Elsewhere

Black / Darkness (John Christie)

The desire to be elsewhere is with us all John
It is lurking, ready to pounce, at anytime
Not just in the darkness

But of course, in the dark of night
Especially those moments on the cusp of sleep
When we can be caught at our most fragile

A time we can hold tight to the ball of fear
Which cries out for us to be elsewhere
Yet, at our most vulnerable, we fall asleep

And sleep is continually thanking us
For being a safe haven, for being here
Not in that nonsense place called elsewhere

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Jazz

The Blues: I am yours, you are mine (John Berger)

You surprise me John
So soon after saying you won’t use colour
You talk of the blue of blueberries being sexy

Now I must tell you, that Genevieve and myself
Stood naked in a stream, eating blueberries
And so I concur with you conclusion

That the blue of blueberries is indeed sexy
And also blue as a prize, for on that day John
After paddling, we shared the bigger prize

I don’t know the piece by Schubert
But I do agree, that Parker, of all the jazzmen
Had the colour blue engraved upon his soul

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One

Yves Klein Blue (John Christie)

Your book gave me Klein, also, thankfully
It gave me Matisse, and Yuri Gagarin

Won’t each layer of colour
On a flat surface
Change both itself
And the colour beneath it

In the same way that geologists
Take core samples of rocks
Could we not have a sideways look
At the many layers of blue

And does not each layer
Allow the artist
Another hour of contemplation
To bring his blue to the surface

Then John, to light that plane
Which will now neither be
Flat nor true, yet we are able to imagine
A whole lifetime in that one colour

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Star Filled Skies

The Red Whose Father Is The Knife (John Berger)

At first reading I thought you were on speed
Or that you had taken one too many
Of your painkilling drugs

But then I let your words slow me down
I discovered a new wavelength
I saw, and felt, your continuum

From white, to red, to black
Exactly as it is in life John
From birth, to being, to death

Best of all though, you took me back
Back to my childhood bedroom, where
Model aeroplanes hung from the starry ceiling

My father used to sit on my bed to tell me
The names of all of the colours in the world
He was the first to give me Cadmium Red

He spoke of red being an emotional colour
Indeed the highest of the high emotions
Coming along, at the beginning, and end of life

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Scunthorpe Cemetery

Cadmium Red (John Christie)

A funeral is a good place to find colour
It stands out, ever so strong
Among the blacks, and the greys
And the nothingness of passing

Also John, as you were in a crematorium
You might imagine the fierce red flames
The painting of Vesuvius erupting could come to mind
You know, by that Earl of Derby chap

Is it carnations that don’t have any scent
I think a strong note is a good guide to colour

I have asked my paint shop man
To make me up a tin of Cadmium Red
I thought it might bring some life
To the alcoves in the study

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