Country Roads

And in that one moment

Watching

The Larkin documentary

I too was swept off to Beverley

Also to Ampleforth Abbey

In that one moment

I had risen from the sofa

To feel the sunshine

Thinking about being

Among writing friends

Of course, as with love

I would find an element

Of argument and discontent 

Fury and absence

In the Basildon Bond

En route to Rosedale

I witnessed 

A small village funeral

Carried out with some style

Later, on a private drive

With calypso-coloured

Rhododendrons

I surreptitiously drove towards

A restored country house

And in that one moment

I had entered

A new world order

Built from the success

Of wistful, wishful, absent-minded

Sunday afternoon thinking

Bread & Cheese

Still-life is still life isn’t it

Around the eggshell egg the air still moves

Inside the egg equilibrium tries to settle

On the reflective tray the tomatoes wait

If we also waited, if we waited long enough

The reflections change, change and decay

With a backdrop of nothingness

And a foreground, edged-off, much the same

What we see is in pure suspension

One artist did the decent thing

His objects hung (quince et al) on lengths of twine

Or string as we might say in the western world

The western world of the playboy

Who could well have featured in a still-life

That is, still life as a portrait

The playboy (the object) being hungover to dry

By the grip of his dominant father

Who may well have eaten the ploughman’s lunch

Which is the image, homed in on

In today’s exhibition

Ongoing Inkscape

I do not give up going to that place

That place of so so many places

Of many seashores

And many mountains

Of many fertile fields

And many baron deserts

I do not give up asking questions

Questions mostly of myself

Why do I choose to go there

Why do I need to go there

What do I hope to gather by going there

What do I hope to give you by going there

And, if as I hear

You want for nothing

What might that gift of

Nothing consist of

Do you honestly want to know nothing

Of my thoughts

Do you seriously want to know nothing

Of my actions

Is there truly nothing in my imagination

To interest you

Is there then nothing in my firmament

To convince you

Incomplete Escape,

Steel away

To the two-seater, two-sided chair

Steal away

To yesterday’s day’s awakenings

Doors opening, doors closing

Footsteps up and down the stairs

No more than an idea

Soft voices, distant voices, uncomplicated voices

Soft grass, dry grass, non-too difficult verges

Sit awhile

Sit a while longer

Take out your paper and pencil

Write of the imagination

How, nowadays

You can’t quite complete the picture

The sketch then has to be left half-undone

As, if you recall, was your way of doing

In most things which you tackled

Raindrops Light Stops

Raindrops slide down the window pain

Strains on the silence

Between the droplets dropping from the leaves

If the sleepy mind should find shelter

Heater-skelter to and from the quiet

Hanging on to the light of early night

Why and what again to ask why

And why those erstwhile distant memories

Amount to such a significant part of life

It is a long light

This night-light of the north

It brings a stillness still to delight

To an insight, with which

Steadily to go forth

It is a quiet light

This light of late evening

It brings shadow to shade the fight

The will’s right, with which

To continue the grieving