A Memory
A line lies, opens out the rotation
of a geranium on a table, mapped
to a late night doped perspective;
though the plant is perfectly still,
yet it rotates in the young man's eyes,
puts him in mind of Kids TV,
where a hexagonal box, turn-tabled...
metal petals open and up comes a stop
motion character (little man from the village)
where all is a reasonable voice,
national treasure narrating reassuring habits...
wave-swash and shingle-ruckle
whispers a good stone's-throw out
from the dark, bay window,
(plastic sheet pinned around the frame
for make-do double-glazing,
curtains not
reaching fully to close)
whispers over roofs and through
alleys of the unseen hunkered houses opposite,
seaward shuttered...
gust rattles window-frame
(just a little visitation);
she lies asleep and peacefully alone,
a little diminuative
in the queen divan bed that sprang out
ingeniously long and broad,
flat and robust;
but a train awaits the young man tomorrow;
wire pulls him taut
who cannot sleep here,
not even on the floor,
bubble and gap to the groan
of a wrenching farewell... again
such greenstick fracture...
a grey slab of platform
too soon after morning waves, each
a miser of its borrowed colour,
out-stretch fingers
between grey slates, sinking...
so he watches and drifts;
the geranium rotates.
..................
In the upstairs of what was The Welsh Kitchen, Borth, Wales, 1978
Camberwick Green 1966:-
'Each episode begins with a shot of a musical box which rotates while playing a tune. It is accompanied by the following narration:
Here is a box, a musical box, wound up and ready to play. But this box can hide a secret inside. Can you guess what is in it today?
Then the lid, a hexagon constructed of six triangles in alternating colours, slowly opens up like an iris, or in the manner of a camera shutter, while the box smoothly revolves to the accompaniment of an exquisite Baroque Minuet . An hexagonal platform bearing the motionless figure of the puppet character which will play a central role in today's episode, slowly rises into position: the platform flush with the shifted triangular cover-tiles, which are now splayed open like the stiff petals of a flower; as the music-box comes to a halt with an audible click. After a brief introduction, the background appears and the story begins.'
Wiki.
......................
Fragments
Is it always a story that stirs, little starling
on the topmost twig-digit-shafting-sky,
of tall, empty sycamore?
Calling here,
peeping there,
busying wingbeat
fluttering you off beyond this fragment...
Gardens down, pigeons reiterate;
simply cyclic, it's all in their pauses,
as, pale-lemon, the sun-disc pierces
drifting cloud,
calligraphs my aftersight
with
near fovea
tracks of a
green
glyph...
Oh, the machine resonations. Engines
chronicle civil continuance;
sirens
declare strife and tragedy...
But we assemble the story, from
omniscient / charactered narrators...
well, half-savvy,
hopefully not shouted from a rabbit hole...
The rain-waters in two blue glass
candle-holders
report of my scrawling,
corrugate for juddered roads
dimple at breezes
fearlessly trembling their seismology
as wobbling tree reflections...
................
