FIRST LIGHT, MOUSEHOLE... (My new poem inspired by Clare Bowen's painting of Mousehole, Cornwall...)

 First Light, Mousehole…

(Inspired by Clare Bowen’s painting…)

Sunrise illuminates rolling clouds, fussing over Penzance And Marazion, as St Michael’s Mount protrudes, cold,

Reaching and grasping for the morning. 

Mauves and murk loiter around dwellings and disregard  

What the elements might bring, whilst the harbour heeds the warning…

A pallid tide hurries to smother the rocky shore in advance

Of larger, heaving waves, thrusting and bold,

Rushing and gashing their harsh warning.

And the roofed building, once an annexe to the Old Coastguard

Hotel, surrenders itself to another Mounts Bay morning…

Pete Ray…

30th November 2025…    

My personal interpretation of a really good painting…

I think the now private dwelling on the left is what used to be the annexe of the hotel, which I stayed in a few times until it was sold off.

The view is so familiar to me…

TOWARDS ST CLEMENT'S... (My new poem about a fine Clare Bowen painting of St Clement's Island, Mousehole, Cornwall...)

 Towards St Clement's… 

(Inspired by Clare Bowen’s painting…)

The island, a mere strip of a silhouette,

Lies almost unnoticed in an aroused and jumbled

Mounts Bay, where clouds have formed a myriad of hues 

Jostling for prominence and have moodily tumbled 

About to taunt the sunlight and insolently abuse

Its illumination of St Clement’s, beneath the wiles of the artist’s palette… 

The sea, a mere backdrop to the chaotic theatre

Of the tousling dramatic cloud, shifts, sidelined

And curiously impotent, daubed by a myriad of faded

Blues, yet irradiated by a strip of yellow, maybe defined

As hope, or a promise to the islet lying shaded,

That the elements will soon reveal it as the prominent feature…

Pete Ray…

30th November 2025…     

I have seen the sky similar to that so many times off Mousehole harbour, looking towards St Clement’s islet…

Always a beautiful sight…  

PENBERTH GREENS... (My poem inspired by Julie Adlard's painting of Penberth, Cornwall...)

 Penberth Greens…

(Inspired by Julie Adlard's painting of Penberth, Cornwall...)

Hung washing belies the seclusion

Of Penberth’s languishing heritage,

Greens dominate like jade and emeralds,

Garnet and gaspeite.

Gems within a gem of a cove,

A working inlet still,

Despite apparent desertion and silent delusion…

Pallid cottages rouge in the diffusion

Of Penberth’s distinguishing features,

Jumble prevails like flotsam and jetsam,

Rubble and remnants.

Jewels within a jewel of a cove,

A thriving anchorage still,

Mackerel hues glinting in the abundant confusion…

Granite cobbles bulge on the cauance,

A redundant capstan haunts like a dream;

The electric winch is used to haul up the boats,

And the clapper bridge still fords the stream…

Emeralds and gaspeite,

Garnet and jade:

As greens dominate the beach-scape

From the media inlaid…

Pete Ray…

Looking at Julie Adlard’s art-work based upon Penberth Cove, all seemed deserted and bejewelled in green…

Gaspeite is an apple green stone and ‘cauance’ is a local Cornish word meaning a slipway…

Having visited Penberth a few times, the art-piece sums up the place really well and below are some images I have taken there…

IMPENDING STORM... (My new poem inspired by Sue Nichol's new painting of Sandsend, Yorkshire...)

 Impending Storm…

( My poem inspired by Sue Nichol’s new painting of Sandsend, North Yorkshire…)

Whitby huddles and its Abbey cowers grey as fiction, dark as hate,

For a squall looks to be bustling in, lustfully.

The beach recoils, crawling beneath the tide’s hurrying rate

And gnarled groynes stand raw and weathered, and grieve ruefully…

Whitby’s community lies distanced, insignificant, temporary and exposed, 

In contrast to the eroding shoreline’s apparent permanence.

The eddying pools and adjoining streams seem restless, indisposed

And swirl round the distorted groynes, riddled with persistence…

Whitby stares down at Sandsend’s seashore, wary of the sea’s lurching

Waves, wild and sullen, thrashing and loud.

And tetchy gulls forage, frolic and scream in their searching,

Near the arthritic groynes, which shiver within the ocean’s shroud…

Pete Ray…

27th November 2025…

ABOVE & BELOW: TWO OF MY PICS OF THE SCENE...

ETNA FROM GIARDINI NAXOS... (My poem written about a holiday to Sicily...)

 Etna From Giardini Naxos…

(From a visit in June 2012…)

Churlish, it beckoned dabs of high cloud

And swirled them about itself to hide its furnace,

Disguising ashen grey gloom,

Then spoiling dappled patches of late spring snow.

Skittish, it scattered loops of damp cloud

And hurled them beyond itself to signal its might,

Disposing leaden, puffed doom,

Then embroiling rippled snatches of lava’s imminent flow…

Pete Ray…

THE MASK... (My poem about Tutankhamun's death mask...)

 The Mask…

The boy stared,

Had lost his humanity

But dared betrayal,

Although he had long vanished…

Yet his death-mask’s brilliance,

Stylised certainly,

Traumatised me nevertheless

And it was the beauty,

Stark, sleek and glistening

Which exuded his resilience…

Pete Ray…

Tutankhamun’s wondrous mask…

ALLEYWAYS & ANGLED ROOFS... (My poem about a piece of artwork from Nika's Tiny House, Piran, Slovenia...)

 Alleyways & Angled Roofs…

Coloured wooden bricks of various shapes

Were handed to me as a very young lad,

To construct arches and towers which quivered,

Or rudimentary dwellings, or even simple rows

And yet those ideas to me were tedious japes.

So, for a short while I experienced a fad

Of using the bricks as milk bottles to be delivered

To the sofa and chairs, which as houses would pose…

Piran’s angled roofs appeal, enthral and stun

Atop disparate heights of blocks in fatigue,

Like a copse of myriad trees which strain for the sun,

Yet way below, alleyways and passages fascinate:

A miscellany of apartments and windows and shutters,

An assortment of styles, a canopy and indeterminate wiring.

Oh, such a need to explore! For the heart thumps and flutters,

And the charming incongruity one cannot help admiring…  

Pete Ray

Artwork from Nika’s Tiny House, Piran, Slovenia…

I played with those wooden blocks as milk bottles to deliver to different parts of my house as a kid, trying to hold two between the fingers of one hand, like the milk delivery guy used to…