Another clock
Which also does not move
Though a bronze coloured lampshade
Hangs symbolically beside it
This is the old warehouse
With a pen and ink sketch
Of horse and cart
Beneath the pulley
I take a ginger flapjack
As Lou Reed sings
Take a walk on the wild side
Surprised by the coincidence I sip
My piping-hot black Americano
And take a call from my daughter
Who is on her way to collect her children
We cannot have
What we cannot have
However much
That pains us
Yet not to forget
The love
All of the love known
Even in one lifetime
Not meaning to trade
On another’s love
But to have known love
In the gifted and the given
Listen
How quiet it is
How still it is
On this unsettled morning
Are we artists
Or are we warriors
Can anyone explain to me
How to have seen the light
So close
Together
Yet so far apart
How distant
The worlds
Where souls don’t meet
A purpose
For the action
But what purpose
A reason
For the posture
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It wasn’t the West Indies jerk chicken
Or the October birthday marker
Although that played a part
Especially when followed by
The nitrogen enhanced ice-cream
We had walked through the park
Then alongside the canal
Until we reached the outpost
Of the nation’s capital city
Where the glass asks us to reach for the sky
It wasn’t the ride
Out to our boat hotel
On the edge of the financial quarter
Where buildings are deserted
At both ends of the day
We had travelled from the north
To meet with friends and children
Or just to be together
Visiting galleries and museums
To wash ourselves in beauty
It wasn’t the Italian restaurant
By the lights at Piccadilly
Although that plays a part
Especially the shared tapas style
And the £37-00 glass of Barolo
The hair is like
A ragamuffin man
As if the scarecrow
In the Wizard of Oz
Not that he cares
Or at least
He pretends not to care
With his air of superiority
The blue sky
The silver white clouds
The wind, as near and far
As the eye can see
Lampshades
Photographs
Double-glazed clear windows
With a gleam and a sparkle
The old clock
Does not tick nor tock
Neither does it chime
Contemplation, meditation even
Gifts the time
To rehearse one’s art
In the spirit
Of loving kindness
As if to sojourn
In the meadow
Or saunter
Over the sand dunes
With love in the ascendency
There to find
The lover
The poet
The song
Of all mankind
Settled into the hollow
Sheltered by humanity
From your worries
To practice your work
In readiness for the future
Two hearts
Equally broken
One hurt by the other
The other torn
By the same one
One stands
Wobbly and tearful
The other
Lies on the floor
Writhing in pain
Red eyes
Are streaming
As cold voices
Struggle
To scream and shout
Rain
Turns to sleet
Turns to snow
Depression
Turns to doubt
Turns to joy
Tears
Turn to tantrums
Turn to laughter
I
Turn to you
You turn to smile
He looks at photographs
Of half-empty beaches
And the boat trip
Out to Seal Island
On his solitary vacation
No one to talk to
After the dismal breakfast
At the vegetarian B&B
No conversation either
In the public house at teatime
Yet the images suggest
A calmness, tranquility even
The shot of the footbridge
In shadow over the railway line
Is particularly artful and abstract
He had bought the camera
On the way down
The shop assistant told him
It was the latest model
And would serve him well
This proved to be perfectly true
Especially in the bus station
With a composed capture of departure
Although his request for a private audience
They climbed out of the car
After a three hour drive
From the airport on the coast
Stepping over the threshold
To enter a weekend of escape
Writing, reading, painting
Listening to music
Going to the theatre
Their prodigious lovemaking
Gave energy for the workplace
Where technical innovation was
Married to commercial persuasion
In this way he now believes
That art and love
Had brought renewed endeavours
Recycling
The Valentine’s card
How much psychic energy
Can one life carry
Validation
Of one’s skills and resources
To turn something out of nothing
Into a thing of desire
And so, yes, why not
Make a film
Out of this whole feeling
Of artistic endeavour
This, an alternative way
For learning and understanding
To bring aesthetics into the conversation
Of reason and discovery
It seems to me, fairly clearly
That an artist talking about their work
Is far more interesting
Than having a scholar tell another’s story
Being told that the painter
Is bleak and melancholic
Is nothing like as immersive
As the painter revealing the pathway to his own soul
It isn’t so much the inspiration
But rather the inner mind
Which strengthens the exposure
This I must remember
Also that hope should always be apparent
That the smiles of love ought to permeate
Into the very fabric
Entertained
By a squirrel
On the house roof
I watch from the old stables
Waiting
For the speed awareness course to begin
He, or she
Tries several escape routes
All to no avail
I think of this speeding occurrence
Also the previous one
Several years ago
That time I was heading for the seaside
This time I was returning home from Hockney's place
Both times I was well out of my manor
The thin strip of bright light
Offers an entrance
To transcendence
The moss and lichen
On the winter branches
Suggests time longer than time itself
Daughter, mother, granddaughter
Capture the generations
With life; with old life, with new life
Beside the visual
Also the ethereal
And the ancestral
We can think of rooftops
And cafés by the quay
Eating Pastéis de Nata
Those thin strips of bright light
Equanimous, as forms
In need of suspension
To feel for disbelief
Parting from dissension
As the cure to find relief
Lift the lid off this attention
Learn to search upon your knees
Gift the gifts of freed ascension
Learn to sail upon the seven seas
In the midst of the passing
Called up by images and dreams
There to find by the final lashings
Nowhere is ever what it seems
In the need of right direction
To feel alive for all he pleads
Apart though from exemption
The cure is in the founding deeds
Lift the lid off this confession
Learn to fall beside the reeds
Gift the gifts of clear impression
Learn to rally by counting trees
In the midst of those harassing
Carried on by the poet’s screams
There alone in the final romancing
Nowhere is not at all what it seems