PASTORAL by William Carlos Williams

Tags

1917, 6*, age, blue, breathing, colour, compromise, fence, furniture, green, growing, houses, identity, looking, love, measure, poverty, progress, rooftops, society, streets, time, walking, weather, William Carlos Williams, yard

                                PASTORAL

                When I was younger
                it was plain to me
                I must make something of myself.
                Older now
                I walk back streets
                admiring the houses
                of the very poor:
                roof out of line with sides
                the yeards cluttered
                with old chicken wire, ashes,
                furniture gone wrong;
                the fences and outhouses
                built of barrel-staves
                and parts of boxes, all,
                if I am fortunate,
                smeared a bluish green
                that properly weathered
                pleases me best
                of all colors.

                            No one
                will believe this
                of vast import to the nation.

 

from Al Que Quiere!, 1917

and he’s right, of course: the ‘import’ of the nation can only progress when it doesn’t have to concern itself with the right and wrong of wealth distribution – but you can’t have progress without competition, otherwise we all just stay where we are; but honouring competition as inviolable is honouring that which is our basest common denominator, surely inequality is less than we could achieve – to try to rise above the process of evolution, the survival of the fittest, is, rather, to surrender to hubris and daydream which doesn’t put bread on the table; but – however; eventually – man up … but to look, and take in, with love and, without scheme, all behind the, dappling cacophany, with which we, mark our height, where we can breathe, without implication, or compromise, free as a glance, single as an ethic, and twice as, selfless

 

 

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

blue wormhole: transferring
breathing wormhole: the turtle and the yoke
compromise wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
green & identity & time & walking wormhole: fifty-eight // and silent prayers
looking wormhole: perspective
love wormhole: all // are // none
rooftops wormhole: glancing up from the text / searching for ground …
society & streets wormhole: both modern and en-slaved / to life
William Carlos Williams wormhole: and that’s where I are

 

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both modern and en-slaved / to life

Tags

2017, 6*, begging, exploitation, giving, Have, identity, life, market, modern slavery, pavement, poverty, Rome, society, streets, walls

                beggars placed disfigured
                either side of a pavement

                wept to the wall or knelt
                at the paviour; snatched up

                from somewhere the plastic
                cuts shut, (there

                to shame a thousand
                passing pardons each to weave

                themselves reassured
                with bonhomie on the next

                street corner, or sometimes maybe
                to ladder a little

                to give) exploited
                to within a width of their life

                making bruised a market
                of the will to Have

                both modern and en-slaved
                to life

 

there is a distinct type of beggar on the streets of Rome which I have not witnessed anywhere else in Europe (and only heard about in India); the legend among Romans is that injured and displaced people are rounded up from poorer areas in eastern Europe, promised medical care (which often leaves them disfigured – all the better to inspire sympathy) and shelter, and kept in very basic conditions on the outskirts of large cities in Italy and taxied in every day to earn their living; there are gangs of people who exploit these beggars in this way – modern slavery

 

 

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

giving wormhole: skeins of candy pink and lilac
Have & society wormhole: amniotic avenue
identity & walls wormhole: I
life wormhole: letting them go
streets wormhole: breakfast

 

breakfast

Tags

2017, 3*, breakfast, buildings, leaves, Nottingham, roof, rooftops, streets, sun, travelling, vista, windows

                breakfast
                on the first floor before

                the rising backs of
                buildings above the roofline

                where there is yet not sun
                save on the

                tree leaves from below
                and the roof window from across the street

 

 

 

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

blue wormhole: Bridgnorth
buildings & sun wormhole: mauve
leaves & streets wormhole: lost the search
roof wormhole: … vague / thunder
rooftops wormhole: perspective
travelling wormhole: so where have I got:
windows wormhole: oh, alright then

 

lost the search

Tags

2017, 5*, books, doors, finding, leaves, life, prospect, recognition, retirement, searching, streets, wind

                I seem to have
                lost the search

                for book and
                fame never

                sure I found
                it always prone

                to enticement
                and prospect

                in maybe are
                now wind-swept

                door-entries
                where leaves

                collect and the
                paint blisters

 

 

 

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

books & recognition wormhole: I keep / waiting to be discovered and get lost in anticipation
doors wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
leaves & wind wormhole: … the underleaves show
life wormhole: the balance necessary between
retirement wormhole: agreed termination without prejudice
searching wormhole: hold them
streets wormhole: mauve

 

mauve

Tags

1973, 2017, 6*, birdsong, blue, buildings, clouds, dusk, gold, hills, horizon, left, lime, mauve, mist, olive, right, sidewalk, sky, Steely Dan, streets, sun, syncopation, white

                                mauve
                                {Your Gold Teeth}

                in 1973
                                waste bins jumped up
                                                syncopated
                                                                all down the sidewalk

                down the street apiece
                                the olive and mist
                                                second-floor horizon
                                                                looked left

                                                                before the hills
                                                sun going down
                                in a Prussian sky
                {West of Hollywood}

                                to the right to the left
                                the bird on the single

                                remaining post called
                                the last lime skeak

                                to white curds above
                                the darkening hills

 

 

 

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

blue wormhole: Bridgnorth
buildings wormhole: between
clouds wormhole: all the low clouds keeping pace / through the train window, / always arriving, whether fast or / slow, but never actually moving
gold & sky wormhole: behind / glass walls and wan and hooded eye
hills & mauve wormhole: polystyrene / boulderscape
horizon wormhole: travelling // arrival
lime wormhole: turned backs of saddened victory
mist wormhole: is this it // all the time
olive wormhole: pine // gladioli // [&] wisteria
streets wormhole: coagulating
sun wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay
white wormhole: sharpened apex

 

coagulating

Tags

1964, 2016, 6*, Dr Strange, eyes, frame, Have, identity, illusion, reality, spell, Strange Tales, streets, talking, time, truth, walls

                both street and screen frame
                all the truth we can but claim

                we spell with claim, and elbow
                and weave a cage of mallow

                babble all sticky sweet to the
                merest touch, coagulating

                during years of circulation
                into walls with frightened eyes

 

based on ‘The House of Shadows’ in Strange Tales #120, May 1964, by Lee & Ditko

 

 

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

1964 & Dr Strange wormhole: frame
eyes wormhole: turned backs of saddened victory
Have & walls wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
identity wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
reality wormhole: river
streets wormhole: loss
talking wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Making Hay
time wormhole: with all love released

 

loss

Tags

2016, 5*, awareness, Birmingham, Bowie, computer games, falling, identity, loss, naked, standing, streets, walking

                “I

                stumble in to town …” on
                endless streets of paviour

                I didn’t notice a kerb and fell
                like an army unit from the

                23rd century, self-contained
                but waiting to rise

                once a cognitive-scan is completed,
                yet it revolves without completion,

                `cannot get a lock, so I stand
                without co-ordinate, beguiled

                by logo-lettering of all regard
                and stagger around with naked physique

                dressed for none to see
                to cover my loss

 

 

 

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

awareness wormhole: ‘still …’
Bowie wormhole: south horizon
identity wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J Redford – Working
streets wormhole: snapshots about Totnes
walking wormhole: out

 

snapshots about Totnes

Tags

2015, 4*, bench, child, doors, flower, girl, hill, legs, lintel, looking, mauve, portrait, streets, Totnes, walls

                snapshots about Totnes

                girl with legs and shorts
                looks at me with lintels

                roadside wall holds mauve
                flower and steppe of land

                door-line out of street with
                hill by access ramp and rail

                kid hangs from the playship
                prow almost fell mum’s

                friend on the bench points
                her foot but doesn’t smile

 

 

 

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

bench wormhole: Day Out
child wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
doors wormhole: red / lacquer / door
girl wormhole: reating & wriding
looking wormhole: Pilot 125 … // … being excursion in the interludes
mauve wormhole: immeasurable love
streets wormhole: city streets
walls wormhole: slightly / uphill

 

city streets

Tags

'scape, 2015, 3*, city, clouds, Eastbourne, glasses, high, Spring, streets, sun, wonder

                ah, the wonders
                of tinted glasses
                facing fresh into

                spring sun and
                gilded cloud
                high as city streets

 

 

 

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

city wormhole: glide
clouds wormhole: low afternoon
Eastbourne wormhole: still
glasses wormhole: impressionism
Spring wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – On Doing Nothing
streets wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
streets wormhole: Bexhill 140215

 

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_________________________________|—–

architecture wormhole: pen and ruler
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
quiet wormhole: the quiet whale
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