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Flotsam and Jetsam

~ Assorted odds and ends

Flotsam and Jetsam

Tag Archives: Poems of Place

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

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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.

Poems of Place: In Radcliffe Square – A Window On The Snow

02 Sunday Feb 2014

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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Poems of Place, Radcliffe Square, Song

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https://flotandjetdotcom1.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/07-a-window-on-the-snow-in-radcliffe-square.mp3

A Window on the Snow from The Uselessness of History by Scorpio with The Bookshop Band

 

Night stands

And holds the blizzard’s zeal.

A landscape

Of fantasy but real….

 

A face pressed against a window,

Looks out upon the square below,

Watching figures, walking slowly

Beyond the orange glow.

 

From trembling lips….

Breath mists the glass,

Obscures the present,

Illuminates the past.

 

Two lovers walking slowly,

Talking about so and so,

This and that and nothing,

Beyond the orange glow.

 

Too soon like antique seasons

You said you had to go,

Walking slowly, walking sadly,

Beyond the orange glow.

 

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Poems of Place: Lunch at Bijou Plage

20 Monday Jan 2014

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Cannes, Poems of Place

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The sun glints on a nail-varnished sea,

Before the darkening mountains of the Esterel

Bring Autumn here.

The waves twinkle as if lit by random solar lights

And land gently on the thirsty sand.

An infant gull looks hopeful

And maintains a 360 degree vigil,

As Jonny Guitar comes with nonchalant cap,

Strumming in the privacy of his own space;

Behind the women of Bijou place tablecloths,

Position blackboard menus and bring aperitifs to Friday guests.

The fish is good today,

Like the atmosphere, the happy relic of another age.

 

11 October, 2013

Poems of Place: Matinal

20 Monday Jan 2014

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Isle Set Marguerite, Poems of Place


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La Pointe Du Dragon

Ile Ste. Marguerite, July 2nd

 

In a greyish blue lagoon,

The Esterel snoozes like a stegosaurus

Underneath a latte sky.

To the leeward, beyond Antheor

A white sail appears like

A fallen dragon’s tooth.

In front the Aleppo parasols the cove,

Stooping like an aged retainer while

Galettes gleam as treacherous jewels in the shallows.

A tolling bell mediates the birdsong;

And then far off, the rhythmic hum of diesel

Reminds me of a relentless assailing world.

Poems of Place: La Guerite, Ile Ste Marguerite

18 Saturday Jan 2014

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Cannes, Poems of Place

The island fortress bakes in silence.

I sit shaded by the pines,

High above me, the look out post watches the bay,

The cicadas are strumming in anticipation of action,

The feeble breeze carries the voices of day-trippers

Waiting for the last boat of summer.

So musing on sentinels, I ponder

My talent for reconnaissance;

Nurtured from an early age (I think?)

By dad who dispatched me off

To take point and report back

On dangers lurking

At the end of Blackpool’s Central Pier.

In time, my nose for sensing what’s ahead

Became a skill people paid good money for.

But they call it strategy.

The restaurant is quiet now,

The final whistle has blown for the table footballers

The bikini pop up shop,

And the kaleidoscope of scenarios I have foreseen.

(*The look out post)

Poems of Place: Abermawr

17 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by Paul Christopher Walton in Poetry

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Barmouth, Poems of Place

Summer

Tonight I walked along the estuary of my youth,

Saw water colour landscapes of hope and fear

Watched the family outline in the surf,

Smelt the kelp and tasted salt once more,

Heard the white noise of waves breaking at the bar,

The tinkle of dinghy bells, the relentless nagging of the gulls,

The flap of ice cream banners in deserted cabins,

And witnessed the sun’s last defiant blaze,

As a crescent moon rose above Tyrau Mawr.

Winter

A November evening

A pocketful of birthday money

Waiting at the old signal box

Eating nougat

(pronounced the Anglo-Saxon way),

Shivering, happy and ambitious.

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