20. شارع تاجبروك

أنظر إلى السقف

امي قريبة

السوت جريدتها

ابني مع ابي

The whine of the engines

From my father's desk, the place with internet!, I can hear the planes flying down the Thames to Heathrow. At home I hear birds and strange hoots or howls in the night, here it is always the planes, night and day.

How long before the next one comes over? Ah, here it is. One goes then the next one arrives. 12.28. 12.29, now silence... 12.30 yes, here comes the next one, a higher pitched whine, I have never listened so carefully to them before, 12.31, at its loudest now, passing over and fading. Mixed up with a second one, also now at its loudest.... there's an echo-y sound as it fades. 12.32.. oh and another is arriving before that one had disappeared.

So, if there is an actual gap between them that is a special pleasure. It's only 12.33. What a busy time of day. That one was a bigger plane, deeper engines. 12.34.. nearly silence, will it happen? No! Hallo next one. Still only 12.34.

My first demo - thinking back

It was way back in 2012. I had the chance to drive over the hills to the A34 and enjoy the sunshine purely because I was on a mission to get to London.

I told myself as I walked along the familiar streets to Belgrave Square that it would be a disaster, no one would be there, they'd be horrible, not welcoming etc, so I wouldn't get my hopes up. I even approach going to the supermarket with an expectation of potentially bumping into someone I know! So this is a necessary precaution for me.

Anyway, I worked out that the women stood together and the men separately. But us London types intermingle, so I did that too.

One woman told me she'd been on many demonstrations before, in Iran and now in the UK. I haven't seen her since, maybe I need to go on more demos :)

Another woman told me she was Shia, clearly expecting me to know what this meant, which I did, very approximately, so I replied that I was Quaker, again expecting her to have heard of this term.

It was great to get hoots from cars as we walked in the very middle of the normally busiest part of London, round Hyde Park Corner and up  Park Lane.

I lurked at the back when we were in front of the Saudi embassy. At the end I turned into my most pretentious and enthusiastic self and even said thank you to the various police officers who had marshalled us.

I took the hand of a woman I was standing with and went over to say thank you to one of the guys with a gun right in front of the Saudi Embassy. She was totally astounded at the concept of going up to him and chatting!!

I said we wouldn't need to protest again, this would do it! He was funny and said that the protesters never give up. I found that surprisingly encouraging. He also told me about the police officers' favourite cafe round the corner. I'll go there on a pilgrimage one day, to celebrate the whole protesting and policing ritual.

Then I knocked on the window of the big police van full of officers. They were a bit surprised to get a collective thank you as well, but I couldn't ever say this was my first demo again :)

...

I was just so glad to get in and out alive, I had had visions of being kettled or being hit on the head by a fire extinguisher (Brian Ferry's son chucked one off the roof of a building) or even being killed like Ian Tomlinson. I hadn't drunk much so I wouldn't get caught short. It's nerve-wracking.

In the basement at parties - The mantlepiece again - ana qibla wuludaty, ila ummi, ma'a alqitt, 'caesar'

H is somewhere behind there. My friend from my Arabic classes was there too. We talked and didn't really pay full attention to the pictures. I think art galleries are for those at a loose end and with their full minds available. We just had a social time amongst the exhibits :)

H switched the lights on and off for fun. I took a little film of him appearing and disappearing again between the giant displays. It was very soothing down there in the basement. It could do with a couple of sofas for people like me to rest in, while thinking and making notes.

Another section of my parents' house. The sheep's skull used to be there for decades.. but is now up in my father's study. I can't tell who is in that little oval photo at the front, so will have to check next time I am there.

This is the best one. That photo of my mother resting with the cat Caesar while pregnant is one of my favourites. Guess what this says:

أنا قبل ولادتي، داخل والدتي، مع القط بجانبنا

London - Anselm Keifer - Albion

Leaving before dawn for London

I was a satisfying feeling to be up and off so early. Breakfast at home, plus greeting my mother in French. She jumped and squeaked, fearing I was a well-dressed French relative who'd just turned up out of the blue, knocking on their bedroom door. I never realised saying 'bonjour' could be so alarming.

Then I had an argument with my father about love and relationships before finishing breakfast, that's a first. We didn't argue after that.

While my parents had a normal Saturday morning I buzzed off to see an exhibition I'd read about in a blog. Striking and bold. There were 2 references to Celan poems, so I'll look at those one day. The best part was looking closely at the surfaces of the paintings, the golden layers were so rough and perfect at the same time.

One room just contained a heap of massive book things plus sunflower heads. Being so big and spread out we could walk under it and look right at it. I don't think in words, just enjoy it all uncritically, like feeling the wind or rain.

There was a tea in the afternoon, I helped with laundry and felt I hadn't done much to benefit the household. It is confusing to come, then go away again. I try to read between the lines, but get nowhere, just get used to the buttons on their washing machine and dryer.

I even managed to lose my mother. She said she was going to get some cash as we walked out of the cafe, she walked off, so I thought, towards the cash point by the market and I did something back at the house then tried to catch up with her. No luck at all, so walked all the way back wondering how she'd gone so far so fast. There is a machine at the corner of the street...

In a way I cause more trouble than help coming to visit. Maybe that is always the way, simply a way of passing the time together and doing more mixed up living. I get to see the workings of the household, not just the elegant surface.

Jo Bell/Will Burns/George Chopping

The drive back went straight to Oxford. It was a surprise to be so suddenly back in my familiar parking place and walking down Observatory Street to get to the Albion Bookstore. Very good to meet some familiar faces again. I suggested I'd do a short review of Life on Easy Street by George Roberts. So my reading is focused on that now.

2 new to me poets read out their work and we all had time to talk in the interval. Hearing Jo Bell is good. I know her stance and delivery so well now. If I read a poem of hers on the page/screen I can hear her consonants and accent.

I wonder whether at a certain point I don't listen to the words' meanings at all, just watch and listen to the voices. I watch sheep and cattle, observe, no more. I don't want to interpret any more, just see each person's ways. Since I don't have to reply or discuss, I can switch off and bathe in their music. So I was starting to learn Will Burns and George Chopping.

Once I am used to that I am able to sense a difference when another emotion kicks in. Watching David Morley change profoundly as he shifted from non-Romany to Romany poems. I could see him become more himself. I wondered why he bothered doing anything apart from the work on his Romany side. The rest seemed so at odds with his deep self. This was on stage at the Swindon Poetry Festival this October.

Woodstock Poetry Festival - This weekend in London

Woodstock Poetry Festival

Feel the entire room go still, holding their breath to a stunning love poem.
Enjoy the mystery of not knowing what each reading will contain.

Don't read out a poem which needs sharpening, people need my best.
Do read out a tight poem, even if it is almost too risky, for that murmur.

Clap extra loudly for the first time reader, welcome her in.
Look and listen to the reader being filmed, take in her voice.

...

My mother has just got out of the car to go back home, but we waved at her to come across to the Serbian cafe. I could see her do a bit of thinking, then turn the zimmer frame to make her way over here. We all took photos of each other and talked too loudly. My brother took this one and my father is just to my brother's right, next to my mother. I had lost my cards and wallet, so was down to a £1.15 small espresso. I tipped every bit of sugar into it since it was included in the price. Wolfed down the biscuit too.

The necklace was one I'd found on the tarmac in the rain. No one took it from the top of my car, where I put it to be found by the owner, so I decided to keep it. Wearing it in public near where I had found it was not a very clever thing to do though. I imagined someone walking past and thinking it was just like the one they'd lost... All I would have had to do was hand it over and say sorry.

...


This weekend in London

Carry the breakfast tray my father has made for my mother, put it on the bed.
Wait for the next request, don't rush the morning, let her sleep.

Stand outside the shower room, waiting for my mother to finish.
Make an improvised tube of toothpaste for her from a corner of a plastic bag.

Sit on the bed with her sharing a hot chocolate and a danish from the cafe.
Never mind about past dramas, just live in each half hour.

Sitting in my father's study - Putting a collection of poetry together

Up to the right there is a clock he has had for years. I can almost read the formal Arabic now: al bank yamani al isha' wa al taqmiir...The Yemen Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Hmm, I am not certain enough. I will have to put the English through Google translate, then look more closely at the calligraphy with the extra decorative dots and such.

The family tree goes from 1227 to 1965 when my younger brother was born. We are both little handwritten footnotes squeezed in at the bottom. We used to look at our names when this chart was on the wall of the landing at Ovington Square and we were free to just wander about in the house.

There's a sheep's skull up between some books near the ceiling. We found it on holiday in Scotland in the 70's. It used to be on the drawing room mantle piece for years. Now it has been here for years.

If I crane my neck to the left there is an old jam jar of what can only be potassium permanganate. Bright blue crystals. I am no longer surprised by anything in here.

This desk is a sea of papers, glasses, old calculator, cup with coins in it, nice fountain pens and...surprise: more Arabic on some sort of luggage labels hanging from the angle-poise lamp.

al afdaliya - something about pleasing?

'anatiya khasa - ? ?
darja awf - class ?
as-s'awdiya - the Saudi created thing, untranslatable.

ad-darajat alawla - first class

This is very hard. I can't read plane labels yet.

---

Jeffrey Levine on the thinking and reflecting work needed over a long period of time. Measured and clear, read this first.

Katrina Vandenberg on the passionate reasons for a collection, from the innuendo of the space between stanzas to the necessity of revealing your obsessions. This is a fantastic read.

There is no reason why I shouldn't play around with what I have written in 2014 and see what I can make of it all, for my own pleasure.

Tossing nearly everything overboard

Having abandoned nearly all the regular activities I used to have, I just focus on the key things:

Facebook
Blog
Email
Hall Writers' Forum, plus feedback I have promised to give
52 group on Facebook
plus a translation I have promised to do
and .... my Arabic classes with the home work

It is actually easier, because everything else goes into the bin or onto the big heap for another time.

A few years ago I told a friend that there was a great freedom in being at rock bottom. That was related to school, home education and autism/aspergers - or rather the uncomfortable clash between mainstream culture and what we actually needed.

This time it is a response to relatives in hospital, on top of the changes due to H going to school.

.....

If I look around this dining room, I can see 4 Madonnas.

I can also see the picture of my father which I must have taken 25 years ago because he looks about my age now. Also a recent one of my mother in a big hat, plus my favourite sculpture in the house, makes it sound as if I grew up in an art gallery, a Medici looking woman with a calm, steady demeanour. She used to be on the landing at Ovington Square, my grandparents' house.

I have booked my father's big screen for later, so I can relax by reading other people's poetry and making some comments.

Fire hazards

There are more levels of discomfort than I had imagined.

Just one smoke alarm, but I open the windows of the guest room at the top of the house.

Just one smoke alarm, the windows have been screwed shut, but the room next door has easily lifted sash window.

All of the above, but I will have my nearly immobile mother in the guest bed with me, how would I make that safe? I have asked my father to help, he says he will unscrew the window, so that will reassure me.

Anyway, it is just for her first night back at home. We might be telling each other ghost stories, or I might teach her some Arabic.

...

In fact she was just mobile enough to sit laughing watching tv with my father, so I left them to it and she was with him instead.

Oh my God! London - 1 Saturday

This is me being over the top, but London is just amazing.

---

I have lost the little notebook with my info about Saturday, which means that some poems of mine have gone awol too. Oh no. And good grief. That's one way of getting published.

---

 Lunch visit with my mother at the hospital.
So very lovely to be pushing her in the wheel chair and generally hanging around.

I buy an Arabic newspaper, I buy one a year at the moment!
My mother suggests I circle the words I do know on the front page.

Off to do some work, peering at this translation I am doing.
Cafe packed out, so I sat in the bookshop, Arthur Probsthain (again).

Chatted to woman near me, turns out she knows Jenny Lewis,
What a very small world, she has done the Praise workshop I am going to.

Back to see my mother, we all meet up there,
Because we are very noisy when we all get together we all go to cafe.

Debate plans and current situation, bit of a war cabinet at the cafe,
Then I decide we must have a family photo, someone kind takes a few for us.

Off to my evening event, Reuters News Oratorio
Drenched thoroughly due to making some bad decisions.

Roam around the church before it starts, can't settle down.
Try the upstairs balcony, but I am not one of the cast.

The church is huge and gracious, peeling walls, cracks, darkness above.
Warm crypt with cryptic route to loos, unusual.

Finally sit down with a group of people, we chat and chat.
The improvised - and - structured performance is how it is.

I sit and lean forwards, look here, look there.
People do their thing with guitars, cellos, other musical instruments.

Jude stands at the piano and does her thing.
What I adore is the seriousness and stance of people in the middle of their own worlds.

I just have to give my whole attention to what is happening,
Let it be and let it continue, witness it, be part of the essential audience.

Imagine a poetry reading with no listeners?
That is how important being the pew-bound crowd is.

There was burning afterwards, scrolls from a dream project in Olympic Year,
A version of the Wailing Wall for Bethnal Green.

The private and unread scrolls were tipped into the fire, a brazier in the rain.
We held and relit our candles while this all went on.

We wondered whether by now some of the wishes had come to pass:
The wishes for a baby, for a partner, health.

By the end our little group had refound itself on the steps of the church,
But we had to break it up and go home. Twitter/email details...all given.

What a wonderful day and evening.

Oh my God! London - 0 Friday

The tree trunks and branches are covered with white lights in front of the Natural History Museum.
Skating has started beneath it.

There are 2 shisha cafes in Beauchamp Place now. I will take my brother there as soon as I can.
Tomorrow I might be able to go to the World News Oratorio, Jude Montague is putting this on.

Time at my father's desktop, finished my first draft of comments on a sequence of poems.
A big responsibility, I need to make it concise and helpful for the rewriting phase.

Oh my God! London - 2 - Sunday

Eating my way through my father's sour dough loaf, this time with his own plum and ginger jam.
Tube to Warren Street, more comfortable working on my poem translation on a seat.

Find my mother on her bed, so cut her finger nails and do other beauty tasks.
Dr arrives, a Glaswegian :), full update, so many tests, grabbing this opportunity.

Adventure with a wheelchair, backwards, forwards, lifts, doors, even the shop.
My mother's idea of heaven: cafe facing buses, tube station, PEOPLE, LIFE, LONDON.....

She manages to eat a hard boiled egg without an eggcup.
I go back and forth like a yoyo; plates, coffee cup and a human in a wheelchair,
Eventually we are all at the same table.

Kisses, goodbyes, odd to know I won't be back until next Saturday. Why don't I live near my parents?

On my walk along South Bank I go the the end of a little pier. Smile at a toddler who is trying standing on a metal tying up point for ropes. Then she decides to sit on it. Whole series of discoveries for her and her patient mother in the sunshine.

Disgusting colour of Thames. Will it one day be something healthier? At least the froth that used to be there is gone.

Lean against the wall and sit on the floor of the Turbine Hall, watch the babies and toddlers with their kind parents.
Bit of writing, then pick out nouns from what I have done and write with those, then pick out verbs from that new set of lines.

I get distracted by the women's hairstyles, always hoping for inspiration.
Decide to get some half-processed merino wool to make primary colour hair wraps out of, based on simple, bold colours of the Richard Tuttle installation above my head.

Films, a set of 3, set in a light bulb factory in China, so many flames.
Other one is just grey on black with occasional people, even I give up on that one.

Find 'Zaytoun', a DVD, for my Arabic film club, plus board books for the babies in my life.

Millennium Bridge: I always think of the stranger who once walked at my pace, level with me, whether I sped up or slowed down. It is a long bridge, so after a while I just walked at my own pace while this mysterious man walked along too near me. I deliberately didn't look round, but I saw that he was all in black and perhaps 30ish as he went off down some steps.

Back to the house to see my father, kisses, goodbyes.
See the owner of the Serbian cafe opposite, rush over to share the news about my mother, more kisses, goodbyes.

As I drive along the Embankment in the dark towards the A4/M4 I enjoy the sparkling lights of the new flats on the other bank and the bright tree decorations. Really I just love all the lights at night. It's my city and I love seeing it again each time.

I listen to my music and find myself imagining having a huge row in the middle of Oxford with a complete stranger on the pavement because I have decided to open my car window and share my music with the world. Don't know why this arises. By the time my mind is back in a state of calm I have got to the Hogarth Roundabout. Strange.

Other people drive oddly tonight. Twice I find myself stuck behind a smart car being driven very slowly at 50mph by a male driver on his own. It is 8pm on a Sunday, perhaps they are both drunk and can't decide to stop to clear their heads. This is a new danger.

Find a set of photos of the event I was at yesterday, brings it all back. I am the one holding a candle while holding a bag of books with Arthur Probsthain on the front! And chatting. The photos don't show the fact that I am still damp from being drenched before the performance even started. Many of the performers had worn coats.

After Royal Holloway, fit in a visit to London

H and I worked together to put all the sheets on T's bed for him
After the moving in process we all went off in different directions.

Turned my coffee order into a takeaway when my mother crossed the road to say she was in
Little lunch with her, glass of wine to celebrate this momentous day

Walked to the Tate, decided on some Turner
A lot better with my glasses off, just colours and placing of pictures on the walls

I love the different colours on the walls of the rooms
Each one brings out a different colour in the pictures on the wall

One room has very detailed glitzy gold frames, my favourite
Another has such plain, simple gold frames, my favourite too

I know I dislike pale pictures, but one has snow on mountains I peer very closely at
The bits of white paint are so very simple, I can't work out how it is so effective

a film which looped of French nuns chatting in a provincial accent I couldn't place
such  pleasure to listen to their voices and see their smiles, expression and body language

no arabic guide at all, how annoying, I could do with simple sentences with photos
ask the centre pompidou in paris instead, they are bound to have a guide

book on freud by david sylvester, interviews on working

2 pigeons walked and jumped down a complete series of steps outside the Tate
I was so taken by their plan that I just stood and watched them

parked in ovington square, house has blanked out windows, no glazing yet
basement still sealed off, renovation continues

knightbridge might have an arabic bookshop, with children's board books?
harrods might have a section...no, but bukowski instead, a surprise

all the jewellery sections in harrods, I had forgotten how it is there
so very expensive, shiny, so varied, so much to look at,

qatari cafe with filled and decorated dates, never seen anything like it
20£ for 3 sweets or 30£ for 6, I felt totally out of place

beautiful golden table tops/trays, men sitting there with their phones
tables so close together, I wouldn't want to be there as a stranger

maybe with a friend and at an end table
very luxurious and perfect, a special smell in the air too, the tea?

2 cars driving very fast in the left lane then turning left through a very red light
I guess chasing each other, no one hooted at them though, all very patient with them

I read some Arabic written on a car in the fast lane next to me,
I read it all bit by bit, a business delivering Lebanese food quickly, 'express'.

--

This is from a draft from the 20th September, the day T left home to go to University.

Wow, what a weekend

There was a chance of a weekend in London, so I grabbed it:

Got to London in time to park for free
And go into the Mosaic Rooms, looked at photos

Mysterious heaps of grave stones
And a mysterious film also strong on rocks

Bookshop section, found 3 books
Nice room with views right down the street

Toss up between going to dance all evening or see if my parents were in
Stood in front of my parents' house, all dark

Texted with my mother and brother
Walked my feet sore to get hold of a box of sushi

Loved the buzz of Victoria Station, easily pleased
Wrote haiku in between bites of sushi

Amazingly none got spilt onto the pristine sheets
Late night news, luckily I can't remember any of it

Huge English breakfast
A little rest, woke up after midday

Trip to meet my brother postponed
Tube to South Ken

Enjoyed the dark metal joists of the ceiling at Victoria
Years of waiting on those platforms on my way to school

How can a station platform equal home
Deciding to wait for the next train so I'd get enough space

Start on my parallel reading, English/Arabic
Looking at the big pedestrian walkways with a tourist's eye

Risked a dip into the V and A, not in fact a short cut
Gazed at the dresses without expecting this

Decided I preferred the draped 40's dresses the best
Lines of 20's onwards seem to have settled in as our design standard

Remembered a beautiful silk kaftan I bought but gave away
Also a favourite dressing up petticoat, must have been from 50's

Then on towards the park
Surprised by the familiar plants, I touch them gently

I stop in various places, stopped by the planting
I see the view goes right over to the Shard and Eye

In the distance I see 2 vast rocks on top of each other, satisfying
In the Pavilion itself I ask: 'Where is the Pavilion?'

It is a cafe, so I eat and talk to a great stranger for ages
Eventually we have covered many topics and say goodbye

Off to the Sackler Gallery, bouncing severed heads, topical
Remind me of the video films T and H enjoyed years ago, gory but sanitised

Sit on floor to watch film, they always taste better that way
Eventually decide I have had enough

Go to see what else there is, and it's all more of the same
There is a message here, so I watch more of the same from different locations

More bouncing heads, they are growing on me
Total surprise, the restaurant next door is where I want to live

Corridor to ladies is a thing of such minimalism and beauty
The walls of the loo are soft metal, what an experience

The sinks are a test of ingenuity, how to get the taps to work
I just gaze at the restaurant, nearly spend more cash in there

Come across some long grass and sprawl
The grass smells and I smell it, my face gets creases with grass marks

I just look at the London sky through the grass, forget culture, just lie on the grass
My impossible sandwich gets eaten without onlookers

More walking, find out that the 1 million years of human evolution finished at 5pm
Try a new cookie shop by station

Try again to see if my parents are back in town, silent house
Brother and I agree on Edgware Road, not Leicester Square

Get dropped off at Speakers' Corner, try to listen
Religion is still the impossible theme, still a dialogue of the deaf

Good natured crowds, clustering close round each speaker and main opponent
Why don't people use chairs to stand on any more?

No bookshops, worth a try, but I get a cd for the car, title makes me blush
J and I go right up and down Edgware Road and settle on a cafe

Much mint tea and puddling, I am stuffed, news swap
I teach him to order pudding and tea in Arabic

Goodbyes on the street, then I see a friend from Oxford
We search for a cafe, no luck

She then sees another friend from Oxford, tells me it's fine to go off with them
Long evening of chat and meeting someone else who knows my own family, back 1am

Driving across to try again for the million years of history, too long a queue
Take a chance with Disruptive Objects at the V and A

I am riveted, death penalty, videos, defacing bank notes
I used to write 1% and 99% on all my bank notes for a while

Get into conversation with another interesting stranger, is there no end to this?
Drive to Great Russell Street, how many changes there are to the roads

Useful to drive around the routes, learn the new ways, so much building work
Flooding in bookshop/cafe, so I only get into the book bit

Glad to get text book I need
Korean place for spicy soup and read intro to my text book

Yay, my mother answers phone, drive there
Kisses, chat, toast, tea, sofa, my father, news about children

Discuss things, grab these chances,
See haiku opportunities in unlikely places

Huge puddles by Embankment
Murky Thames, high under the bridge arches

Drive and drive back home, rain all the way
Sodden stacks of baled straw in field by motorway.

London - People - Places - Decision

So much:

Friday: Tate Britain, including the Blake room, hundreds of Turners, cardboard and wood in the massive halls, other great things I just love walking around. The Letitia Dean film made at Kodak, just my thing.

My cousins in North London, expecting a first baby and loving their garden.

Saturday: The British Museum, plus many streets I walked along, convinced I knew where it was, I didn't! Mesopotamia, Ancient Arabia, Islamic section, why is it in the basement?? Met a fellow student of Arabic, she is exactly at the same stage as me, but without a class or teacher to continue with. We had a guided tour together. I decided to buy the Arabic guide to the museum, it is surprisingly suited to my level of reading. No translations, just pictures.

My cousins in West London, the flat is full of pictures and feels like being at home. At one point my cousin was on skype with a relative I like in Belgrade. I shall have to learn how to skype before T goes to university.

Sunday: Tate Modern, lots of short films, I leaned against a wall and it fell open, it was a very tall internal door. Space, vast unmitigated space.

Easter Lunch with my brother plus friends of my parents. We even had a chocolate course, my parents like their food, but this is off the scale! It wasn't meant that way, but there were so many tidbits to go with coffee that it deserves a name. My brother had made some chocolate with ginger in it. That went fast.

Before lunch I tried the closest church to us, St Saviour's St George's Square. Their bells used to keep me and my friends company as we talked into the night on my parents' roof garden way back in time. It was so friendly, I had arrived in the middle of the sermon, that I rushed back home to encourage my mother to give it a go. She was game and we made it for the second half. It's a good alternative if going to their favourite isn't possible, St Mary's Bourne Street.

Monday: The Photographers' Gallery, an old haunt from my late teens, only it has moved to another building. This was my first visit there. Many different styles of work, revealing the concerns of the photographers. Syria was represented, huge square photos of squares where executions used to take place at dawn.

My cousin who was the body double for Sophia Loren in a film made in Spain. We talked family stuff for ages and have finally met properly after all these years of being in the same family. It is good to be able to tell her how things really are. We really enjoyed the restaurant her son had recommended.

Decision

Next time I shall just go to new places, but will continue to see family as much as possible.

Penelope Creeley

I ran into this essay on Robert Creeley by his wife Penelope Creeley. It is a love song in prose.

http://sibila.com.br/english/robert-and-books-on-creeleys-library/10200

Over the weekend I nearly took out a book of his letters from the London Library, but decided there were too many words in it for me. I got some simple art books instead.

Then a man told the returns desk that he was bringing his mother's books back as she had just died. It was one of those moments when it is ok to look across and acknowledge that I had overheard what he had just said.

I did a card for him at St James' Piccadilly and lit a candle too. No such thing as overkill in those circumstances.

Then I wanted to rest in peace while an orchestra rehearsed. That was when I realised I actually did want to read those letters of Robert Creeley, but I had firmly put him back on the shelf half an hour earlier.

I Know A Man - Robert Creeley

Plus the audio of him reading it - fabulous and disturbing.

M4

Driving to London to see my parents:
I love the first day of spring:
Heavenly loud music on the radio:

Feel - Robbie Williams