Angela Gardner
Andrew
Burke
Jen Crawford
MTC Cronin
Del Ray Cross
Laurie Duggan
kari edwards
Michael Farrell
William Fox
Angela Gardner
Kristin Hannaford
Jill Jones
Jayne Fenton Keane
S.K. Kelen
John Leonard
Anthony Lynch
Aoife Mannix
Chris Mansell
Heather Matthew
Peter Minter
Brendan Ryan
Jaya Savige
Gerald Schwartz
Lawrence Upton
Les Wicks
Tim Yu
Parts of Speech
briefly incomplete flisk
flew an open window
bright phrasebook of
illegible longing
a parrot chases past
thingers and fums
fiveground sixes and sevens
soars restless scansion
sky upwards flight moving
mimic through the air
and risen rill parse unravels
fledge fleeting flight
open ground
(always from above)
filmic contours shift curves
under your breath
a polyphonic nomenclature
of hidden displacement
reappears out of context
this nuanced surface
spinning and singing in
phrase and sentence
the immaterial pull
of gravity
they let fly in registers
without elision
jolt overhead outgo
out from stolen sound
intake diminish to
doubtful letter-spaces
in limping and dubious
from a harsh flood
they admonish
exceptions in pronunciation
adaptable to breath
the sound of the sky
in the end though
all those adjectives
just baffle the wind
taut against the window
wide from intake
apart stolen sensuality
in substitute breath partials
that shape the air
delicate tone colourings
and soft versatile diminishes
deflect in a mirror
simultaneous and vocal
the same few songs
Notes for a day at The National Gallery, London
the whole world
sucked through tunnels
by weight of assumption
from Aylesbury to Marylebone
past luminous jacketed rail workers
for a day at the gallery
56
Van der Weyden The Magdalen Reading
wood panel without a frame
cropped and mounted
like a photograph
Van Eyck and Campin
both painting red turbans
around 1435 different reds
62
that Swabian blue turns up again
in Venice behind
the Doge Leonardo Loredan
61
Green banner and pomegranate
the painting I always return to
8
Heaven!
Bronzino’s cheeky boys
against red flock wallpaper
In the Cafe
I concentrate on a double shot
and the creme anglais embedded
apricots of a Danish pastry
a tour group speaks Portuguese
women chat comfortably in German
over coffee and cakes
10
Saint Jerome reads
in what looks like a flat-pack
IKEA kitchen
G
The Medici above Apollo
(as it should be!)
I see Venice through
Canaletto’s eyes
camera lucida
B
is closed for Building work
D
a walk through
E
the sky as cloth of honour
12
children in front of a painting
Abdul’s top
the same red as Joseph’s cloak
11
carved wooden chests
heavy in the weak skylight
and flickering fluoro
5
I notice the oak floorbards
4
a Man looks out of the picture
holding pinks
his betrothed (holding Lily of the valley)
is in Winterthur in Switzerland
2
Leda half asleep
Zeus in disguise as usual
feathers her arse
6
that handsome tailor
7
bright paintings
I admire a wall
See the colour for the dining room
at home
9
Late Titian loose brushwork
the same white highlights the blade
and the rumpled bed-sheets
14
The gallery is full of children
holding hands
pulling secret faces
paintings filled with cabbages
51
I ignore the Leonardo
enjoy the gaps in the unfinished
Manchester Madonna
(when did Michelangelo go to Manchester?)
52
First year art students
look for ‘narrative’
Duccio obliges
53
The Wilton Diptych
open
beside the Italians
54
Massaccio
gold over red
red over gold
55
Eustace hunts stag at night
his hounds sniff each other
Good thing he was more
interested in sainthood
Young men in blazers on their lunch hour
lecture each other on linear perspective
while the attendant mouths
poncy git
57
a spit-roasted Centuar
58
he abandoned the profile
59
vanishing points
a ray from the clouds
penetrates stonework
60
I am over fat babies and lurid colour
I contemplate the flowers of the field
62
from a distance
Cardinal Bessarion with the
Bessarion reliquary
is composed like a Klimt
63
Crown of Thorns
and a man with a spiked collar
people you’d avoid in the Tube
64
as washing on a line
flaps into the corners
65
I admire all the reds
and a fly mosca mosca
landed on a hat
66
A room full of Piero
Michael angel by the power of god
there is a gallery trail
with audio stops
similar to the Stations of the Cross
On the stairs of the Sainsbury wing
I see the rooms of books
under the galleries
A wooden bench seat
overlooks Pall Mall
16
blank maps
debris on the floor
a boy and a girl talk urgently
17
The Hoogstraten peepshow
of a Dutch interior
an unknown man waits politely
so that we don’t eyeball each other
from either end
17a
I enjoy the simplicity
of a bundle of asparagus
15
Turner’s will
18
I don’t think I like
seventeenth century French painting
21
A seascape stands out
in the bucolic wilderness
20
closed for re-hanging
19
an open door
paintings on trolleys
scaffolding
walkie talkies
ladders
24
moral lessons
dreary paintings
23
with Rembrandt
we rediscover paint
and light
the subject of painting
22
maybe it is the light
reflected off water
the prominence of clouds
25
still life
reminders of the vanity
of existence
28
paint
brushwork
a rowdy tavern scene
27
‘distribution of light’?
26
by 26 I am bored
29
paintings so florid
I long for the shop
flat photographic postcard sized images
30
posthumous porttrait?
Trust the Spanish!
31
Govaert van Surpele (?)
and his fat wife
Should 1600-1700 be avoided?
then Velazques 1599-1660
and Zurbaran
a fragment water and silver
translucence and reflection
32
I wonder about the size
of people’s hands
33
Chardin and David
luminous and clear
the guilottine hangs above
them in my mind
34
Turner does Turner best
I admire Margate from the sea
as I would be unlikely to if there
I revise my opinion of Constable
finished
35
The Gainsborough daughters
chase a cabbage white
36
at least when they paint big
there are fewer to look at
until a green striped horse blanket
catches my eye
37
only the drapery
38
Canaletto again
I imagine vaporetti
the route to Arsenale
for the Biennale
I admire The Stone Mason’s Yard
before me
39
The attendant talks to himself
trying out the acoustics of the room
Goya and Wellington look on
40
44
Akseli Gallen-Kallela
a surprise hit
amongst the Impressionists
43
Impossible to see Manet’s
Emperor Maximillian of Mexico
except perfectly in pieces
an unexpected male nude
his big wet feet
41
Ingres’ Chief of Police
in Napoleonic Rome
in the background an overpainted face
disappeared in the background
re-emerges as the pigment thins
42
A city without people
Corot’s bride
pink ribbons against darkness
45
Cezanne
less is more
46
a touch of blue
beneath her breast
his brushwork
3
in the gallery shop
I buy twelve postcards
