing the backs of

                houses-become-their-own-entrance,
                seagulls perched at rest

                on the chimneys, I caught
                the tail of a reg-D Cortina with

                burgundy-deep fins and round
                tripartite lights, smaller

                than I remember

                epilogue

                oh, yes and a Persian-blue
                chimney stack with off-white pots

                under sky-blue sky
                and wisps of cloud

 

 

 

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

20th century wormhole: looking ahead
architecture wormhole: London refugee march – 120915
being wormhole: green and / luminant / to behold
black & blue & Have & living & passing & society & walking wormhole: Sheffield Park Gardens
burgundy wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
clouds wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
compromise wormhole: after all
Eastbourne wormhole: city streets
eyes & life & seeing & time wormhole: 1964
history wormhole: looking / ridiculous
hotel wormhole: and // do your ears burn red?
promenade & sea wormhole: Bexhill 140215
seagull wormhole: do I
sky & white wormhole: travelling // arrival
sound & sun & windows wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – reaping
streetlight wormhole: ‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’
Victorian houses wormhole: red / lacquer / door
walls wormhole: certainly a Captain, / but not America
waves wormhole: place

 

‘charcoal grey-slate sky …’

Tags

'scape, 2014, 3*, black, charcoal, city, emptiness, grey, haiku, orange, rooftops, sky, streetlight, streets

                               charcoal grey-slate sky
                     between black-empty rooftops
                         past orange streetlight

 

 

 

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

black wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey
city wormhole: windows // and balconies
emptiness wormhole: nothing doing is important / or worthy in itself
grey wormhole: a nice grey woollen picnic blanket
haiku[esque] wormhole: morning sun
orange wormhole: the // orange rose
rooftops wormhole: Infantino / district of Gotham
sky wormhole: … vague / thunder
streetlight wormhole: faintly apricot air?
streets wormhole: Mark & Jon at the coffee shop IV: right angles

 

faintly apricot air?

Tags

'scape, 2015, 6*, air, apricot, grey, kerb, morning, Plumstead, progress, shadow, Shooters Hill, sky, streetlight, streets, tarmac, trees, walking

                why tarmac the whole street wide
                for one bicycle uphill and one

                careful walker down (hand in pocket
                no necktie), the trimmed-back trees

                planted along the kerb edge marking
                curved progress, marking the ends

                of terrace or maybe containing the
                wide grey sky over Shooters Hill that

                delivers a half past ten morning to the
                Borough; thinks the man by the sole

                streetlight leaning back on his cane
                in the shadow of the faintly apricot air?

 

 

 

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

air wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – intemperance
apricot wormhole: the skyline
grey wormhole: industrial estate
morning wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Follow Your Nose
Plumstead wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23
shadow wormhole: the silent night of the Batman
sky & streets & trees wormhole: open window
streetlight wormhole: passing below
walking wormhole: to allow / passage

 

passing below

Tags

2014, 5*, awareness, being, blue, cafe, gaze, life, notice, passing, realisation, sky, Storrington, streetlight, talking to myself, thought, traffic, windows, writing

                what do I want in life
                what shall I write

                but I gaze out the window
                across the streetlights hanging

                in the blue blue sky and
                realise I cannot keep the thought

                I already have in mind and
                need to take notice of the traffic

                passing below

 

 

 

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

awareness & writing wormhole: con / sum / mate
being & thought wormhole: within
blue & sky & talking to myself wormhole: love and precision
life wormhole: not / the Catcher
passing wormhole: balance
realisation wormhole: traffic lights and broad avenue
streetlight wormhole: sleep now
windows wormhole: this aching // and spacious dichotomy

 

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
quiet wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
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

 

well,

Tags

'scape, 2013, coffee shop, evening, Lewes, music, notebook, people, sitting, streetlight, tired, toddler, voices, writing

                                     well,

                           I am sitting in the coffee shop
                           I have the notebook out
                           the evening is coming down
                           all the lights are brightening up
                           and as the people take
                           their shopping home
                           I think I can pick out
                           ‘Waterloo Sunset’ through
                           the cries of an overtired
                           toddler

 

 

 

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

coffee shop & music wormhole: tabla
evening wormhole: early evening
Lewes wormhole: library windows
people wormhole: the sounds of 1969 // [would have] seemed that way – poewieview #13
sitting wormhole: and that’s where I are
streetlight wormhole: like ink – poewieview #23
voices wormhole: dream career // groggy
writing wormhole: dash

 

like ink – poewieview #23

Tags

1970, 2016, being, Bowie, brain, branches, city, dark, earth, edge, emergence, floating, ink, light, orange, passing, Plumstead, red, Shrewsbury Park, sky, streetlight, thinking, trees, turning, writing

                                passing by the edge of the park under
                                occasional orange lamp, the dark trees
                                turn unable to contain the floating
                                brain of revolving redness in the branches

                                ah, but the city lights, spread about like
                                dust reassure that there is darken sky
                                without passion that moves free and sudden
                                over only orb and lonely branch like ink

 

oh, God, I should be dead: She Shook Me Cold, 1970; pack a pack-horse up and step-up here, on Black Country Rock, 1970

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

 

 

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

being wormhole: rhymed
Bowie wormhole: miss / ad / venture – poewieview #22
branches wormhole: train journey // like a branch
city wormhole: Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20
emergence & orange & Plumstead & streetlight & writing wormhole: up on the hill
light wormhole: 1964
passing wormhole: tabla
red wormhole: the start of adolescence
sky & trees wormhole: Jon
thinking wormhole: tong len / the inauguration of another – timely – butter fly effect / taking and giving

 

up on the hill

Tags

'scape, 2013, bench, childhood, electric, emergence, grass, grey, leaf, London, Nithdale Road, orange, Plum Lane, Plumstead, purple, rooftops, shadow, Shooters Hill, shrub, streetlight, sunlight, Thames, Woolwich, writing

 

 

 

                                up on the hill

                                there is a bench
                                and a streetlamp which casts
                                introspective orange
                                over shrubs and grass
                                making them purple and indistinct

                                but over descending rooftops
                                and terraced rows
                                the city leafs out into evening
                                from the grey Thames
                                wet with electric sunlight

 

‘up on the hill’ is not the same ‘up on the hill’ which is the start of Steely Dan’s ‘Aja’, but it starts from a similar call; the ‘hill’ is Shooters Hill which rucks up in the south east London basin just short of the Thames; the ‘bench’ is one of a few on a piece of land at the corner of Nithdale Road and Plum lane overlooking Plumcroft school, the lower slopes of Plumstead and the sprawl of the developing Woolwich Arsenal estate to the Thames as you raise your gaze from the ground, eveningly; this is a small, open patch of land which doesn’t obviously seem to belong to anyone, but is important to any awkward teenager who may wonder if their way is in writing …

 

 

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

bench wormhole: bougainvillea
childhood & emergence & shadow wormhole: the start of adolescence
grey wormhole: and that’s where I are
London wormhole: tabla
orange wormhole: stacked
Plumstead wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
purple wormhole: don’t look / at her eyes – poewieview #18
rooftops wormhole: keep the light off
streetlight wormhole: sixty four sixty five – poewieview #1
Thames wormhole: dream 260815
Woolwich wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky
writing wormhole: first Spring storm

 

sixty four sixty five – poewieview #1

Tags

1964, 1965, 2016, Bowie, brick, cafe, closed, evening, eyes, future, green, identity, naïveté, office, rain, roads, self, streetlight, streets, time, walking, white, wind, windows

                     sixty four sixty five

                     cutting off windy street
                     down the side-road past
                     the café now closed in

                     the evening night under
                     whitewashed windows
                     out from under the rain

                     and street light where
                     bricks turn seaweed-
                     green, is an office

                     which we all don’t
                     know about; well, I’m
                     gonna make it by my

                     selves strolling up
                     strolling down or
                     standing there making

                     a fool out of me over
                     street corners the next
                     day, with new eyes and

                     boots

 

… OK, maybe NOT every single piece of work, then; well not until he hits his stride and I hit mine; this is – believe it or not – from Bowie’s first cluster of works: Liza Jane, 1964; Louie Louie Go Home, 1964; I Pity the Fool, 1965; Take My Tip, 1965, only one of which was actually written by him; they’re all in there somewhere fore-striding the next day …

 

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

 

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

1964 wormhole: 1964
Bowie wormhole: Poewieviews
evening wormhole: Hotel Room, 1931
eyes wormhole: David Bowie – Iris
green wormhole: “walking …”
identity & rain & streetlight & streets & time & wind wormhole: finding my own true nature – Plumstead, Woolwich, 190915
naïveté wormhole: relapse
roads wormhole: portrait: / two pigeons
walking wormhole: walking through Lewes
white wormhole: 1967
windows wormhole: the open window