BUT FOR THE WAY THE LIGHT FALLS

copyright David Hockney

The country continues to be torn apart by a gang of public school educated elitists, who are hell bent on riding rough shod over all democratic process in the name of the people's will. We all know how these things usually play out...

I am not sure where it sprang from but the other day I suddenly had an image of David Hockney's Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy. A superb painting and one of my all time favourites. 

I could see the painting in my mind's eye and had the sudden rush of awareness that this is what Ossie Clark will be best remembered for. I wrote this over several drafts.

Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy

this is how you will be best remembered

not for all those dresses you designed

[already hoarded by the few]

not for your sad, slow decline

or the wife who left you

but for the way the light falls onto your face

I had a couple of opening lines:

if we can stagger through this
survive the great extinction
and that is far from certain

I like them as an opening but think they probably belong on another poem. One about how our politicians are incapable of responding to the Climate Crisis.
One of the skills every poet needs to develop is having the confidence to pare the poem down to its bare essentials.

Here's a very different poem that I've been working on this week.

A 10% Chance of Rain

one in ten

good odds I think

so walk out

coatless

hatless

with an umbrella

and at the furthest point from home

precipitation

there is worse to come as I remember

the washing is on the line...

This photograph is from a bar in Oregon I visited the other year. The decor drew on 1984.  Rather fitting for this week as reality is coming to resemble " a boot stamping on a human face-forever."

On a lighter note Anna Terheim has a new song out. 

There are still tickets for her London show in November.

Until next time.