dream I // dream II

Tags

2014, 3*, arrival, blue, experience, explanation, giving, hill, identity, looking, people, poem, reflection, retirement, school, tarmac, teaching, time, town, waking, windows

          dream I

    I had to get to school
    from the college halls
    in a town I didn’t know
    or what I was doing there

    I was already late
    but making my way
    past blue window reflections
    on honeycomb tarmac

    I realised I was going the
    wrong way up a hill people looking
    at me in my teacher’s clothes they
    knew the school is not here

    I am in an area I do not know
    so I go back down the hill
    trying to show that I know
    what I am doing I can see

    the whole town spread out
    like a city the different areas
    the school is there somewhere
    and I need to get myself there

and yet woken up now I’m not so sure I do

          dream II

    my chance to teach
    I explain everything

with little clever phrases like poems
    but each time

    I have to explain yet further
    taking hours, not

    holding them I gave of my
    of my own experience but it wasn’t

    theirs, they started leaving
    before I could conclude

retired now I’m not sure I ever arrived

 

 

 

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

blue wormhole: pass and / fro
giving wormhole: six paramitas
identity wormhole: I keep / waiting to be discovered and get lost in anticipation
looking wormhole: over-pink cagoule
people wormhole: memorial
retirement wormhole: Virginia
school wormhole: step
teaching wormhole: make your rickety / constructs strong with / unbending grids / of attention and wide- / open grates of let
time wormhole: tragic and archival
windows wormhole: windows // and balconies

 

too greedy

Tags

2013, 6*, air, ambition, attention, breathing, coffee, distraction, experience, fruit jellies, love, passing, people, poem, sandwich, sitting, smoothie, staying, sugar, talking to myself, town, walking, walls

                you know, mark, you can be
                too greedy, not from the coffee
                or the four DVDs, not from the

                ploughman’s sandwich nor the
                pear and peach smoothie, not even
                from the bag of fruit jellies that

                now you’ve opened you’re
                probably going to have to finish,
                but from wanting to carve a poem

                out of every damn experience you have
                sitting on every damn wall in
                every damn town you visit while

                every damn person walks past thinking
                you’re a bit damn weird … but then,
                nah, I don’t quite think so, as long as

                you seep into the observation and
                don’t ride it through somewhere else,
                and you can check the ambition

                with enough wide-open love to breathe,
                you could sculpt poems out of
                the very air where you stay put …

                … and, besides, I’m getting one
                hell of a sugar-buzz from these
                sugar jellies … will I never learn!

 

 

 

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

air wormhole: retirement
attention wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
breathing wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey
coffee wormhole: too much in arrival
distraction 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
love wormhole: slow enough / to have love
passing wormhole: morning sun
people wormhole: where else
sitting wormhole: the goldilocks stance
talking to myself wormhole: where it has taken birth / may it not decrease …
walking wormhole: ‘avenue of wraggled gorse tops …’
walls wormhole: that comicbookshop … // … in dreams

 

be

Tags

2014, 4*, afternoon, aircraft, bamboo, being, doing, leaf, mist, perspective, sky, sun, town, windows

                                                        I do not need to do
                                        anything more than
                                                        I be
                        anymore than the bamboo leaf
                                        (turning (flat) away
                                         point of leaf probing down – proboscis) reflects
                                        the sun misty
                        through the high afternoon sky
                                        waxy
                                        like a town
                        from an aircraft
        porthole

 

 

 

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

afternoon wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34
being wormhole: returning home handsome
doing wormhole: adjustment
mist & sky & sun & windows wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – snow

 

1968

Tags

1968, 2009, abandonment, being, child, childhood, curtains, divorce, doubt, façade, father, feeling, holiday, identity, illusion, lilac, living, passing, sky, sleep, stretch, sunlight, time, timelessness, town, truth, vermillion, yawn, years

 

 

 

                                                                 1968

                      child living at rate: three months per hour
                      sat under lilac viscous sky and watched
                      the vermilion slicks form and pass; the

                      Way Things Are through which I had come
                      was no longer living with us; what I had
                      felt – under my fingernails – might not be

                      true (like the facades of towns erected
                      for a holiday) now had reference, I felt
                      no feeling, all Absolutes were off, all

                      interaction doubtful.   The child slept for
                      a week, is now stretching and yawning, a
                      new day ahead shining through curtains

 

 

 

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

1968 wormhole: quite … / … yet – poewieview #12
abandonment wormhole: 1963
being & passing & living wormhole: impressionism
child wormhole: and that’s where I are
childhood & sky wormhole: 1963
curtains wormhole: Quiver of / Tiffany – poewieview #20
divorce wormhole: sit
father wormhole: Jon
holiday wormhole: nothing to write
identity wormhole: no one – poewieview #24
lilac wormhole: I’ve only just realised / after so many decades / that the smell of neglected land is lilac buddleia
sleep wormhole: com- / mute
time wormhole: what I am about to say is true / what I just said was a lie
vermillion wormhole: 1967
years wormhole: 1964

 

dream 230315

Tags

2015, airport, beach, business, Carol, Charlotte, dream, horizon, identity, leisure, life, lightning, looking, morning, Mum, plane, sea, station, sunshine, talking, time, town, train, walking, windows, Woolwich, work

 

 

 

                                                      dream 230315

                           walking through town in a Woolwich
                           cleaned timeless on a sunny morning

                           into the clinic along Powis Street on time
                           for my eventual appointment in life;

                           the first client amid the beginning-of-day
                           chat, dispersal into action behind screens;

                           she sits on the settee, I sit on the swivel
                           chair; she looks at me       assessing, I feel

                           good in my natty casual clothes; she cannot
                           speak, tries several times, she consults a

                           colleague; they are surprised, the consultation
                           becomes a sit-down party, I, fade from the

                           scene … walking about the seaside town, the
                           preparations for the coming day of all the

                           business and the leisure to be made from it –
                           hand-painted lettering in bleary windows a

                           metal stand is handed down to the beach
                           showing the way to the after-dinner boat

                           trip (where will it moor?); the water is full
                           of junked buoys, slimey and sun-faded; a sea

                           plane passes overhead up the beach – no help –
                           a huge helijet comes in low – gigantic – heading

                           for the airport – airport? – falling, she’s
                           too big for the town, nose-diving, disappears

                           into collapse like a building with plumes
                           of columns and lightning on the horizon;

                           Carol and the kids; I run to where I left them,
                           not at the station, no entry; but here is

                           Charlotte, only 6; train is leaving town,
                           Charlotte has gone, I cannot see Carol;

                           I run down the platform to say goodbye,
                           she turns to face me; she is Mum

 

 

 

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

beach & morning & time wormhole: that comicbookshop in dreams,
Carol & looking wormhole: recline
Charlotte wormhole: ‘my Dot …’
dream & windows & work wormhole: Evening Wind, 1921
horizon wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting
identity wormhole: it is complete
life wormhole: Detective Comics #345
lightning wormhole: footfall
Mum wormhole: heirloom – break / after heavy shower
sea wormhole: Buddha / Shakyamuni
talking wormhole: you can only smell the candles / when they have been snuffed out
train wormhole: travelling
walking wormhole: earthed
Woolwich wormhole: Jackie’s slight smile

 

Evening Wind, 1921

Tags

'scape, 1921, 2015, air, breathing, dream, Edward Hopper, evening, mind, naked, open, paint, portrait, sleep, stone, town, wind, windows, work, years

 

 

 

                Evening Wind, 1921

                      ahhh,

                      I have
                      washed

                      the bed
                      is open

                      and cold
                      I shall

                      dry my
                      self in

                      the air
                      of town

                      and breathe
                      the scent

                      of stone
                      and paint

                      work port-
                      al to dream

                      where the
                      work can

                      continue
                      all night

                      with vigour

 

 

 

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

air & breathing & open wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting
dream & Edward Hopper & windows wormhole: that comicbookshop in dreams,
evening wormhole: “King …”
mind wormhole: good session
sleep wormhole: for goodness’ sake
stone wormhole: Exceat to Cuckmere Haven
wind wormhole: along
work wormhole: prayer to my self
years wormhole: Detective Comics #345

 

that comicbookshop in dreams,

Tags

1960s, 2015, anxiety, arrival, bay window, beach, black, blue, buildings, comics, doing, doors, dream, Edward Hopper, eyes, finding, floorboards, frustration, glass, going, grey, growth, hill, home, hope, identity, lemon, lifetimes, lino, looking, moon, morning, numbers, regret, searching, shadow, shops, sky, step, streets, sycamore, Thames, time, town, trees, universe, Victorian houses, walls, windows, wormhole, writing

 

 

 

that comicbookshop in dreams,

where the sidestreets meet together
off the highstreets under the shadows
slanting down the rear façades of pipework and blackened window
from so much higher up than can never concern us it’s frightening
the morning afer Hopper’s Nighthawks
is closing down

the ones I try to get to
when I find myself done in town (after
the frustration of trying to get somewhere
or the anxiety of trying to get away from a somewhere
that always follows me) but never arrive at; I make
my various ways there, I know the routes
like the back of my hand

the ones with
warped door stuck at the top
or the bottom (will the glass pane hold) with
step onto lino once lemon and grey with new hope
now one with the floorboards as they sag under warren
of backrooms like forgotten lifetimes (wormholes to everywhere) into
the fust and pulp of paper and number all for the finding,
are closing down

I should have
patronised them more, I suppose;
I still haven’t found that second issue, that elusive fourth,
and the stacks just keep sliding wondering other titles and other
universes pressing their sky and moons into my eyeball as I stand
and scan; but I couldn’t keep up, blinked too soon
have to get on, things to do
places to be

it’s having a sale
clearing all the stock; the sentinels stand
impassive with all find, impassive before all loss: hooded
eyes on somefaraway beach; for old times’ sake I pick up some
mid-60s anthologies with their simple figures reaching out of panel
with all the stance of opera, and maybe a sixth issue, and maybe an early
fanzine for some intertextuality, but I’ll avoid the figurines: too
defined in detail, too static
in marque

I’ll come away
with stash held close to my heart
back out into bustle of street busily in all direction
with all the noise of weak indication and strong giant message;
I’ll work my way uphill by quiet sidestreet past high walls that
impossibly hold the looming sycamore and bay-windowed villas
over the river under skies of grey and blue gantry
home to catalogue my finds on the shelf like
a maze and plot their weave in life
like a stanza

 

 

 

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

anxiety & looking & searching & shops wormhole: lo
beach wormhole: gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared
black wormhole: Black Rook / in Rainy Weather
blue wormhole: Buddha / Shakyamuni
buildings & comics wormhole: escape from Flat Planet
doing wormhole: the endless acts of life
doors & sky & time & windows & writing wormhole: the / very gradual art of sitting
dream & moon wormhole: prayer to my self
Edward Hopper wormhole: Dr Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
eyes wormhole: the Conqueror
glass wormhole: heirloom – break / after heavy shower
grey & Victorian houses wormhole: corner of Plum Lane / Eglinton Hill and / Shrewsbury Lane
hill wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 – / the breath of London
identity wormhole: good looking
lemon wormhole: Brugges April 2015 – looking lost
lifetimes wormhole: now, have I forgotten anything
morning wormhole: hot summer / morning
shadow & walls wormhole: of a sudden // all the time
streets wormhole: silhouette: // second / thoughts
Thames wormhole: Jackie’s slight smile
trees wormhole: Exceat to Cuckmere Haven

 

cloud

Tags

'scape, 2013, adults, air, blue, car park, childhood, clouds, Crowborough, lamp post, life, North Downs, realisation, rooftops, shadow, sky, streets, town

 

 

 

                           cloud

                           out
                     into the car park
                     high in the town
                     high in the Weald
                     under a blue wide sky

                shadows from the lamp posts
                hang across the air and

                     looking past the roof
                     tops of the high street
                     I couldn’t see the
                     North Downs anymore

                like the childhood realisation
                that all adults have a job in life

 

 

 

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

air & realisation wormhole: Tulips by Sylvia Plath – How Far To Step Before You Raise The Other Foot
blue wormhole: a cup of tea, gov
childhood & rooftops & sky wormhole: 1964
clouds wormhole: sunny morning
Crowborough wormhole: cold wind
life wormhole: tag cloud poem VII – form new freedom:
shadow wormhole: Bat-Shadow
streets wormhole: letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love
town wormhole: deeper

 

deeper

Tags

2013, columns, dark, evening, olive, passing, pink, salmon, sound, speaking, temple, throat, town, unconscious

 

 

 

                past the deep pink-slash columns
                                of the temple
                                              steps wide and flanking
                                the salmon town behind
                                              in olive evening

                                              I needed to utter
                but my conscious mouth could not form
                                around the sound
                                              deeper than the back of my throat
                                dark as the shape
                                              that suddenly shifted in the temple

 

 

 

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

evening wormhole: tag cloud poem VI – anyone’s eyes
olive wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
passing wormhole: waiting room
pink wormhole: is she / looking at me?
sound wormhole: Batman#175

 

cold wind

Tags

'scape, 2013, car park, cars, Crowborough, green, iron, leaf, rust, seeing, town, wind

 

 

 

                                   what
                                   is there
                                   to see in a
                                   small town
                                   back street car
                                   park before a bolted
                                   galvanised railing with
                                   rust just breaking through
                                   behind the smooth bottle-green lines
                                   of a Volvo

                                                     but between
                                   the single curled leaf of a
                                   weed shaking in the cold wind

 

 

 

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

cars wormhole: open window
Crowborough wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
green & wind wormhole: on sitting / in front of / a hedge
seeing wormhole: ‘I can hear it raining / but cannot see it …’