Return of the King

Images : The Guardian

Return of the King
We loved you :
we did not lose faith
for over half a millennium
despite the calumnies
of history's arselicking bullies,
their ridiculous, superstitious lies
and self- seeking hypocrises.

We watched on screen
as they brushed away
the dirty centuries
from your abused bones,
winced at the pain
you must have overcome
to stand as straight
as your honesty,
anger rekindled
at the emotional pain
your enemies devised.

We wept afresh for all the grief
your short life held,
so much blood
treachery death and exile
filled your childhood eyes,
it taught you to value
justice, fairness, forgiveness
compassion for the powerless;
your grave at last exposed
by some random miracle
amidst the amused incongruity
of a council office car park
tingled the spine of history.

We smiled at the silly jokes
even shared some wit
through social media
certain your reconstructed lips
twitched at the corners too;
Your face, rebuilt by art and science,
revolves; we gaze in wonder.

Your time so brief, yet immortal
you rise above your blackened reputation
you rise like the Scapegoat
you rise like the Sun (of York).
Somehow, ineffable love endures
in the sadness
through the violence
in the heroic tragedy
of humiliations inflicted by cowards
usurpers and lesser men
on the fallen King.

They failed.

Loyalte me lie.

Interiors within interiors

I gave up trying to poem this today and thought I would just tell the story anyway and work on a poem perspective another time. It is absolutely true. - the backstory is that the old Manor Farm House in the village was sold a few months ago and new people moved in. I have spoken to them in the lane and in the pub etc and in the course of a chat was invited for coffe last Thursday. The mansion is one of 2 remaining manor houses in the village, but this one dates back to 1624, is mainly early 19th century though and has been immaculately restored inside to regency style proportions and decor. The other mansion is a wreck, thoroughly architecturally abused but remains mysteriously behind its screen of trees like Sleeping Beauty's castle. This was the first time I have been in the Manor (Which was a a large farm house once upon a time- the farm buildings and barns etc have been converted into rather nice homes in the last 20 years or so.

Anyway, here is the 'stick it all down and sort it out later' story.

Interiors within interiors

February light strikes sharp and incisive through Georgian glass panes in the sash windows, slashes Sarah's artwork on the easel.Inside a Yorkshire pub by gas lamp she explains). I think it has a Rembrandt-ish quality. The sun shafts slide from her cornfield hair, pool on cold marble floor-tiles, interiors within interiors, Like a Dutch painting by de Hooch.

Polite talk on sofas in a room with freesia and lilies in vases. Shy connections developing, building bricks of new friendships. Sarah and Henry are architects Sarah's perspectives contradict expected sterotypes.

Suddenly she leaps to her feet. 'See here, where we keep the DVDs? It was once was a priest hole. A tunnel led under the lane over to the church,'She led me through a gap without a door in a corner of the room. It exited into another room, a step down. A small sash window looked out onto a narrow path bounded by a hedge on the lane side of the house, the north east corner of the building. I thought it unlikely but kept my own counsel. There are tales of tunnels in the village, but the purpose is indeterminate- smugglers, catholics, who knows.I do not think this was an area where the Roman Catholic faith held much following.

'Do you feel ghosts? Are you a person sensitive to the supernatural' she asks as if offering me more coffee or commenting on the weather. I shrug, 'sometimes' I venture warily. 'Let's see if you can guess which are the haunted rooms.The lady who lived here before wouldn't go in them.' Her face holds mischief. 'I am abouut as sensitive as a lump of concrete.' She says, 'I never feel anything at all'.'

Child-like, ,she patters through high -ceilinged elegance, and pauses in a cosy snug. She asks if I feel anything here. I reckon that the room had a lower floor level at one time.She is surprised, says she was told there had been a cellar once but it was not there any more, or they could not find it, maybe it had been filled in. I had heard that at one time this building had been the farm house with a cottage attached for the mother in law, and then it had reverted back to being a large house. I asked if this was part of the cottage. It was. 'The haunted rooms are over these,' she says, 'shall we go up?' I nod. she says, 'I am going to disorientate you. Follow me.'

I don't take a lot of disorientating at all, ' I replied and trotted obediently after her, trying to take in the fabulous building as we went. .

Her green shod feet flash on polished floorboards, original wide ones. We run the grand staircase, down back stairs, up again, through bedrooms, bathrooms, dressing rooms, libraries, landings, and unspecified spaces with white painted floorboards. All appears to flow, in a kind of open plan, as I do not have the impression of corridors. At length, Sarah opens a little door where three stairways meet. It is a very small L shaped room, smooth plaster painted in magnolia, sash window looking over the lane to the church.

In my head a door slams, a child's locked -in distress seizes my senses, my eyes are sore, my throat tight with despair. I feel I can make no more sound, yet there is also an aura of acceptance, peace and security. I push the door closed, look from the window to the churchyard.

Sarah is watching me 'what? what?' she looks as if she will tear a reply from my soul.

I tell her. She pales, her eyes dark pools of indigo.

'This was the nursery. That wall,' she knocks her knuckles on magnolia plaster and produuces a hollow souund, 'is recent,' We go into the next room where dimity print covers a pretty iron frame couch beds. 'In 1853, three Feaster children died of diphtheria or smallpox in here within weeks of each other. They are buried in the family plot exactly where you gazed, but the goosebumps- howEVER could you know- there was a hatch up ther into a small attic room, now plastered over, behind which was a child's punishment chair. They used to puut children up in such places in chairs like that when they had been naughty.'

I did not know about any of this. It seemed , however, as it all should be. Those who lived live on in another plane of dimension, sometimes we see through the chinks in the screen.

'Another coffee and chocolate Leibnitz?'

'Mmm yes please.'

Somewhere, in the house

the ghost children played

hide and seek.

I knew Sarah heard them too.

Red Sunset 16-4-3010

The sunset was supposed to be red and dramatic because of the volcanic ash, but it wasn't much differnt from usual.

Japanese Weeping Cherry

This Japanese weeping cherry
can be Ortonesque
Should I, with a little click
Of my mouse
Intensify its colours, soften the focus
Highlight this , fade out that?

Allen says any twat can photoshop
Or drag and drop a shadow
digital wizardry is not photography
when correction of exposure
takes a split second after the fact
real photographic imaging
is done in dark-rooms
with concoctions of art and science
And hit and miss excitement
After hours of work.

Carla says to reproduce
Natural lines on a computer
(As in the Japanese Weeping Cherry)
Is cheating. Any amount of tweaks
To the Japanese Weeping Cherry
Do not improve the interpretation
Of its beauty and form.
The multi layered cubist effect
Of HDR by photomatrix
Or pontillistic mousing is not art
Art is sweated and hurts
Art is allowed to be ham fisted
(but not good art- see what I mean?)


Maybe it takes a poet
Not a photo to show
the soul of the Japanese Weeping Cherry
Expose the dramatic tension
of erupting flowers
The colour of knife wounds
Across a scarred sky at sunset
waxy, like the dribble of candles.

Nik says just tell them this
If they want to know
Japanese bloody Weeping Cherry
Forget the photo
Plant one on the veranda
Open the eyes and breathe
In it.





Home thoughts from abroad

For Mum
one year after we said goodbye for the last time.




When a dozen daisies
upturned their faces
to eggshell skies
and the sun
warmed your back
enough to shed
your winter twinset
your eyes danced
like teeming pools
you drank the scented breeze
like a parched anemone gulps soft rain
i could see your spirit wriggle
splash like a blue tit in a bird bath.

Dad bought you a brooch
One year in some desert place
bright enamelled freesias;
another more temperate time
stems of fragrant blooms
packed in cool cotton- wool
from Guernsey
as if you were still
In love.

You filled the house
with narcissi and irises
you loved blue and yellow
hummed about your housewife chores
and recited Browning
because you had been scorched
by the flaming tropical sun
And the English spring
gave you back your youth
and life.

They had brushed your hair
a hundred strokes
it spread on the pillow
a cloud of apple blossom
in a Kentish orchard
your hands soft as petals
did not want to let go
of mine
your face expectant
as an April pansy.

Coastal Erosion 2 -Pill boxes

Pill -Boxes


Pill boxes, crash to the beach
from the receding cliff-line
tired of watching, waiting
for the waves to bring the invader .
Barnacles conspire with seaweed
to camouflage the concrete blocks
A secret last bastion
against the relentless hunger
of the sea .


They march along the sands
Where once a chain of beacons
Spread news from point to port
and red-cheeked harvesters
reaped a sea of yellow corn;
Where church bells rang the changes
announcing life and death
and calling men to succour
sailors wrecked upon the rocks below.

You walk the strand
On bubbling cockles
And ammonite fossils
Your feet over printing
Those of dinosaurs.

Last Supper

I doubt the mouse
poised on hind legs
sniffing Easter morning air
in dribbling sunshine
to nibble at a thistle
thought about anything at all
never mind Judas kisses
sins of man and resurrection of the dead
or whether he had been a good mouse
the concept of paraquat poisoning
would not have been on his mind
as he staggered a few mouse steps
keeled over and expired

I doubt the mouse
cared that I cared
About his immortality
more than I probably should
have done.