landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey

Tags

2013, birth, black, breathing, clouds, England, green, grey, hope, iron, landscape, life, London, mauve, mist, park, pipes, pregnancy, publishing, shadow, streets, Sylvia Plath, Victorian houses, walking, writing

                soon after I was born
                to the rendered sides of
                talling Victorian terrace-ends
                with networks of iron black pipe
                and random small frosted window
                                Sylvia Plath

                arrived back in England
                pregnant with newhope and
                immanent with firstbook
                to breathe the alternating
                talling shadows of street
                and the misty greenmauve landscape
                                of park

                landscape of cloud over London
                with differing depths of grey

 

 

 

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

black wormhole: St. Edmund’s / Parish Church / Castleton
breathing & writing wormhole: the goldilocks stance
clouds & green & grey wormhole: municipal garden
life wormhole: garden
London wormhole: handsome
mauve & shadow & walking wormhole: walk from Castleton to Hope
mist wormhole: prelude: // travel
park wormhole: in the / Citadel / Park / a leaf / new / ly fell
publishing wormhole: Granada holiday …
streets wormhole: Luton // couldn’t make a poem out of it
Sylvia Plath wormhole: Sylvia
Victorian houses wormhole: through the pane – poewieview #34

 

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

 

opening

Tags

'scape, 2013, allowing, architecture, art, bay window, being, finding, found, grey, high, Italianate, marble, open, opening, piano, searching, Sevenoaks, shape, sky, sound, Spring, stucco, suburbia, Victorian houses, windows

 

 

 

                                the art to finding
                                is not in the searching
                                but in the allowing

                                or opening to what
                                is to be found as spring
                                sounds like bay windows,

                                stucco, and Italianate
                                overhang of a late
                                Victorian villa under

                                high-marble grey sky in
                                suburban Sevenoaks from
                                which the faint idle

                                tinklings of a piano
                                shape through a let-open
                                window

 

 

 

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

allowing wormhole: my life / of others
being wormhole: becoming
grey wormhole: where the goblins leered – poewieview #14
open wormhole: Grizedale College
piano wormhole: ‘the hour before dinner – / the empire of dusk’ – poewieview #6
searching wormhole: thick thick fog
sky & windows wormhole: stacked
sound wormhole: the sounds of 1969 // [would have] seemed that way – poewieview #13
Spring wormhole: 50 mph
Victorian houses wormhole: gotcha

 

gotcha

Tags

1960s, 2012, avenue, Batman, buildings, business, canyon, city, height, life, Riddler, space, speech, streets, Victorian houses

 

 

 

                                gotcha

                right in the middle of the wide open space
                between late-Victorian apartment buildings
                where the avenues and streets acutely dissect
                                on the one side
                and the right-angled 1960s canyon of higher business
                                on the other
                two hundred and seventy feet up will you
                never learn Riddler there is nowhere you can
                show yourself that is safe from my happenstance

 

 

 

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

Batman & buildings wormhole: ‘in clear oil air …’
city wormhole: “walking …”
life & speech wormhole: the warp and the plumbing
Riddler wormhole: we play / the game
space wormhole: the practice
streets wormhole: Office at Night, 1940
Victorian houses wormhole: 1963

 

1963

Tags

1963, 2014, alley, Burt Bacharach, colour, Dionne Warwick, Eglinton Hill, kitchen, open, passing, sound, Spring, Victorian houses, windows, years

 

 

 

                1963

                                the plastic click of
                                pull-down kitchen cupboards
                                of all colours through all the
                                open windows
                                in Spring
                all up and down the alley behind the steep hill of tall Victorian houses

 

(this empty space)

 

 

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

Burt Bacharach & Dionne Warwick wormhole: 1963
Eglinton Hill wormhole: corner of Plum Lane / Eglinton Hill and / Shrewsbury Lane
kitchen wormhole: To my Mum
open wormhole: Evening Wind, 1921
passing wormhole: the peculiar continuum of trains
sound wormhole: block ‘n’ role
Spring wormhole: dream 260713
Victorian houses wormhole: that comicbookshop in dreams,
windows & years wormhole: Summertime, 1943

 

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

 

corner of Plum Lane / Eglinton Hill and / Shrewsbury Lane

Tags

'scape, 2013, being, bench, Eglinton Hill, eucalyptus, green, grey, London, Plum Lane, Plumstead, Shrewsbury Lane, sitting, Victorian houses, wind, writing

 

 

 

                                corner of Plum Lane
                                Eglinton Hill and
                                Shrewsbury Lane

                looking for the right time
                to note the right things to
                settle together but it is far too busy
                to take them all together so I sit on a bench and let them
                                come to me
                                as they will

                a well-established eucalyptus tree leans
                and waves ahead of the wind that I feel
                but even when still it glimmers grey-green
                and recovers in front of the stucco-fronted
                                Victorian house
                                over London

 

I sometimes drive up to SE London where I lived as a child to write myself some roots that I can no longer feel and remind myself that even time is eventual

 

 

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

being wormhole: the tangles fall apart
bench wormhole: new year’s eve 2014; train up to London to / walk the bridges across the Thames, and / listen to the voices say it is, and was, like, / but get back home before the fireworks / obliterate it all in the emptying twilight
Eglinton Hill & London wormhole: H e a v e
green wormhole: Bodiam Castle
grey wormhole: earthed
Plumstead wormhole: gazing at the night / as my eyes passed the jagged hole / my head disappeared
sitting wormhole: good session
Victorian houses wormhole: Woolwich Central – making life better II
wind wormhole: Exceat to Cuckmere Haven
writing wormhole: fantasia

 

Woolwich Central – making life better II

Tags

2012, city, compassion, fear, identity, life, lifetimes, living room, love, pain, prayer, question, reading, silence, sky, space, superhero, Victorian houses, voices, walls, windows, Woolwich, words

 

 

 

                           Woolwich Central – making life better II

                           passing the gothic Victorian house pointing
                           skywards in all directions partitioned to
                           so many living rooms I know how much

                           I cannot be the superhero to the voice
                           sustained in high-register and edge of fear
                           let alone for the silent voice that sits by the

                           hollow wall under the table; can I rend
                           those walls asunder and pike the onslaught
                           with a single glance deep into the whorl

                           of flinch and recoil of a lifetime of no register?
                           can I scoop up the silence and hold it foetal
                           forever safe from division before the window?

                                          can I?

                                          spell:–

                           may the pain of scream and the silence
                           of numb build the very thirteen floors of
                           open-plan living in the centre of the city that

                           they never quite found when they committed
                           their lives together for life and may all the fear
                           and cower magnify transparent exponential

                           to the tangle that pulls it all tight into its own
                           relief – the space forever at its heart as the
                           space between these words that allows them to be read

                           thank you

 

 

 

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

city wormhole: city twilight
compassion wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
identity wormhole: just words wiped across a line
life & lifetimes & love & reading & sky & space & walls wormhole: 1959 –– MANHATTAN –– 2012
living room wormhole: tag cloud poem VIII – growth
silence wormhole: ‘the walking stick …’
superhero wormhole: amid
Victorian houses & Woolwich wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 – / the breath of London
voices wormhole: new year’s eve 2014; train up to London to / walk the bridges across the Thames, and / listen to the voices say it is, and was, like, / but get back home before the fireworks / obliterate it all in the emptying twilight
windows wormhole: 1977
words wormhole: career came to naught …

 

Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 – / the breath of London

Tags

2008, 2014, age, birdsong, blackbird, boy, breath, buildings, Canary Wharf, cars, child, chimney, crane, distance, dog, downhill, Eaglesfield Road, Eglinton Hill, eyes, garden, grey, growing, hands, hedge, hill, identity, light, London, morning, mother, mouth, passing, pavement, Plum Lane, Plumstead, posture, Powis Street, red, river, shadow, sky, smoke, speech, starlings, step, streets, time, truck, Victorian houses, walking, Woolwich

 

 

 

                           Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 290508 –
                           the breath of London

                           the four storey station at the top of the hill
                           once housed fire engines high on their tyres
                           all buffed red and waiting behind folding doors
                           are flats now; while up by the chimneys a blackbird
                           sings various songs as the cars pass variegated
                           along in the quiet morning light under low grey sky

                           Victorian houses stand four dimensions wide
                           and chimney flue and pipework deep are also flats
                           as starlings fight without let without resolve
                           in the overgrown privacy in front the front garden
                           when the loading crane on the building supply
                           truck lurches wrenching over the speed hump

                           downhill two young boys stalk around the front garden
                           perched on the brick pillars by the steep pavement
                           and Canary Wharf tower has new buildings around it
                           like slow plumes of smoke from a distance; forty years
                           now and my shadow is still stumpy walking before
                           me and my left ear still sticks out noticeably …

                           when the hill turns flat we walk by the water reading
                           hoardings announcing Woolwich re-generation
                           along Powis Street where the child veers along
                           in a straight line c’mere darlin’ c’mere ‘cos I can’t
                           ‘andle that when you ignore me, you know I can’t
                           ‘andle that darlin’ … doosyatold … get off

                           walking the dog white trainers hat back jaw out eyes
                           half-closed mouth slightly open – seen – hand out
                           thumb loose seven steps grasp hold while the greeting
                           happen huugg! – ‘the road is long …’; there, bellies out
                           hanging some pregnant one hanging and pregnant
                           striped tank-top still with ponytail but about my age

                           “I will step – ” slight push heel up left foot swing
                           w-i-d-e from right leg shoulder twist evenly in step
                           alternately arms out “ – because this is all I have to
                           show f’m’self”; truck: “A tool for every job” teeth
                           too big for his mouth mouthing at the young mothers
                           pushing their buggies before him as he changes gear

 

 

 

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

blackbird wormhole: afternoon 290613
breath wormhole: plethora: the Dark Knight Strikes Again (2002)
buildings & streets & time wormhole: ‘anyway / is it all just / a dream?’
cars wormhole: bass and piano
child wormhole: letters to Mum V – carrying on in duty and love
chimney & garden wormhole: corroboration
crane wormhole: letters to Mum I – a walk / and talk
dog wormhole: the retriever the daughter and the mother
Eglinton Hill & light & Plumstead & shadow wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich 121114
eyes wormhole: I need to keep my eyes open / in meditation
grey & London wormhole: 1967
hands wormhole: Dr Strange I – the trashcan tilted the better to see now the street
hedge wormhole: oh-pen too
identity wormhole: yet another sprain / of ‘Jingle Bells’ straining / to propagate yet another / tired Christmas spirit – … / ‘sanner clawsis coming t’ taunn – yeah’ in a / coffee shop with condensation / running off the snowflake transfers / and the iphone at the next table / talking how 50 means 900 a month – not worth / the drive (left his scarf behind – / collateral) … about my age
morning & Woolwich wormhole: hint
mother wormhole: Dr Strange III – the needs of billions
mouth wormhole: the Avengers
passing wormhole: smiling
posture wormhole: – sigh! –
red wormhole: a light rosé
river wormhole: capes flying
sky wormhole: the Last Day of Morecambe Illuminations
speech wormhole: ‘“Never,” said the Sandman; / he blinked …’
Victorian houses: deepening with each step
walking wormhole: knees

 

deepening with each step

Tags

'scape, 2012, buildings, chimney, hills, houses, passing, poverty, the British Empire, time, Victorian houses, walking, walls, Woolwich

 

 

 

                walking downhill to Woolwich through Victorian terraces
                                built when the Empire was plentiful
                                the pillars and walls laid to rest now
                                              too poor to act
                while between the house ends cornices and junctions
                                the cross of new-build rising
                                and the hatch of chimneys and pediments preserved

                                              deepening with each step

 

 

 

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

buildings & walls wormhole: multifarious: the Dark Knight Returns (1986)
chimneys wormhole: … the discipline of shamatha / and the waft of vipashyana
hills wormhole: … sshhh
houses wormhole: tag cloud poem IV – C
passing wormhole: the en-gentled / end of a wan / writing retreat
time wormhole: doing
Victorian houses wormhole: mlewisredford introductory complete life audit confessional
walking wormhole: … and
Woolwich wormhole: Beresford Square: // it’s alright it’s alright