Says It All

A small front room in a 1930s house

Plain Roman blinds in the bay window

Sculptures, paintings, vases, books

Two, small red leather settees for show

Lost at Sea is the message on TV

Vulnerability, in each, in all I see

Although occasionally, a tease

Though not yet in my direction

Correction, there was a one corner-smile

With style enough to bare her belly

Mother, daughter, son, potential future son in law

Me, an infrequent visitor, taking snaps, watching telly

It does not sell itself to me now

It didn’t sell it to me then, when

Neither frame, nor image were inclusive

When, at best, I could be called intrusive

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January

So cold

There must have been a reason

Frozen ground

There may be underlying treason

No child

Where did we leave him

Mute of joyful sound

Where were we yesterday evening

The trees

Still taller with a statue

Bare knees

Barer still if I could catch you

Scaffolding pole

Spans across two pillars

Plays a supportive role

To your, unsuited, emotion killers

Check it out

Look up the hotel reservations

Go walkabout

Find the solace of the deserted patients

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Dream Steps

I dreamt of the young woman

With sun-tanned thighs

In a short white skirt

Just as the Prince Regent’s

Royal Pavilion had reopened

Along the south coast

I dreamt of the same woman

Talking excitedly, with my

Leather jacket over her shoulders

Just as the first evening

Drew to its end

On the university campus complex

I dreamt of this young woman

Asking should she and her family join me

She probed in an enquiring yet positive way

Just as the money was running out

Before the new cheques

Had begun to land

I dreamt of that young woman

Never once coming to my works

Nor to our Christmas parties in London

Just as the time was nigh

To close off

The latest chapter

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A Given Exercise

The seventh book

On the seventh shelf

Is a book by Paul Muldoon

The seventh poem

Is The Cure For Warts

The first line is:

Had I been the seventh son

Of a seventh son

Now, you can say what you like

About coincidences

But it is a poem where death

And death’s cure raise their heads

On page seventy-seven

Sits a poem entitled

The unicorn defends himself

I feel that It would be best to leave it at that

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Visual Displays

Today’s still-life

Is a plate, painted

With apple, with blossom

A cup, also painted

A hunting scene

With horsemen, dogs, a fox

The plate sits on top

Of a book of selected poems

By Anna Akhmatova

Which itself sits on top

Of an almost blank sketchbook

From Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Two Harris-Tweed coasters

Complete the scene

Atop the small oak table

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