Fashionably wild

 

Fashionably wild 

Roses I thought and honeysuckle just in flower 

perfuming the air still hot at dusk

 high heat for May and all the garden gasping, early and late 

the hose and sprinkling, cans. 

Though the sky grumbles half-heartedly, no rain comes. 

Warblers and a cuckoo weeks now calling for a mate 

we saw him swaying on the tamarisk, calling calling, 

and in the evening’s thick air a frog chorus 

one in the pool, demonstrating breast stroke. 

This year’s newcomer scarlet flax randomly sown, mixed packet thrown

no trimming, untamed - fashionably wild- 

but chance and serendipity 

perfection 

May 22nd 2022 Hounoux, for Carol and John

Instead of a poem

 Instead of a poem 

Instead of a poem the spreading knife 

and paint thick on the palette 

for out of doors the air rings clear 

and sun’s put  a sheen on patchwork,  

fields in chrome and lime. 

So let the knife from right to left

top to bottom colours blending, 

contrast clash, slip and ooze, coils 

sensuous as a perfect morning

mountains clarified

blackcaps’ sweet song. 

Instead of a poem canvas covered

captured, April day. 

April 8th 2022 Hounoux 

Holding their pose

O
Holding their pose 

Heavy-headed hyacinths struggling to stand straight 

are lolling, lowering their heads 

like children overtired, longing for rest 

but graceful, still holding their pose, ballerinas

perfect poetry, as Degas’ dancer 

motionless for all eternity. 

22nd February 2022 Hounoux 

Golden Hour

 Golden Hour 

Someone at Apple has been selecting and sorting 

swiping through my photographs 

to create surprises, albums 

sometimes set to music 

Now there’s a nice job, and thank you 

I’m thinking, person at Apple 

sat I imagine for too many hours

wrecking your eyesight 

swiping and sorting

surely a person - jeans, sweatshirt, casual attire- 

no algorithm

curated today’s delight, worked through my night 

and called those sun-risings and settings 

mostly with mountains, pinking

Golden Hour

17th February 2022 Hounoux 

Do you remember?

Do you remember?

Do you remember Jen, I said 

 on WhatsApp casually called 

my midnight your late breakfast 

our Christmases long passed, sixty years ago 

and, no surprise, you do. 

I think of licking gummy strips for yards and yards of chains 

aged 6, class 3, and holly sprigs on bottle tops

doorstep harbingers; my mother steamy in the kitchen 

harassed by giant ham, and mince pies multiplying 

chief Maker of Magic stirring fudge and fretting. 

And I remember Jen, but do not say, 

my stricken self as you, departing, waved 

Australia bound. 

It seemed a kind of death, too many miles and far. 

But who’d have guessed, imagined in a dream 

such fiction fantastical 

a casual call at midnight, free and clear, 

two old friends in a video link 

reducing the years and years, the farewell tears 

too many miles and separation 

all now nothing 

curtesy of WhatsApp, bona fide on an iPhone 

our marvellous miracle. 

21st December 2021 Brighton for Jen, with love 

Love left behind

 

Love left behind 

The crochet hook’s a lovely thing 

slim and slippery, with shine 

apt and fitting as a pen 

describing, fleet and flash 

a dance with ribbons or a song 

rise and fall in and out 

the even rhythm soothing 

and in its wake the memory of summer 

click clack of spinnakers, wild white waves 

gulls’ cry, salt in a spray 

sunlit days, autumn’s abundance 

sweet smoke rising. 

Watch the wake unspooling 

love left behind 

in legacy.

November 30th 2021 Hounoux 

Product and legacy

 Product and legacy 

I listen to Stella who knows about art and artists

their lives and work 

what others thought of them ( too often Ruskin) 

and I try to piece together, this one before that one? 

Whistler influenced and influencing ( unpleasant modern verb) 

how to go from pre to post

realism / neo, 

from Ah a chair, a jug, clearly an interior 

Dutch perhaps? 

To colours spattered, carefully it seems

Pollock not random 

and certainly not Rothko, those colours most deliberate 

and on the canvas making each other sing 

zing  out loud,

via Turner, moving to abstraction 

Academy decisions unheeded 

and Monet by the water blurring as he aged

or Picasso dissecting his women 

 and the dead of Guernica 

Klimt and Klee, gold alluring like kintsugi 

Japanese poured in cracks

or Midas in the myth. 

I think of Haiku, sonnet, quatrains, ballad form 

heroic couplets rhyming and words 

tossed in the air like Pollock’s paint 

spattered random, rearranged, free fall

and ponder history and timeline 

art in all its forms adored/ abhorred 

poured from the pen the brush 

or pebbles spiralled on the sand 

Gormley’s men  submerging by the sea 

product and legacy, sand blasted into glass 

or castles just between the tides 

art in all its forms or shapeless 

head hand soul 

product and legacy? 

November 11th 2021 Hounoux