• 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: Victorian houses

threshold to behold

09 Thursday May 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

1967, 2019, 8*, abandonment, alcove, being, birds, blue, books, breeze, Dad, Eglinton Hill, evening, garden, head, identity, life, meaning, openness, place, purpose, room, shoulders, skirting board, sky, son, sound, standing, text, time, trees, Victorian houses, weight, windows

                                  threshold to behold

                having persistently interrogated every alcove
                and skirting and sash-window of every room
                he could possibly have been in

                for any lead to any whereabouts, to even a
                chalk-outline, of how to be (beyond the breath
                of standing next to him in the breezy garden) –

                they were so well-moulded, fitted at perfect
                right angle, pulleys holding the weight just right
                to open, surely they would know – nothing,

                (or were they just too arcane to decode),
                the son stood before the bookshelves – how
                was it, now – legs not really astride but anyhow,

                (dangling, even), but head and shoulders alert,
                scanning the spines, weighing what each had
                to offer to respective places and times in the

                whole of a life, ah, this is the one – plucked –
                from the top of the spine, reached down; felt
                their weight, now, opened boarded covers

                (sound of crease), open at random (must of
                decades), what does the text say when
                eavesdropped unaware, has it sense, could I inhabit

                that sense enough to see what to do, to breathe
                what to be – birds take flight into the turning deep blue
                above evening trees

 

my father left his family on my eighth birthday; I’m sure he didn’t plan in that way, but that’s the day he happened to come home late again and confess that he’d been seeing someone else – I played with my new cars behind the sofa and listened to him leave, I didn’t look up so much as stare at the shape of the room as if noticing for the first time in the Victorian house on the hill where we lived; ‘I searched for form and land, for years and years I roamed’ (a no-prize to anyone who can name where these lyrics come from) looking for the direction I needed to be ‘the man of the house, now’ as someone said to me at the time; it’s only now I have retired that I realise there is no direction to go and that there is no man about the house other than saying makes it so; I still don’t look up, but am more and more sure that I don’t have to, now; still, all that browsing, plucking and hoarding over the years …

 

 

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

abandonment & Dad & life wormhole: my uncomfortable life
being wormhole: The Atlantic City Convention: 1. THE WAITRESS by William Carlos Williams
birds wormhole: prose piece 2 from POEMS 1927 by William Carlos Williams
blue & trees wormhole: Cote des Bœufs à l’Hermitage, Pontoise, 1877
books wormhole: ‘… and yet I think I am so modest: …’
breeze wormhole: Lapping Reflections [Deep Within Waters] – pageant of the trees
Eglinton Hill wormhole: Plumstead – Woolwich – Plumstead 220211
evening & time & windows wormhole: Boulevarde Montmartre, Evening Sun, 1879 // Boulevarde Montmartre at Night, 1879
garden wormhole: Landscape, Pontoise, 1875
identity wormhole: so, how long is, a piece of string?
meaning wormhole: the old man;
openness wormhole: the mantra of Maitreya
sky wormhole: Staffa Fingal’s Cave, 1832
sound wormhole: 10/28 ‘On hot days …’ by William Carlos Williams
Victorian houses wormhole: Hastings: neither all or nothing

 

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Hastings: neither all or nothing

07 Thursday Feb 2019

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2018, 7*, being, birch, blue, buildings, church, doing, flats, furniture, grey, Hastings, height, houses, net curtains, passing, pavement, reaching, reason, roads, sea, silver, sky, steeple, steets, time, Victorian houses, walking, windows, wondering, writing

                                                                Hastings: neither all or nothing

                I walked steep down
                                through Victorian house fronts
                                                down the whole height of the
                                                                church steeple

                and stood at the grey sea
                                wondering if there was good reason
                                                to write of it, after all;
                                                                the houses

                were now flats with nets knotted in the
                                windows and abandoned furniture
                                                on the street, but look,
                                                                that corner building

                built to the shape of bifurcating roads, oh
                                and the silver birch at the edge
                                                of the pavement reaching
                                                                up into the blue

                cleared sky and although I needn’t write it,
                                I do; and the roots of this small
                                                tree have bulged the paviours
                                                                unnoticeably over the years

 

 

 

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

being & doing wormhole: it’s / not what you do or what you say / if it ain’t got that swing
birch wormhole: over-pink cagoule
blue wormhole: {reading right to left}
buildings & silver wormhole: London, 1809
church wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – Trees
grey & sky wormhole: Impression of Winter: Carriage on a Country Road, 1872
net curtains wormhole: keep the light off
passing wormhole: passing
roads wormhole: SPRING AND ALL XI by William Carlos Williams
sea wormhole: Fishermen at Sea, 1796
streets & writing wormhole: on facing the Have
time wormhole: somehow
Victorian houses wormhole: Victorian pipework
walking wormhole: blister on me thumb
windows wormhole: Dulwich College, London, 1871

 

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Victorian pipework

21 Friday Sep 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2018, 4*, architecture, Eastbourne, identity, living, passing, pipes, society, Victorian houses, windows

                                self-possession
                defferently-aligned and

                                different-sized
                windows accorded to

                                different calls
                of life amid all the winding

                                and ubiquitous
                Victorian pipework

 

 

 

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

architecture wormhole: cool / tiled flooring
Eastbourne wormhole: amniotic avenue
identity wormhole: you
living wormhole: The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford – With Pigs
passing & society wormhole: despite that
Victorian houses wormhole: and ‘naerrgh’ a mention of a seagull’s call
windows wormhole: JANUARY by William Carlos Williams

 

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

21 Wednesday Feb 2018

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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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

 

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red / lacquer / door

12 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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2014, 5*, bay window, child, doors, Hastings, life, red, step, streets, Victorian houses, view

                                               red
                                       lacquer
                                            door

                there is much up steep street
                where Victorian double bay

                stands proud to view over all
                steps too much for child to race

                wide-steps up and up while the
                buggy is meticulously folded

 

 

 

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

child wormhole: lime crocs
doors wormhole: I turn to wake up
life wormhole: found
red wormhole: twilight / and parasols down / within minutes
streets wormhole: between
Victorian houses wormhole: landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey

 

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landscape of cloud over London / with differing depths of grey

19 Monday Jun 2017

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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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

 

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through the pane – poewieview #34

23 Tuesday Aug 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

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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 & quiet & 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

 

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opening

11 Friday Mar 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

≈ 2 Comments

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
architecture wormhole: crease and score of silver-morning sky
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

 

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gotcha

12 Tuesday Jan 2016

Posted by m lewis redford in poems

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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

 

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1963

23 Wednesday Sep 2015

Posted by m lewis redford in poems, poeviews

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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

 

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← Older posts

… Mark; remember …

"... the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful; it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe to find ashes." ~ Annie Dillard

pages coagulating like yogurt

  • Bodhisattvacharyavatara
    • Chapter 1
    • Chapter 10
    • Chapter 2
    • Chapter 3
    • Chapter 4
    • Chapter 5
    • Chapter 6
    • Chapter 7
    • Chapter 8
    • Chapter 9
    • Introduction
  • collected works
    • 25th August 1981 – count Up
    • askance From Hell
    • Batman
    • Bob 1995-2012
    • David Bowie Movements in Suite Major
    • Edward Hopper: Poems at an Exhibition
    • 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
    • The Boats of Vallisneria by Michael J. Redford
    • 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
  • poemics
  • poeviews
  • teaching matters
  • William Carlos Williams
  • wormholes

recent leaks …

  • the inevitable tock // when we close our eyes
  • time
  • the simple prayer // the tattered poem // the bitter lament
  • taking birth
  • mirror
  • long / road
  • ‘in my car I pass…’
  • Journey
  • ‘the practice …’
  • under the blue and blue sky

Uncanny Tops

  • me
  • Moebius strip
  • YOUNG WOMAN AT A WINDOW by William Carlos Williams
  • 'the practice ...'
  • 'I can write ...'
  • like butterflies on / buddleia
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  • under the blue and blue sky
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