A pale sphere of softest mauve
And the sharp thistle thorn
A black butterfly
Wings wrapped, eyes closed
A leaf snagged in the sunburnt grasses?
A butterfly, a black and yellow dart
With eyes and face on its tail
To confuse its enemies
The kamikaze cricket
Who leaps into the wind
And tumbles along the cracked asphalt road
The wire fence vibrates
Around the abandoned quarry
The jazz of the donkey’s trumpet
Brambles and blackberries
Gunshots leap across the valley
As the hunting season starts
Scattered rock, blinding white, purest pink
The red stone outcrop
The scratched names of travellers
Mont Ventoux
Moving implacably through the dark cloud
A ship that will never reach its destination
An artist’s light
The unmistakable sounds
Of Provence
11 comments:
Hi – sorry its been so long. It seemed to take forever to catch up. Well, a week anyway. And three weeks of relaxation… it takes a while to get back up to speed. Looking at everything on my to do list and I couldn’t believe I’d possibly get it all done… maybe I won’t.
A rehearsal tonight with Damn Right. As part of my Walk Every Day to Get a Bit Fitter campaign I’m going to walk from Charing Cross to Kings Cross. In theory it will take half an hour. We’ll see!
I didn’t write a lot of poems in France. But I did start a novel based on my time at art college. So I was very pleased about that. I got 20,000 words down. Now all I have to do is put them in the right order so that they make sense.
But more of that anon.
Good to see the blog master poet and all round (the middle) gent back and writing again.
Welcome back with a welcome return and a welcome return to blogging poem too.
a lovely comeback. all shimmery and soulful and sensual like that. you're right--it's been a while.
Nice to see you back agin with some new poems which give a flavour of your summer hols. A walk everyday is a good idea. I should do the same thing. I did walk into town and back today which is about two miles but tomorrow I'll probabaly just walk to the front door to pick up the mail and raise the bills above my head a few times to increase my biceps! (fat chance!)
I like the idea of a novel about your art skool years- I would certainly want to read that having been to art school myself and regard them as the halycon days. We wait with baited breath and fishy tender hooks!
Great you're back, fully relaxed hopefully, a loveley whimsical poem.
My funniest memory of art college was when some students made some very realistic fake poos and placed them all over the floor in the girls toilets. Some poor cleaner probabley had a fit when they saw it. However emotional inteligence wasn't very developed at that age.
Great images:
A butterfly, a black and yellow dart
With eyes and face on its tail
To confuse its enemies
I love that one!
you must had a great time in provence another cool poem and a novel too!
welcome back roger!
Such lovely snap-shots of the summer hols! For some reason it reminded me of my childhood in Kenya, very close to Lake Victoria..sigh..all those butterflies n bouganvilleas n glassy blue skies...sigh..
you brought it all back!
:))
Charing Cross to Kings Cross..
Let's see... I'd take Charing Cross Road, right on New Oxford St., Left on Bloomsbury, Right on Great Russel (and have a pint in the Museum Tavern), continue on to a left at Southampton that turns into Woburn at Russel Sq., and a right on Euston Road to Kings Cross. Half an hour walk and half an hour pint.... Gotta take an hour.
How'd you do ???
A quite lovely, very visual look at quintessential provence! Welcome back Roger.
Took me about 45 minutes. I did go via Charing Cross Road - to stop off at a bookshop where I bought Great Expectations. (Jill says I should fill in some gaps in the my reading - Dickens is one such gap -even though I did once write a review based on it for the Dickens Festival in Rochester with fellow Killer Rabbit Roger Fahy) but not as far West as Euston. It was a good rehearsal.
I'm really enjoying the Dickens. It's very funny and I've laughed out loud a couple of times.
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