Singing our own

 Singing our own 

I think of you as I am reaching, searching for rhythm 

and rhyming, assonance

care in the choosing, groping for meaning 

pleasing, novelty 

now that your utterances refuse to flow, but stick

and jam

requiring push and prod, a freeing rod

your fluency now failing. 

Still your Yorkshire lovely lilt, inherited, Halifax 

has made me smile for gratitude-

that you’re battling with the silence 

that you won’t be overcome. 

So from girls to grannies, still 

singing our own in two parts, harmony and song. 

June 16th 2021, Hounoux 

That lets the rain come in

That lets the rain come in 

Unconvinced, she said,  It’s Emperor’s new clothes

not art 

just a square capturing the sky 

a frame,  and today, large clouds passing 

but equally a hole that lets the rain come in

a con trick of the light

so Tracy Emin’s bed unmade, or house bricks in a line

elephant dung, or paint flung and flicked 

Pollock and Rothko- colour mad

visionary or insane? 

And if I write a poem no rhyme nor rhythm 

theme, just words in a jumble 

punctuation-free

or scrape on paint with palette knife and spray 

then watch the colours pool and sometimes zing

 by chance, happenstance 

then turn the canvas sideways so a friend discerns a beach, waves crashing 

though I never meant it so. 

Now is the Emperor clothed or naked? Is he beautiful? 

Who’s to say? 

Displayed with Frink and Hepworth, monumental Henry Moore

here’s a cloudscape in a picture frame 

has lodged inside my brain. 

1st June 2021, Hounoux