Romancifying Vincent

 There was a young Dutchman called Vincent

who painted the postman and peasant

living in hovels,

loving the brothels,

relationships always unpleasant.

In Etton, his father, a preacher,

his mother, a climber, a reacher:

starry, his passion,

conflict, a mission,

intensity always his teacher.

In ten years of painting, he shows

how to catch nature’s heaven, god knows!

Fighting his battle,

‘til a death rattle

arched him away with the crows.

That's a first

 says Fred, the train guard,

when Andrew hands him tickets

and smiles ‘I love you!’

Work

 My proposal was important

(had to be there tomorrow)

lots of kudos hanging off;

reputation, dollar, sweeter promise

and words poured out from fingertips

to keyboard-taps, heart of laptop,

blah, qwerty, blah,

until an old traveler

sat down, took off his hat

as a youth’s rucksack turned and caught

him on a grizzled head. I smiled

‘it’s all about awareness’ I suggested

‘yes, I never saw this train so crowded’

and off we go into hello;

hello my newborn friend,

before goodbye – we try – our best – and fly.

Expansion

 Far out – nothing -

fancies everything

and (under the covers)

they fight each other

- spirit and form –

and then something is born.

Andrew's advice

 Remember you - your new friends -

like the ones you met

sitting doing nothing on a train

when you refused to let them light faces

with laptop screens – no – you waded

in with a few questions – ‘do you like

marmite?’ – for example - and let

them glisten themselves with light

of a new connection. Like a smile.

Remember you?

Birth

 Did you ever do the same

as Andrew on that Christmas morning?

Sit up in bed, mouth dry from sleep,

holding a forelock of hair,

looking and feeling, slow, long and deep

for an old inner recess – gap between worlds –

so hard to access, where pulse can be felt,

and gaze out, blast

a song by the (eighty year old)

Sondheim – loud, discordant,

‘Being Alive! Beeeeeing Arrrliiiive!’

and scan round the room

awake with that sound now – and now with a question

profoundly Socratic, imp

of a stoat newly woken in Winter,

‘What’s Next?’ he asks and looks with intent

to urge out his question ‘What’s Next!?”

Well – did you ever?

White Goddess

Three times she came to visit me,

three times she looked into my eyes;

maiden, mother, ancient lady

singing pretty lullabies

and, on the fourth, in starlight dance,

she howls one wolf into the skies;

leaps astride another branch

and flies.