Bordeaux Bay

Bordeaux Bay
Bordeaux Bay by Guernsey-based artist Tony Taylor

Sunday 29 March 2020

ISOLATION

This daily isolation, that has so speedily become the norm, must be a particularly painful experience for those who have to endure it without company. 
My favourite narrative poem on the subject of isolation is Tennyson’s, The Lady of Shalott, and I’ve written my own version of it as a homage to the original.
The Lady’s enforced solitude is the result of an unspecified curse and the threat of death looms over her should she attempt to leave the tower where she’s confined.
Her relationship with the outside world is limited to what can be seen, reflected in her mirror, of travellers on the road beneath her window.  
I’ve been fascinated by the tale for many years and struck by a similarity between the Lady’s estrangement from the real world and her use of a mirror to engage with it, and the indoor, screen-obsessed, lives so many people live today.
The tale also brings to mind the enforced isolation that the Covid-19 restrictions have imposed on all of us.


Painting by Sidney Meteyard
















SHALOTT

A river, like a passing life,
flows steadily to Camelot. 
Along its bank slim aspens grow,  
wild irises, long-limbed loose-strife,
and, hourly, sloops with cargoes go
to that far place where she dare not.

She moves within a spartan room
where silence like a boulder-weight
bears down on her. 
She may despise 
her morning’s work upon the loom:
a woven history of lies, 
at best half-truths, half-told too late,
but if she does, she puts aside
such sentiments and turns again
to watch the world swim in a mirror
where shadow-shapes, like fishes, glide
and, daily, mysteries occur.
A curse demands she must refrain 
from gazing on the world beyond
her tall, arched window: 
she must view
the passing moment in a glass.
Each risen morning, rosy-dawned,
incarcerated, she must pass
her time by weaving and eschew
a life unscreened, where touch and scent
enliven the most sluggish hearts:
where sunlight warms the dappled shade
and lovers lie enwrapped, content
in their belief love will not fade;
where, brightly, the kingfisher darts
and snap of twig drives startled deer,
in wingless flight, a honeyed wave,
towards the tree-line, darkly green,
where auburn foxes, without fear,
like dark-eyed sorcerers, convene
beneath a leafy architrave.
Where, daily, west wind’s untamed spin 
scrawls patterns on broad fields of grain;
where spring unfolds its giving hand,
and harmony exists within  
an unseen, heady-scented land  
that lies beyond her window pane.
In short, hers is a cruel fate
as, cloistered, she needs must deny
the living world: 
her limpid screen,
devoid of life, can not create  
the elemental shout of green,


Wednesday 25 March 2020

THE NEW NORMAL?

We ventured out for a walk today, determined to do so while limited exercise away from home is still permissible. 
The rural lanes on Guernsey are narrow, barely allowing sufficient space to observe ‘social-distancing’ guidelines, so when we encountered people, we took care to tip-toe round each other.
I noticed a tortoiseshell cat sitting on a wall watching us and wondered if it was aware that humans had started behaving like cats: standoffish, wary, aloof and likely to dart off if approached. 
Could this be the new normal?












SOCIAL-DISTANCING



No man’s an island, wrote the Bard
nor is an island just one man:
it’s several million trying hard
to social-distance if they can.

Don’t stand, don’t stand too close to me:
sad words The Police sang anyhow.
Weirdness is now normality.
We all are social lepers now.



Sunday 22 March 2020

ENTER THE DRAGON

Whilst the virus, Covid-19, empties streets and public places throughout the world and roams the land like some malevolent creature intent on slaughter, spring, undaunted, has arrived on the island and our garden is full of birds, birdsong and the beginnings of nest-building. Life goes on.

















ST FRANCIS

His gentle eyes are full of sky.
Beasts gather round him, calf and cur,
a feral cat with matted fur,
a tiny field-mouse, timid, shy.
Wrens trip and tremble in his beard
and what the villagers find weird
is how, reflected in those eyes,
are airborne, white-winged, birdlike men,
not human, something else again.

Wednesday 18 March 2020

PLAGUED WITH DOUBT

Older people are more likely to become severely ill if they catch coronavirus according to the NHS. Generally, it says, anyone over the age of 65 is considered an "older person" but there is no strict definition as people age at different rates.

Image by Jakabs Kazaks


















CORONAVIRUS PRAYER

Almighty God, it may seem odd
to hear from one who rarely prays.
Not for myself, I ask you, God,
to please look down and reappraise
the list of which folks get the chop
and spare those ladies in the shop.

All-knowing One, all-seeing One,
You know the shop. You see them there:
three frail old girls, each with a bun,
beige cardigan and mousy hair.
In that drab shop, the three preside,
polite to all who step inside.

The shop is run for charity
to raise funds for a worthy cause.
The ladies give their time for free
and do not seek praise or applause.
God, with your sparrow-watching eye,
please make the virus pass them by.



"A loveless world is a dead world."  Albert Camus, The Plague.

Wednesday 11 March 2020

BOXED IN

I'm immensely proud that my short poem, His Room, was one of those chosen to appear in the March 2020 edition of Snakeskin, the respected poetry webzine whose first edition dates back to 1995. 
My thanks to Snakeskin's Editor, George Simmers, for choosing this poem.












HIS ROOM

It took five minutes, more or less,
to fill, with what he left behind,
a cardboard box and to compress
into its space, his life, unsigned 
in much the way some paintings are,
then stash it in the waiting car.

In those five minutes, I remained
there in the small, vacated room,
while the red-faced landlord explained
a small arrears. Would I assume
responsibility and pay?
My conscience made me easy prey.

Thursday 5 March 2020

HEALTH AND SAFETY

A few years ago my brother gave the family a scare when he was rushed to hospital suffering from pneumonia. 
Living alone, he had neglected his health and paid the inevitable price.
The care he received in the Ulster Hospital was exemplary and gave the lie to the oft-repeated assertion that the NHS is not fit for purpose.













SECOND CHANCE

Sun warms his hospital face.
Automatic doors swish shut behind him
and what he smells is fresh-cut grass
while, looking up, he’s giddy 
as too much sky surrounds him.

It’s over. 

He hears birdsong 
and a high, departing plane.
The scent of honeysuckle intoxicates him.
Unsteadily, in unaccustomed walking-shoes,
he shuffles to a waiting cab.