The roof of the Vihara off Osler Street;
muted gold seen through thin rainfall
looking over some little houses. Ladywood.
On we go, an array of more
or less disappointed persons.
Is this a school for virtue or just
a full bus heading toward Five Ways?
Morning, and not even half awake,
so let slow thick lids
close and wait on
some nothing
for now.
This is quite beautiful. Some nothings do take a shape, a local habitation and a name when waited upon. And on the bus what is there to do but wait... and look. The mutedness of the gold, the thinness of the rainfall, the littleness of the houses having set a scene of commonness (human scale, inglorious yet believable), there comes a bit of a shock (that disappointment) when the mystery of Ladywood (one having expected something in the cottage category) turns out to be a massive rectilinear monolith belying the gentle name. As all public buildings these days betray themselves by attempting to put a pleasant particular face on something generic, cold and inhuman. But the council doth provide, and postmodernism at least has geometry and a second shade of paint. One can almost imagine a visit to the reconstituted landscape of the Three Gorges, and coming upon the red and white flats of Lincoln Tower in Ladywood.
ReplyDeleteThank you, TC.
ReplyDeleteAnd thank you for hunting out that image of Lincoln Tower. It's as if you were following the 80 bus route. The geography does matter with these poems. Here's an image of the Vihara to fill the picture further.
I do like a pagoda. Especially when planted in the midst of a pleasant English garden. So many confusing signals here.
ReplyDeleteBirmingham is a city of dissonances.
ReplyDeleteAlways learning new things. Five Ways Tower, locus classicus of Sick Building Syndrome.
ReplyDeleteThere exists a full archive of urban exploration reports, filed by researchers with names like God, and... my favourite:
Five Ways Tower, field report by RaptorJesus.
Who needs Tuscany.
There's the first stirrings of a wonderful travel guide in the comments here.
ReplyDeleteGiven your penchant for pagodas, here's another Brummagen example to be found in the middle of Holloway Circus.
Now that's a pagoda.
ReplyDeleteIt's put me in mind, just a bit, of Wing: Don't Cry for Me, Argentina.
The crosscultural collision that can be as gentle as a very delicate flower wrapped inside a trainwreck.
The pleasures of the voyage have all but made one forget how very fine these lines are:
ReplyDeleteOn we go, an array of more
or less disappointed persons.
Is this a school for virtue or just
a full bus heading toward Five Ways?
The break at "more" is crucial. Perhaps the "less" disappointed would also be -- to snatch a phrase from the stale air at the rear of the crowded bus -- the less deceived?
We're all too haunted by expectations. Less deceived is right
ReplyDeleteTo attend to both the Vihara and Lincoln Towers as part of the same scape is very hard, let alone learning your lessons on the number 80.