Summer Visitors

Summer Visitors

Late afternoon aerobatics
Swallows in swoop and dive
Dip and dash, sparkle splash
Then gone, flash of white, tails streaming

We watch the show exuberant
Free to view spectacular,
Summer visitors, shared use of pool
Then gone, flying south, Autumn leaving

Changing child not full grown
A month in the sun to be free
Running wild, woman-child
Then gone, future calls, leave us grieving

30th July Hounoux, for Lily

Stillness at Noon

Stillness at Noon

Watercolour mountains today
Smokey blue tiering to Payne's/ dove/ chalk/ grey
Where horizon tints the sky
Chinese backcloth mirage floating
But vibrant in the foreground
Palette knife thick Van Gogh in oils
Cezanne shimmer in the noon day
Scorched stoned in the sunlight
Vines, pines, hill-side marchers
Sunflower battalions obedient
Turning eyes right sun bright
Earth rust-baked, dry dust-caked
In silent heat throbbing
No movement, be still
The landscape's surviving
Conserving its forces
Holding its breath in the fierceness of noon
Sending a message, a balm for the spirit
Feeding the soul, in the quiet
Be still

28th July 2009 Hounoux

As Good As it Gets

As Good As it Gets

When does it get good? Child's
Question innocent to the clown
Cuts to the quick and the core
Comic genius deflating, air escaping
Shrivelling balloon
Chance of laughs reduced to nil

Play novel movie much recommended
All London is talking, cutting
Edge, sure to shock, last word
Litterati, must see, have to be
In the swim and the chatter and
(Whispered) When does it get good?

Hold it there, childish question. Life
Love family home, choice
Of carpet, colour matching, perfect
Picture, all achieving
Good enough/ could be better?
Is everybody happy, smile now
All together, here's the moment
Seize it, breathe it, just a thought
What if this day- pick a day, any day
Is a present as peerless, as good as it gets?

27th July 2009, on 6.40 flight out of Gatwick to Toulouse, for Jenny and Clare with love

Reading Rossetti

Reading Rossetti

I knew a man, a poet, once

Complained his muse had fled

Pram in the hallway he confirmed

The enemy of his art

I caught his wife's ironic glance

As she heard his sad tirade

Egg and bacon, daily life

No food for poet's soul

I thought of him, this long time gone,

Reading Rossetti verse

Brother and sister both

Dreaming of other worlds

Rejecting the life quotidian

In search of the life ideal

But different poet, different art

Some mine from the harshest seam

They speak of squalor, war, disease

Of human weakness, turgid grind

No gilded lilies, blushing rose

Brighten their manuscripts

Each to her own, yours to discern

How will you nurture the muse?

Far from the crowd, or thick of it all

Hymning the sea or the town

Rural or urban, mystic or real

The poem's a voice, a passion, a dream

A part of your life but all of your life

The poem, the poem's the thing

Brighton 23rd July 2009

The Gold in the Sky

The Gold in the Sky

Brighton, trudging homewards, as ever uphill

Dusk just beginning to spread fingers

Draining the city's colours to monochrome

The seagulls' ceaseless chorus inevitable

My thoughts on daily things, supper, weight of shopping

I chance to look westward and upwards

In the sky a glorious work of art

Is forming as I watch, stunned still, I watch

As lozenges of gold spread on the horizon

Spread over cloud banks, dove grey dusky pink

Turner I think priceless masterpiece painting

Adored by the masses, great treasure of the nation

But here, democratic, free to view

One night only, to have not to hold

Attracts few admirers, eyes in the gutter

Heads full of clutter, the daily the worry

Stunned still, watching, I give thanks

For the chance of a glance heaven upwards

For a glimpse of the treasure, the gold in the sky

July 21st Brighton, another poem past midnight

Companions

Companions

I talk to Dad each morning

In the frame beside my bed

And then there'll be another word

When I catch geranium's crush

Or smell his summer greenhouse

In ripe tomato vines

Mum on the other hand

Pops up amongst the flowers

When I'm dead-heading annuals

I hear her daily chat

Encouraging the busies and petunias to bloom

Of course she's also in the kitchen

Where she always reigned supreme

No doubt she finds my Yorkshires

Are not quite up to par

And roasted Maris Piper

Lack a certain fluffy crunch

Another loved one leaving

Is remembered every hour

Grandfather clock is chiming

As it once did in her hall

And also in her tapestry

She speaks of what she loved

Creating things of beauty

Adornment for her home

So mingling with the living

The ghosts still have their say

An arm of consolation

A shoulder for a weep

A word of exhortation

Come on girl, get a grip!

It's good to have them with me

They make so few demands

Their traces and their echoes

Still a comfort in my life

July 16th 2009, autoroute Castelnaudary to Toulouse

After Work

After Work

No deadlines no start times
No bleating alarm
No dragged from your bedtime
Reluctant awake time
No one to be waiting and tapping his watch
Inspector to grade you with shaking of head
No parent to glower and lodge a complaint
No tests to be taken
League tables to dread

All of it gone as you walked out the door
The emails the phone calls the forms to be filled
The in tray now empty, the urgency fled
As you walked from that life time
And out of the door
No Orpheus glancing, a new life before
The future a jigsaw without a design
A digital game where the choice is all yours

To sleep with the owl or to rise with the lark?
In town or in country, engage or retreat?
No statement of mission no template to fit
Organic, responsive, create your own life
Write personal guidelines for what you have left
Tomorrow’s tomorrow, who knows where it ends?
One day at a time and guided by love

Some idling some laughing
Some serious some play
Making a mark in a garden or home
On canvas on paper with brush and with pen
Mindful of others, attending their needs
Less of the left-brain and more of the right
The mission the vision the ethos shall be
One day at a time and guided by love

Hounoux 15th July 2009