Blog Archives

The Gardener, by Guy Fletcher

30/1/2018

Van Gogh painted "The Gardener"
whilst incarcerated in an asylum.
The subject wears a hat and multi-coloured shirt,
in the background a mass of greenery.
His brown eyes own a serenity,
a contentment after a day of toil
at peace with himself, a man of the soil.

The picture was stolen in 1998
but mercifully returned to circulation
and has a religious connotation
for the risen Jesus appeared to Mary
in the guise of a gardener.
Unlike Van Gogh the gardener can find
the immense pleasure of a tranquil mind.

This Universe Insane, by Adam Smith

30/1/2018

The Universe; amoeba in a centrifuge.
Cytoplasmic buffer cuts the ether,
feeding on tomorrows never seen,
sifting probability like a screen.

Broken bits of blank beforedom,
black holes becoming nuclei,
timeworms fed on anticipation-
brook no fare negotiation.

They take all, in sinister swallows;
light itself and metacomprehension.
An infinite limit to understanding,
but one intangible loophole, countermanding:

That we die and move beyond this plane;
A ticket out of this universe insane.

Legend, by Guy Fletcher

22/1/2018

Cyrille Regis was a "Baggies" legend:
I remember him on Match of the Day
with his muscular frame and fantastic goals.
They adored him down at the Hawthorns
but he had to endure appalling racial abuse
yet kept on scoring with his head held high,
too young to be looking down from the sky

to see if his beloved West Brom stay up.
He found the net on 158 occasions
playing 5 times for England
and I recall him with fondness,
a player I have always admired thrilling
the crowd on a Saturday afternoon
but dying at 59...far too soon.

A Sunday Winter Morning In The City, by Guy Fletcher

15/1/2018

Solitary men cradle and sip hot drinks
on tables outside Hayes Island snack bar,
a young couple laugh as they pass
oblivious to all lonely souls
as seagulls scavenge for scraps
and a mournful violin is played by
a busker under a cold winter sky.

Skeletal trees long for their leaves,
Christmas lights lost in the past
as the January bells of St John's ring
and shoppers begin to arrive
to worship at the temple of John Lewis
and a mournful violin is played by
a busker under a cold winter sky.

The Ace Of Spades, by Ian Fletcher

12/1/2018

With the death of the guitarist Eddie Clarke on January 10th 2018, all three members of the band Motörhead have now passed away.

(Ace of Spades cover courtesy of Tracy Sigler and Bronze Records)

Three desperados
in black leather
stand on a bleak hill
with a steady gaze
proud and defiant
as if facing down
grim Death himself.
Ah, yes, the cover
of the Ace of Spades
was like a mirror
for rebellious teenagers
of those long gone days.
Your music was fast
furious yet sublime:
the mighty Motörhead
in your glorious prime!
But now you are dead
no more than the dirt
on which you stood
having all drawn at last
that darkest of cards
as you knew you would.

Not So Easily Won, by Monique Cummings

11/1/2018

I am not a prize to be won
Nor your fine dinners, nor your fine wines
Will find victory in mine eyes

Do not throw your money; and later expect me to acquiesce
For I declare, I am repulsed by your request

Your motive is shallow
Your tone, displeasingly mellow
It is as if you requested a book from your fellow

To be sure, I play this game to win
And if you did not know, you are as foolish as the rest of your kin
My eye is on the ultimate prize
Clearly, you are not even half its size

Though I hold myself in high esteem to be sure
I would more easily be won through rancour
Than through soft words or gifts; with seeming allure

Time Machine, by Guy Fletcher

9/1/2018

I found a brown suitcase in the attic
covered with a thick layer of dust
but with old photographs stiff as the dead.
It was a treasure chest of memories,
a time machine at my finger tips,
I saw myself on Aberaeron beach
wishing the past was not out of reach.

I was frowning with undeserved unhappiness
captured long ago in black and white.
Then I peered at a young woman
walking confidently out of the sea
many years before illness wiped the good times away.
There were unknown faces and those I knew,
life is as transient...as morning dew.

To A Tiger, by A. C. Clarke

4/1/2018

You lie there, sunlight striped with shadows
of tall grasses, eyes an arrowslit,
sprawled limp as a rug in the noonday heat.

From your heaving flanks a tawny odour
as of azaleas half-masks the salt-rust smell
of fresh meat. No doubt you dream of kill

the hierarchies of the watering-hole,
green dampness of jungles. You doze there
like a cat cushioned on a favourite chair.

I feel an urge to stroke your plushy fur,
smooth the wrinkle that frowns between your eyes
which open now and lazily surmise

my scrutiny. You shift weight, yawn.
I glimpse a row of honed knives ready-drawn.

Marble Stillness, by Guy Fletcher

2/1/2018

She lies in marble stillness,
all angst gone with the night
but her poignant words will rise
like Lady Lazarus and flower
as tulips blowing in the breeze,
devoured by a myriad of hungry eyes.
But now the snow is deep,

the coldest winter for many a year
adding to a sense of foreboding
and she lies in marble stillness,
typewriter impotent without its magic keys
as they carry her body away.
I read her lines as a freezing dawn nears,
switch off the light...her ghost in the shadows.

Poetry

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