A Shout in the Street
(for Kenny Hunter)

Where the city is the gallery
celebrate the furred and feathered,
survivors of the man made.

Raise up on broken pallet,
empty barrel, plinth of worn tyre,
statues to small lives.

Where landscapes of man
are the ancestors of white goods,
old fridges and tvs cast aside.                    

Adjust your picture to lifted wings.
Above those silent screens
honour the unknown pigeon.

Where excessive waste splits bin bags
exposing the colour of discard,
banana skin and fag packet

and everyday is thrown away,
analyse with fox and hawk
end products as self portraits.

Brush Strokes

i.  Two crabs (1889)

On the canvas
crabs too close

for kindness
pincer and claw

bright red
carapaces

created by
bold gestures

that will slash
the artist’s ear.

ii.  Field with the ploughman(1889)

From his view of nearby fields
and the hills of les Alpilles

painted from his room
he has taken away

the bars on his window
the high asylum wall

but left the ploughman
his two heavy horses

hauling dark scars across
his wheat field stubble.

iii.  Rain Auvers (1890)

Auvers
hunched
in the hollow

rain slicing
the canvas
slanted strokes

crows
the track
to the cemetery.

Dovima with Elephants
(1955 Gelatin silver print – Richard Avedon)

Beauty poses in black
beside a brace of reluctant old age,
for to capture this moment is everything.
Its statement tall and elegant—
unblemished skin bedecked in Dior.

Be ready to bear witness
as its graceful messenger walks free between
the grey tethered in their heavy chains.
They are unable to escape
                  comparison.

Standing like some shapely Samson,
shorn of unsightly locks she reaches out
to touch both deep grooved bodies
as though this could bring these pillars of time
tumbling down around Youth’s crucifix.

This divine human whose long smooth neck
stretches back to catch all the light
echoes in turn the curve of an ancient trunk
already rising above her
                  to trumpet the first warning.  

Stag

In the third Summer
of the war
the orphans
wandered further
into the country
eager for sport
and found him
on a dry river bed
legs buckled
under a failing body
eyes black with flies.

The children swarmed
over the dusty bank.
With their fists
branches and rocks
they clubbed
the frightened beast
tore at his hide
silenced his bellow.
Small crimson hands
held entrails
high in the sun.

Somewhere
beyond
the final breath
the victory songs
laughter stopped.
Left behind
by the others
one boy
dropped his weapon
lay down against
the still-warm belly.

The hand that sees
(for Bengt Amundin)

i.  alpha

As a child
he’d walk
         the beaches
treasure the feel
of seaweed,
               driftwood
stones worn smooth
         by the movement
of waves.

Use your gift
                     to make
        beautiful things
and he listened
to his mother’s
few words
       with his eyes
and with his hands.

ii.  Icarus

It’s about seeing
     what others
would miss
alert to 
the shapes of nature
possibilities of pebbles
trees and seeds.

It’s about change
transformation
of the found
     clay, bronze, marble
about becoming
            the alchemist
of the physical
and the thought.

It’s about journey
an exploration
of place
time and myth,
a flight that opens up
to air, sun, water
the arc of a wing
its rise    and fall.

iii. omega

The phoenix
a rising flame
bright in your eyes
as you work the clay
on a rough bench

Explain to me
curve and form            
the importance of
perspective
from every angle.

I follow your fingers
shaping and shaping 
the damp clay
teasing out meaning
with your mind.

Later these hands
come together
resting like a butterfly
marble-veined
great wings folded.