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Flotsam and Jetsam

~ Assorted odds and ends

Flotsam and Jetsam

Tag Archives: National Portrait Gallery

Poems of Place: At the National Portrait Gallery with Simon Schama

24 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in poems of place, Poetry

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BP, Cavaliers, Game of Thrones, National Portrait Gallery, Roundheads, Simon Schama

 The BP Portrait Awards

You told us to lock eyes,

Get up close and personal;

Be inspired by Hogarth’s words

And if in doubt, swipe right.

But I didn’t expect a face-to-face with Fairfax

Over the Sancerre and sea bass.

But the Roundhead was a better with pike blocks than with banter

And sadly for me he sat impassively

As I munched on burrata and asparagus,

So I talked instead with Karen.

You might have warned us Dr. Schama

That we’d been invited a Game of Thrones theme night dinner

Where House Stuart showed once more how if you win, you lose

And three big names – Strafford, Laud and Charles

Looked down at us with hauteur and as yet their heads,

As we sat below the salt

Contemplating life’s greatest dilemma:

Of being wrong but romantic;

Or being right, but repulsive?

Poems of Place: The Café in St Martin’s Lane

14 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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National Portrait Gallery, Poems of Place

IMG_3949 

At The National Portrait Gallery

 

I am sitting drinking coffee with Maggie Smith and Sylvia Syms.

The ladies are in a pensive mood and do not meet my vassal gaze.

Underneath my feet, I sense the gentle rumble of the Jubilee

Which spins my soaking brogues.

Above me, the January rain splats the Perspex canopy,

Its puddles refracting skeletons of trees against a Payne’s grey sky.

It’s warmer inside the snug corridors

Where time plays tricks and Tudors sit beside late Plantagenets.

The Stuarts live on the floor above,

Deposed perhaps, but reposing and depicted.

Here in the vaults, you’ll find more human portraiture,

The living subjects of more fundamental things:

Maternal hugs, lovers’ looks and friendly tourist encounters.

All the energy that comes from refreshing interactions

Which blunt the edge of this hard of hearing, grizzly day.

Even Sylvia seems ready to smile.

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