Coupling

By now

The organised stride

Sets quite a pace

Already

Enough of Roman art

To last a lifetime

Let me out of here

I need a coffee

I need the gentlemen’s conveniences

I need some outdoor air

And I do believe the crowd

Also think this, in absolute unison

Only a few

Stroll and gaze

Most it seems

Would prefer

To graze, yes to graze

The whole day through

Instead

I follow my own obsession

Observe the brazen man

With a ring through his nose

And a camera over his shoulder

He sits beside me, but he is no witness

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Name Dropping

I too am becoming obese

The fat drips

From my pen

On to the paper

As the Japanese tourists

Waltz on by

Only by ordering at the table

May one sit down for coffee

This, so it seems, is what

Civilisation has come to

At the end of the second decade

Of the twenty-first century

Let us be, let it be

Let me be

With or without an Americano

Let us see, let it see

Let me see

With or without the Hilfiger varifocals

I too did see Leonardo

Or is it Da Vinci

As he is known

To those who read his code

I didn’t, I don’t. I won’t

Read the book, or watch the film

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Corner Stones

I waited a few minutes

To see the Anthony Gormley

Which he wisely entitled

Another Time W

And it may have to be another time

When I share his view of the city

Where I too will stand erect

To take in the longer view

The She Wolf was more immersive

Even without limbs

There was a beauty, also a danger

To the representation

Archimedes of Syracuse

Looks down and across at me

The young woman with a fine rear

Walks by, as if she has lost her lover

I too once roamed aimless

In need of no instruction

Not yet having found

The peaceful vision of the cast man

Tomorrow there is another place

Also most probably another time

But hopefully

With not quite so so many people

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Lantern of the Winds

The wedding dinner is begun

But the wind, or rather the winds

Will not allow

The candle’s light to prosper

Instead, as dusk falls (on society)

It is the electricity which takes over

The incandescent, iridescent bulbs

Providing a warmer, more shimmering glow

Yet still we queue

To see the beginning of time

Or at least to see

Renaissance man’s artistic impression

Black and white

Are still the colours of the day

And for most of the menfolk

Beards were the passion of the day

Much as today

Where Steve Job’s mobile-phone-camera

Is the one essential accessory

Which man nor woman cannot live without

So let us commemorate

The birth of Apple (Computers)

How well it has prospered

Even without the Medici

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Black and White

The American woman has a rudeness

The best of which is that she doesn’t even know

Or care; take today, in the Uffizi

With her camera set to video

She stood right in front

Dead centre, of the Botticelli

Thereby embedding herself

Into everyone else’s photograph

But, as I say, she was so totally unaware

Such that she knows nothing, of her own celebrity

Meanwhile, I sit to write

To make a note of this supreme arrogance

Which, so I understand from television

Is propagated by their leader

Then, lest I forget

To make a note (pun intended)

Of the music exhibition

In the Academie of Sienna

Where, with way less visitors

There is ample space

For care and attention

Even time

To listen to the piano being played

As the lover sings an aria for his lover

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