Tuesday 15 October 2024
Monday 14 October 2024
PLACID UNEASE... (My new poem about a Björn Bernström painting...)
Placid Unease…
(An appreciation of Björn Bernström’s painting…)
A watercolour sky hovers above a shadowy dark
Community, its chimneys, poles and wires
Mere silhouettes, as a low sun, amber and seductive
Seeps like fire through windows, reflected in pallid form
Upon the streets, post rain perhaps and glistening…
An uneasy silence pervades the foreground stark,
As black cloud spoils the sky’s rouge like coals on fires,
Easing to placid creams and a weak blue, unobtrusive.
And although no-one treads the paths, maybe post-storm,
Somehow I feel I am there, watching, dreaming, listening…
Pete Ray
14th October 2024…
VEXED AND WAITING AT PORTHGWARRA... (My new poem about Walter Langley's painting of the Cornish cove of Porthgwarra...)
Vexed And Waiting At Porthgwarra...
(From Walter Langley’s painting…)
Empty fish baskets lean, whilst children dither
Amongst beach boulders and women bother,
As their wait continues with vexed, concerned,
Frowning expressions and barely discerned
Confidence. A shroud of sadness, infinite,
Infuses the scene, an uneasy silence, intimate,
Yet somehow, the brightness beyond the hole in the rocks,
Suggests solace for the families, which the wild ocean mocks…
Pete Ray
14th October 2024…
Porthgwarra’s famous hole in the rocks…
The families await the luggers which will hopefully bring in the day’s catch of fish, ready to be processed…
The anxiety though was always evident in the faces of those who awaited the fishermen’s return…
(Written in Pret, Solihull, whilst drinking an extra-shot flat white…)
Saturday 12 October 2024
THE ROAD OUT OF NEWLYN... (My new poem about a Walter Henry Sweet painting...)
The Road Out Of Newlyn…
(from a painting by Walter Henry Sweet, 1889-1943…)
The stern corner of what is now a road out
Of Newlyn, towards Mousehole’s historic quay
Is portrayed as a gruff, hazy, sunlit and high sea-wall
Of hewn granite stone, an uneven lane, a steep thoroughfare,
An incline alongside dwellings, perched above a capricious
Ocean. The old harbour wall cradles luggers, moored and anxious,
Protected from what stormy days might bring to bear:
Gale, thrashing tide and wild, evil tousling squall.
A palette sky of pallid hues hovers changeable above a creeping sea
Its progress tamed by the lichen-strewn fortress, impressively stout…
Pete Ray
12th October 2024…
Walked up that hill so many times over recent years when staying in Mousehole...
Love Newlyn's individualism...
ON THE OLD HARBOUR WALL, WHICH FEATURED SO OFTEN IN WALTER LANGLEY'S PAINTINGS FROM THE NEWLYN SCHOOL...
Friday 11 October 2024
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