![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/ca22020b7e6e0837047cea29a1194623.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
To William<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n by Caroline Ritchie, image above is from <\/em>Jerusalem by William Blake<\/em><\/p>\n Inventing things that don\u2019t work is a brilliant thing, you know.<\/em> Forgetting how to triangulate, Furnish your halls with ingenious There\u2019s a kind of burrowing down Strange maker of worlds! Do you even fill out census forms?<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t find treasure there, why do you do it?<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t find answers there, why do you do it?<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t find anything there, why do you do it?<\/em><\/p>\n *<\/p>\n William, you are continually destroying the foundations of our world.<\/p>\n I am continually building. That\u2019s how I stay alive.<\/em><\/p>\n In the tunnels of Mortimer Street <\/em> *<\/p>\n Old consternation:<\/p>\n If nobody likes it, why do you do it?<\/p>\n If nobody understands it, why do you do it?<\/p>\n If nobody pays you, why do you do it?<\/p>\n William, is it lonely in the city of art?<\/p>\n *<\/p>\n Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?<\/em> Your subtractive arts are seldom known You thought it your duty to believe There is said to be a moment in each day \u00a0<\/p>\n Psychogeography In The Year The World Shrank<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n by Caroline Ritchie, image below is from <\/em>Jerusalem by William Blake<\/em><\/p>\n Found: the private joke. Local artistes<\/em> Found: the ideal stated as fact. In St Mary\u2019s Old Churchyard Found: the ruin presaging future ruin. The city of dreadful mornings Found: the parkbench-eulogy one-liner. To William by Caroline Ritchie, image above is from Jerusalem by William Blake Inventing things that don\u2019t work is a brilliant thing, you know. \u2013 William Lyttle….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":592,"featured_media":13855,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1660],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/592"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u2013 William Lyttle.<\/p>\n
or calculate, the hours of folly
like a good Royal Societician,
tirelessly you build (or dig)
your way to a clockless kind
of wisdom.
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Unknown to the eagle.<\/p>\n
home-made trinkets. Trust, if you can,
that they might not go to waste.
Of late the nonexistent audience
for which you longed begins to seem
both more and less impossible.<\/p>\n
that builds up worlds of delight.
A strange subscendence, furling
outside in, inside out as you make
your almighty mess.<\/p>\n
How do you describe
your Employment Situation,
your Official Occupation,
on census forms?<\/p>\n
I both see and hear. I open the streets<\/em>
to reveal a thousand possible streets.<\/em>
You want to know what the big secret is?<\/em>
There isn\u2019t one. <\/em>
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Tell me: who builds<\/em>
that does not also destroy?<\/em><\/p>\n
Or wilt thou go ask the Mole?<\/em>
\u2013 William Blake<\/p>\n
now. A quirky piece of local knowledge.
Urban drifters wander past, sparing a wink
for the mad genius of the underground.<\/p>\n
that history need not be destiny,
so you etched your beautiful lines
of desire into the fabric of the city.
Digging ever inwards to the heart of it,
or else to the edge of it. A labour of love.
Possibly \/ impossibly signifying nothing,
brilliantly.<\/p>\n
that Satan cannot find. Did you find it,
William, while you built your utopia
out of London soil?
\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0You never did say.<\/p>\n
HEAVEN TREE CLOSE \u2013 PRIVATE ROAD<\/p>\n
tattoo the roller-shuttered shopfronts
overnight in possible protest
VFD is a snuffed glitterfest
and Gorki\u2019s House a dark recess
and do you trek to genuflect
by the old fig tree
where lies the sainted anarchist
NEAR BY?
Meanwhile pretty exquisite couples
with exquisitely tiny dogs
pause in Butterfield Green
and think it very wild<\/p>\n
LIFE (read: LONDON) ISN\u2019T BEAUTIFUL
UNTIL IT\u2019S BEAUTIFUL
FOR EVERYONE<\/p>\n
doc-marten galumphing
and drive your plow
over the bones of the dead
til the earth remembers
your great galumphing feet
Great irreverent equaliser:
flatten the earth as the headstones
are flattened, sanded to wordlessness
by the weather
and still, in time
roots irrupt, bone-sown
EROS
am I getting warmer?<\/p>\n
Shabby caryatid scroll up in the cornice
of a somewhat posh fishmonger<\/p>\n
beats with the abstract pulse
of a stranger
but within you
so that you know it deeply
and you drink deeply
of the glamour and trash
of megalopolitan wreckage:
you begin to develop fetishes
like rusted S-hooks
on Victorian buildings, and
masonic markings
on paving stones
The rooms above high-street
shops are continual mysteries<\/p>\n
\u2018OLD IS WHEN THE ONLY THING
YOU CAN DO FAST IS GET TIRED\u2019<\/p>\n![\"CR](\"http:\/\/www.gfdesign.co.uk\/culture\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/CR_jerusalem.e.p72.100.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"