my golden coffee warms my recently bought beatles mug (w/ the cover of let it be and the faces of the fab four in all their lovely strangeness)and here i sit finally after what seemed like years (fit into about three weeks) to put down some of the stuff that i've been meaning to let you guys know--and more to come possibly in my remaining life here and there and never really quite leave me (for they are matters of endings and beginnings and conversations led by ezra on the grass fields of the beautiful gardens of kensington).
before i fall in the depths of my own journeys i would think it'd be proper to speak of my dear angel whose death marks a tasteless day in july 40 years or so ago today. this blog have been missing a whole lot due to my endless tasks and non remaining energy but what it was missing the most was the annual remembrance of my dear jim--and his angel words and his crazy swift sadness. so let it be known, and let it be remembered and let him be loved--though he lies somewhere in a grey and mistaken paris morning.
coming back to myself. london came and went, swept my feet in a haze of poetry and songs. it is a beautiful place: not for its shops, or pretty stores, or large streets and pretty old buildings--but for the way it oozes words and poems from every stone you step on- even if you're doing the act of buying a simple bottle of water you walk by the museum where once ezra would sit and read for hours. you come across in the midst of your walks the house that dickens lived in, or where stones had sang, or where john lennon had once existed. there is art in the air you breathe--the music never leaves your ears, the lines of every play of every hundred year old theater rings deep in the night shaking the early ending nightlife to its proper place. you walk by the book stores on the streets with their notorious bargain baskets and couple-of-pounds copies of the taming of the shrew.
but besides its daily beauty london offered me some of the best times of my life.
the kings of leon show at the hyde park was poetic and grand and wonderful. to hear followill's wicked voice fill up the sky just warming up after 3 hours of endless showers of rain. the boys were up to expectations and the songs were as beautiful as ever. yet even more inspirational was the crowds of strangers you meet and greet amid the wave of human flesh and the strange events that occur within the duration of a rock show. plus hyde park is a beauty (as is any other london park for that matter) and to attend a show there is priceless to a music fan like me. had seen countless of videos from countless different performances but to actually stand there in the venue to dig your heels into the mud and to walk back with the slightly drunken and high crowd back to the street then hopping on the midnight 'tube' with the rowdy english boys yelling and screaming and then getting lost after midnight trying to find the way back to my hostel--all pieces of the story line that left the most beautiful taste in my mouth.
another high point was the shakespearean play i got to witness at the hundred year old wyndham's theater--beautiful place, wonderful performances and the whole thing was just so beautiful that i didn't want it to end--ever. the rain tapping outside the cement streets by the leicester square and the people flowing in to get the final standing tickets--and the way the wonderful david tennant waltzes in there and steals the show--his amazing changes of mood and incomparable talent to mix humour with a sudden strange sadness--and his sincere smile that lights up a room--and the whole of britain who so deeply loves him--the girl in my room in the hostel claimed he was a 'british god!' with the most envious emotions of my soon to come adventure. if i didn't had to run to the tube to get to the airport on time i would have definitely stuck around to catch him by the stage door to get an autograph--or to simply soak in the london midnight air of the 'theatreland'. and the joy of giving a great actor a standing ovation in a london theatre for a shakespeare play--do i even need to explain--for me of all, buying hamlet in a bargain basket at the age of 12 making my dad smile when i came back home proud and filled with ecstacy.
and plenty other wonderful things that go bump in the night in london or appear at broad daylight in the streetways--but none can even come near to tracing by foot step by step ezra's whereabouts in the streets and parks and houses and alleys and even coming across to a vorticism exhibit in the glorious tate britain (to which i had went to in search of the wonderful paintings of william blake--found and enjoyed them dearly) where 'mr. pound' winks at you through vortographs and sad in memoriams of friends dead in the battles of the war. and his wife also appears shortly through a few paintings she herself had done--but mostly you get to feel and see ezra in his poems and his words in his contributions and his wonderful ability to name movements and create them even--and even more importantly all the others arond him and how he affected them and how they affected him--how i stared broken hearted inside the national portrait museum at the portraits of james joyce and t s eliot ('voted nations most favorite poet') and ezra was nowhere to be found. or to look down upon where t.s. eliot lies beneath the stone carvings of the westminster alley telling him to tell ezra that i at least love him, despite his mistakes and screw ups. and to give him a triumphant smile when reluctantly he was included and a arrogant 'gotcha' smirk to the rest of the world.
just as i was so lighthearted of finding where james joyce had lived--walking down the church street chatting and taking photos i discovered a little pathway and before i saw anything else i saw the st mary's abbot sign up above--and the church bells ringing that used to bug ezra to death--and discovered following the pathway his famous church walk--a walk of peace and grand beauty with the modern day londoners spending their lunch breaks over the benches with their newspapers open ahead of them and i hopped in between looking up and down and left and right. then we followed the trail all the way to the kensington gardens and the beautiful round pond which makes you understand why people turn poets in that town after all--where ezra, too, had done so.
these are the first bits and pieces that i can get out without getting drained to my bones. but i will talk about poems for much longer, and about poets, and i am sure now as i will be sure then that i will eventually, one way or the other, keep talking about london in the midst of it all.
cheers.
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