Sunday 30 June 2019
Friday 28 June 2019
Thursday 27 June 2019
'SUBSIDING...': A NEW POEM & ROSIE PHILPOTT'S PAINTINGS OF DROITWICH...
Subsiding…
(with reference to Rosie Philpott's paintings ‘Wonky Droitwich 1938’ and ‘Wonky Droitwich 2011’)
It’s like the buildings in Droitwich are tense,
On edge, dreading the next creak
Or shifting movement intense,
Yet fearing also the effort
To get upright, or a sense
Of straightening to seek
And upset the equilibrium, oblique,
Raising the wrath of any brine lying dormant,
Causing more displacement and subsidence
Until disaster is imminent…
Pete Ray
June 2019
The artist has painted ‘wonky’ Droitwich and little wonder, as the salt industry of the past has already caused some interesting leaning of buildings.
Sadly the large hotel ‘The Raven’ appears to have been allowed to rot away. Filthy net curtains blow from partially open windows, as another historic property awaits its fate…
CAMEL TRAIL: A NEW POEM ABOUT LUCY DAVIES' PAINTING...
Camel Trail
(looking at the painting by Lucy Davies…)
I have walked that trail
And peered through foliage
And blossom, frowning
To spy upon an oystercatcher, an egret,
A plover, or a curlew wading,
Or to watch the Doom Bar rise at low tide,
Like a bulk, a hulk, a surfacing whale…
I have strolled that jaunt
And reached the distant bridge
Past trees and hedges, straining
To spy upon a heron, a sandpiper,
A bar-tailed godwit, or a redshank digging,
Or to marvel at Rock, whose dunes reside
Across the estuary, a childhood haunt…
Pete Ray
June 2019
I have added some of my images taken in the same area as illustrated by the artist.
 |
| CURLEW... |
The picture of the young gannet was special, for the creature appeared to have become lost, tired and disorientated, yet it allowed me to get close.
 |
| YOUNG GANNET... |
It wasn’t injured and presumably it gathered enough strength to take off and return to the sea…
The Camel Trail of course, was once a railway line, heading from Padstow towards Wadebridge…
 |
| ROCK... |
Wednesday 26 June 2019
CLEVEDON PIER: A NEW POEM...
Clevedon Pier
Like a stick insect placing tentative steps
Along a testing tortilla brown twig,
The pier appeared to take hesitant strides
Into a quivering peanut brown channel,
Its fragile limbs withstanding moody tides,
Supporting visitors, seeking their heritage
And peering through gaps at muddy depths…
At its head, a rounded end was supported
By a melee, a confusing structural log jam,
A distraught pile of solid, angled wood,
An untidy, yet carefully considered tower
To thwart the murky rushes of tidal power,
As if beavers had built a considerable dam…
Pete Ray
June 2019
Clevedon’s pier was supported in the Bristol Channel by what looked like a mess of wooden stakes and logs, which could be entered for the Turner Art Prize.
The length of the pier and its ‘legs’ reminded me of a stick insect and the pile of wood at the rounded end, from whence visitors take in the views, looked like the work of beavers…
WORCESTER'S BOER WAR MEMORIAL: A NEW POEM...
Worcester Memorial...
Crouching, portrayed as gallant in war,
Puttees wrapped tight above polished boots,
He fires a round at the insistent Boer,
Stubbornly resistant as he shoots…
No helmet, his jerkin open at the neck
Suggests a last defensive stand,
Yet the rifleman’s grim, glaring expression
And his hard-set jaw render an impression
Of contempt for the enemy
In conditions alien and raw…
The memorial symbolises the wastefulness
And the horror of the South African War:
Death in action, death from wounds or death from sickness
On the veldt of the insurgent guerrilla Boer…
Pete Ray
June 2019
Positioned now outside Worcester Cathedral, the bronze memorial was unveiled on 23rd September 1908, apparently to recall 71 Worcester men who all died in the Boer War (1899-1902).
The winged immortality figure above the dishevelled soldier holds a palm branch, a sheathed sword and a laurel wreath…
Saturday 22 June 2019
A NEW POEM ABOUT A GERMAN WORLD WAR 1 POSTCARD...
Poised…
Her pen is poised.
She wonders what to write…
Of trivia? The opera? The theatre?
Or of her feelings, contrite?
Her script will be scrutinised
But between the lines he will read
Of longing, of love, of trepidation, albeit sanitised,
For to censorship she must pay heed…
Her writing has paused
And she recalls her Soldat, stylised,
Proud in uniform, heading west,
His gallantry romanticised;
Thus his beautifully scripted response
From The Front, a slaughterhouse despised,
Is superficial, diluted, awry,
A snooping censor’s checks thus satisfied…
And he wipes the tears
With a mud-caked sleeve
And hides the fears
And the need to grieve;
And he ignores the vile stench
Of rotting bodies in cloying mire
And huddles in terror deep in a trench,
Beneath shells and shrapnel and gas and fire…
Yet the image of her Soldat must endure
And his image of her is survival’s sole lure…
Pete Ray
June 2019
A World War 1 postcard sent by a German soldier in December 1915…
A generally produced card with personal connotations…
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