It's eighteen twenty-six,
a deserted esplanade,
no hen nights, no fish 'n chips,
an onshore wind, a wave cascade.

An observer sits at waters' edge
on a rotting timber sledge.
He's looking seaward, not watching,
not waiting, deeply contemplating.

Then he paints a picture of this place,
a record in suble water colour,
of a man on a sledge at the waters' edge.

They call it still life. All
as still as death. Perhaps
the painter's hand was also stilled
in contemplation, rapt, fulfilled.

Glum fish, lolling pheasants,
bread and cheese, garlic, cherries,
apples, oranges, lemons,
but it's the light that pleases.

Ravelling, revealing vision,
casting shadows, changing shapes,
glinting glasses, devilling detail,
the time warp of the stopped clock.

There's a myth that when you finish
a good book, the author dies for you.
At least, I often feel a sense of loss.
I was near the end of a fine book of essays.
I heard the author was dying, incurable.

Famous mass media man, favoured
by the more selective viewers, journalist,
interviewer, novellist, cultured critic,
humourist, philosopher, a thinker's man.

Ought I to have read that final essay,
defy the myth? Next day I scanned
the papers. His death was not reported.
I trust we both breathed normally again.

A radiant white goddess
limped onto our back lawn
reflecting bright moonbeams
the stuff of storybook dreams.

I gently picked her up
my two hands shielding her
like a communion cup.

The vets undertook her care
pronounced her a pure white dove
later phoned declared her dead
a broken leg.

What humans call a humane killing.
It eases our pain.
What happens when you **** a goddess?

Sitting waiting in the packed room,
trying not to adopt the mood,
watching bubbles rise 'What's 'er name'?
sensing movements, glancing eyes.
A few know each other,
smile hello, kids bellow.

This is not the place for show.
The bubbles silently burst.
No effort worth the candle
sadly burning, spluttering.
Sighs sour invisible clouds,
waiting for the 'Next , please' blow.

Single storey, long brick building,
curtained stage and wooden floors,
overture beginners, teachers,
scouts and guides in Sunday chorus.

Sounds of pennies dropping,
scraping chairs, coughing, iching, scratching,
and fidgets tiny bladders filling.

Holy high days came in cycles,
Whit Walks, banners, carnivals.
Many living on in stories,
since their final church parade.

Constables hay wain crossed
the Stour, wooden wheels creaking,
countryside colours clouded,
trees shrouded Flatford Mill.

Lowry's people were going to work,
guarded by furious chimneys,
darkness conductors, limbs aching.
Beneath the plumes short lives streamed,
inhabiting a rent collector's dreams.

Thin models for humanity
suffered Salford's acid rain
from satanic wage slave mills.