BLACK SPOT

Our recent visit to Italy provided the opportunity to visit a range of museums and galleries and view a mind-boggling array of famous works of art by Old Masters such as Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and others.

LAST SUPPER

We drift slowly from gallery
to gallery. The paintings bleed
each into each; statuary
looms, massively, as we proceed.
Before a minor masterpiece,
we pause to linger, staring at
what seems merely a dab of grease
but is, instead, a small black cat.

A table laid with wine and food,
an old familiar story told:
the Christ, benevolent and good,
dines while his life is being sold.
The grim foreknowledge of His fate
shines from His eyes this fateful night
while elsewhere, Judas, reprobate,
counts thirty silver pieces, bright.

Beneath the table, black as jet,
with eyes like thorns and shoulders curved,
a cat, perhaps the painter’s pet,
squats like a demon, unobserved.

WREN

I was surprised to read that the wren is Britain's most common bird. It's certainly one of the most elusive and sightings of it are rare, probably because of its size and pattern of constant movement. 

The poem below was written when given the challenge to write a uni-vocalic poem, that is, one that employs no more than one specific vowel throughout.

An additional requirement was that it should be in the following format: 
Line 1, 1 syllable, Line 2, 2 syllables, Line 3, 3 syllables, Line 4, 4 syllables, Line 5, 10 syllables (the total of the first four lines) and that this format should then be repeated in reverse to conclude the poem. Total syllables 40. 

You'll find the result below.

WREN

See
the wren,
resplendent:
her clever eye,
her sweet essence. Deep, let her sleep be deep;
there, let the green hedge be her perfect bed;
the rye, the reed,
be her screen;
shelter
her.

BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY

Our recent visit to Florence led to my writing this short poem. The image is of the corner cafe and the street in the Oltrarno, the Bohemian Quarter, where we walked Ginger, the friendly Beagle that we looked after during our stay.

OLTRARNO: NIGHT

Rain gives the moon-lit, cobbled street a sheen,
diverts the eye from flaking, spray-tagged walls
and even tumbled rubbish bags appear
more silk than shabby plastic where they lie 
like corpses in the aftermath of war. 
The shuttered shops, the late-night restaurants
whose lights emit a kindly lighthouse glow,
and, in nocturnal doorways, crouching cats,
are images I carry home tonight,
half-noticed, hardly noticed, so it seems,
to weave into my narrative of dreams.

ROGUE MAIL

The complacent progress of one's life can so easily be jolted out of kilter by a disturbing medical diagnosis, the sudden loss of a loved one or, sometimes, nothing more seemingly innocuous than an unexpected letter.

THE LETTER

The day seemed unremarkable:

another day like every day.

I fed the birds. 

The postman came.

I set aside the envelope,

a plain white thing, perhaps a bill,

no matter, it could surely wait.

The boy who brings the newspaper

delivered it as usual.

I read it carelessly. The news

is never worth more than a glance:

an earthquake there, somewhere a war,

more knife-crime in the capital.

I stroked the cat, drank one last cup

and then I picked the letter up. 

Some words can overturn one’s world,

destroy what plans one might have made.

The message read, I let it fall

then rose, stepped out 

into the rain.

The beech trees stood, 

immovable,

their branches, formerly so bare,

unfurling leaves of gentle green

like tiny sail-boats casting off

to voyage from the shores of spring

and all around me, restlessly,

the flowers were reawakening.         

Rain-drenched and cold, I stood and wept,

regretting promises not kept.   

SLIMMED DOWN VERSION

As we enter the New Year still groaning from the excesses of the past couple of weeks, it's perhaps a suitable moment to introduce a slender poem that has been pared down from a weighty and somewhat overwrought original. 
May my waistline follow its example.

 















MORNING AFTER

They lie entwined on an unmade bed,
whisper promises that won’t be kept,
leave not a thing unsaid
but say too much, afraid
love may have vanished while they slept.