Category: Art & Architecture

Willow Pattern

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Photo by Esra Nur Kalay on Pexels.com

Willow Pattern

Two dancing birds,
Beaks apart, as if in song –
As they circle through the cloudy, milky sky.
One windsocked weeping willow,
Slanted, yet still strong,
And three folks on a hump-backed bridge nearby.
Could it be they’re fishing ?
Or waiting for the boat ?
Though it hasn’t got a sail – perhaps a punt ?
Upon the other bank
Is a house that looks afloat,
Sporting plenty of blue shrubbery infront.
And over here, behind a zig-zag fence,
A squat pagoda,
That’s sheltered by a spreading ping-pong tree.
And round the edge are squares and scales,
And flowers for a coda,
A busyness of cobalt for our tea.
I stared and stared at China
On those Sunday afternoons,
Round at Grandma’s, in her cottage with the gate.
The disappearing cake
Revealed the timeless blue lagoons –
So very Eastern, yet so English, on a plate.

It is uncertain when the first examples of Willow Pattern appeared, although Wikipedia suggests they could have been produced by Spode in 1790.  They are, of course, a classic example of cultural appropriation – and thank goodness they were !  Genuine Chinese porcelain at this time was very expensive, and modern pecksniffs would have seen to it that it remianed so, and that the hard-working families of Britain should be denied the beauty and broadened horizons that came with their roast beef and Yorkshires.

The A300 Relief Road

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Photo by Manikuttan TK on Pexels.com

The A300 Relief Road

London Bridge has fallen down
As planners suffocate the town –
They cannot fathom what appeals
In Nonesuch House and waterwheels
They claim it’s not a chance to dream,
For reasons that evade me.
It’s just a means to cross a stream,
My fair forgotten lady.

The bridge that used to grace these banks
They gladly sold-off cheap to Yanks.
They have no care for what is lost,
Just that it’s done for cheapest cost.
And now the name evokes the tides
Of business bland and shady –
Just traffic jams and suicides,
My fair forgotten lady.

Auto-Iconography

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Triple Self-Portrait by Norman Rockwell

Auto-Iconography

Why so many self-portraits ?
Vanity, or an honest appraisal ?
Why the endless tortured brow,
And wistful gaze of hazel ?
Are they honest, or distorted ?
Simply practice, or masterclass ?
Or is the cheapest model that funds allow
A looking-glass ?

Movies for Rods

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Movies for Rods

I’ve never been a fan of black-and-white
In films of the modern day.
It feels all rather hairshirt-pretentious,
To choose to wallow in grey.
I’ve always thought that Raging Bull and Schindler’s List,
Are a wash of look-at-me grim,
And not brought-on by a limited budget –
But don’t you dare give their hues a trim.

For even more, I hate the arrogant yobs
Who can’t leave well-alone
Who colourise and bastardise,
And completely wreck the tone.
We won’t want some future-tech to force 3D
Onto all the films we’ve made  –
So leave the classics just as their artists’ wished,
As they shine in light and shade.

But maybe you like them better when brighter.
Maybe there’s room for us both.
Maybe I need to take a few breaths
And not try to stymie growth.
There’s a rainbow of points of view out there,
And the world is never quite as before –
It’s not such a matter of life and death,
And I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore.

The Seeing in Seahaven

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A still from The Truman Show, lensed by Peter Biziou

The Seeing at Seahaven

On day ten-nine-oh-nine,
As Truman walks out to his car –
He’s nearly brained by a falling star.

Oh, don’t sweat, he’s fine.
Though isn’t it mysterious
That the star is named as Sirius ?

In his bubble life,
With its flat earth and crystal dome,
The sky is shining just like home.

His perfect town and perfect wife
Are just like us outside the show,
They’re just as true – not that he’d know.

So what constellations, then ?
They could be any patterns really,
He’ll accept them all sincerely.

But then they’d have to pen a brand new textbook,
For the sake of one –
Why fight what’s there, when said and done ?

They still don’t need to wheel –
Just string them to the roof with ropes.
And best to not stock telescopes.

The fake can still be real.
I just hope that he likes to gaze,
Or else they shine in vain these days.

Closing Number

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Closing Number

The curtain’s hanging over us,
This is our final scene.
We hope our lines are close enough
And energies still keen.
We’ve just the time for one last turn
Before we take our bows –
For any encores that we earn,
And management allows.

The future’s big in front of us,
It starts tomorrow-dawn,
And so, for all we grunt and cuss,
Our brand-new lives are born.
We’ve barely time to learn our parts
Before we take our chance,
And who knows where the future charts ?
It’s one long song-and-dance.

The Last of the Bards

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Photo by Hande.jpg on Pexels.com

     The Last of the Bards

Poet Laureates may think they’re minstrels as of old,
And the keepers of collective kinds of culture –
But the power of such poetry has long since faded cold,
Like the tides of sacred dance or idol sculpture.
The heart of our society has moved-on into music
And to movies, and to comics, and to memes –
This is our shared heritage – collectively we choose it,
And subconsciously it permeates our dreams.

The arts have work to do,
And when it’s done,
They must give way.
The world must make anew
Each hero son
To have his day.
And poems, once so true,
Are now unspun, no more to say.

So poetry is rarefied, like opera and heraldry –
Irrelevant to most, and barely missed.
It’s hived-off into enclaves, where its swallows public subsidy
Because a few elites and pseuds persist.
The people are intimidated, left to feel inadequate
For not relating to this ancient form –
But quickly, and quite rightly, shrug it off – so let’s not overstate
Its presence in the psyche of the norm.

From Troy, to Middle Earth, to Tatooine,
The stories sway –
They have to prove their worth,
To keep their sheen,
Or slip away.
And poems, long in dearth,
Are barely seen or heard today.

Octatonic

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Photo by Aakash Sethi on Pexels.com

Octatonic

Ring out the bells,
The carousels,
The minor-thirded
Murder swells !
The long-sustaining,
Over-reigning,
Peace-destroying,
Cloying bells.

Some use clappers,
Some use hammers,
Gentle tappers,
Noisy clamours,
Hear their sobbing
Undertones
Then feel their throbbing
In our bones.
From wedding airs to fun’ral songs,
Let swing those gothic gongs !

Ring out the bells,
The peels of spells,
From churchy chimes
To grimy hells.
The long-decaying,
Belfry-swaying,
Steeple-hanging,
Clanging bells.

Some say angel,
Some say villain,
Pure or painful,
Each carillon.
Hear them numbing,
Hear them mourns,
In want of drumming,
Lacking horns.
From monast’ries to citadels,
Let speak the tongues of bells.

Cusp & Foil

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The Devil’s Parlour, an AI confection created using Leonardo

Cusp & Foil

Despite its very un-human appearance,
Brutalism is not of the Devil –
Hell is not open-plan nor split-level,
But rather refined in its elegance.

For Satan loves him a good bit of moulding,
And finds the Gothic suitably striking –
It’s churchiness is much to his liking,
With shadows and alcoves with secrets withholding.

He relishes how it is so un-chaste –
A messy farrago, where carvings cavort,
So clearly theatric, but not overwrought.
He’s rather old school in his decadent taste.

He champions all human endeavour,
He hungers for art, and lusts for pleasures,
Encouraging people to greater measures
Of genius accidentally clever.

Now God, he think, is a philistine,
And Jesus just sees a building as walls,
While Paul doesn’t care for the awe of St Paul’s –
They can’t see the passion within the divine.

The rage of the counter-Reformation
Is nothing but pigments on canvas, alas.
They hear no angelics within the Mass,
Nor thunder within a preacher’s oration.

But Satan knows humans are flesh and blood,
Like gargoyles hanging from rafters and nooks –
They may be grotesque, but we cherish their looks !
For Adam was formed from the dust and the mud.

But Heaven, he finds, is a Brutalist hell,
Raw and unfinished, with Puritan spartan
Enough to frown and hush and dishearten –
At least the Pit has some tales to tell.

The Pearly Gates are some steel-and-glass doors
In a weather-stained wall, not old, not new,
With nothing to say to those who pass through
To where ceilings hang low above beige-grey floors.

It makes good sense, though, that Hell with its fires
Has flames in its tracery, flickers of polychrome,
Bringing a warmth to Lucifer’s home –
For beauty is something that even the Devil requires.

Technically, both philistine and spartan are racist terms, but since the people who identified as such are no longer around as groups distinct from their neighbours, these are victimless crimes.

Brutalism on a Cold Dark Night

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Appropriately enough, this grim render was produced by AI.

Brutalism on a Cold Dark Night

Was there ever an architecture
Better suited to the psychopath ?
A soulless, sucking void of arrogance
From a concrete aftermath.
Revolted by the human touch,
They strip us down to a naked shell –
Forget the creepy Mansard roofs,
When this is the door to Hell.

Architecture that loves to unnerve us,
Streaked with grey and urban rot.
It stalks us down the side streets,
As its slabs are looming into shot.
Ashamed of beauty un-grotesque,
It’s where our inner demons dwell –
Forget the spooky moonlit tombs,
For this is the door to Hell.

But worse, is the way this architecture
Spreads its gloom across the globe –
All local style is crushed beneath the bulk
Of this alpha xenophobe.
Abhorring even a glimpse of nature,
Condemning us all to a prison cell –
Forget your wrought and iron gates,
For this is the door to Hell.