Bit Of A Do

There is Jesus on a cross

As though an advertisement

For LNER

Or, as it used to be known INRI

Either way

It was Bartolomeo Di Fruosino

Who got the hospital’s commission

Sometime around 1411

This church is not my church

This church is way too sombre

Take me to the bullfights

To drink with you my hombre

Tonight is the night

Of the beautiful people

The great and the good

Are coming to town

It is the feeding

Of the five-thousand

Under chandeliers

And candlelight

Soon the carriages will arrive

For now the final, make-over, make-up

Is being applied, the final quiff

Is being so so carefully quiffed

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David’s Place

The lady from Kilkenny

The sisters from Argyle

Supporting casts for David

In a 19th century kind of style

Made in the plaster of Paris

Mannerist artists meanwhile

Whose works are way less revered

Are turned out by the city mile

From the Annunciation by Allori Alessandro

For those who knew of him by his smile

He gave his light to the Earl of Derby

To capture Vesuvius with his guile

There is a cross, a cross, a cross

Crosses for all those Jesus people who redial

There are blacks, reds, golds and marble

With granite and slate for the stronger willed denial

If you remember Byzantium

Haloes, and daggers, for those erstwhile

Followers of the Benedictines

As K suggested, I do write the most enduring bile

The first real touch of colour

A coronation, where angels and saints step in file

It is an unfinished work

Either that, or he came across the consort’s child

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Leaving…

Now I am in Piazza della Repubblica

Where you search for a leather purse

All of the art of the aficionados

Is left behind for the day

Yet here, in the sun of sublime summers

You return with your purchase

The cleaning is not yet complete

Unlike the caricatures

It takes longer than three minutes

But still they have made a start

The grease and grime of many years

Is washed onto the cobbled floor

Thin jeans on thinner legs

Size six becomes the average

At least for the younger people

We older folk are not quite so slim

Having to contend with the gelato

And three, or more, meals a day

The sun beats down

So we take the shade, next day

I shall continue to observe reception

For tomorrow, we too

Will be on our way, and I for one

Would like to know the protocol for departure

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Next…

With such hunger for modern art

I race past the Raphael

Almost miss the Caravaggio

Then stumble up to the Rembrandt

He also once was a young man

That was back in the day

Before he made his name

As the go-to man, for self-portraits

Mr Gormley also portrays himself

Cast in wondrous resins

Which make his body shape

Pinch perfect

I wait beside the fountain

Displaced in this city of statues

Where I imagine

The writer’s also laid a claim

But for today it is busts

Busts, busts, then more busts

Which after a while remind me

That I am also bust

Bust by the repetition

Bust by the Rome of it all

Bust with our own encryption

The rise came, before the fall

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Step Out For A Reason

There are those with elegance

There are those without

I sit somewhere between

A sort of superficial imposter

It is not the young

Who have the real style

What with rusted, juiced-lemon headgear

And builders foam, deep soled trainers

Father and son masquerade

Showing off their mountain jackets

Complete with Matterhorn emblems

They don’t do it for me either

Neither do the knobbly knees

Above the turquoise slip-on shoes

Which, however much I like the colour

Do not suit those bare ankles

But the red camera

Oh yes, the lady with the red camera

Who clearly says: I don’t give two fucks

About what you think of me

And of course

In that instant, even without trying

She has stolen the show

She has won (and walked away with) the first prize

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