Album

[GuiltyPleasure]

I'm starting this thread much along the lines of maria's Bug Day Afternoon, as repository for poems inspired, this time, by or about photographs.

Album ( 1)

Weather is not kind to binding
left out
certainly not here
in this back alley,
forgotten by the clean-up crew,
ignored by the dumpster divers.

The snow and rain,
the baking sun,
have had their way.
This ordeal has buckled the leather,
mildew consumes it
gluing leaves together.

Wind turns pages
randomly
with no one to see
or remember the residents.
Posed singly or in groups
stiffly as if the camera threatens,
smiling warily to oblige
“cheese”
teeth bared patiently.

What neglected stories languish?
Fragments fixed
in yellowing linen corners,
grouping the characters
for one final bow.

This is reprieve,
another curtain call,
a glimpse of their stories
woven in these warped pages.

Here is a beach,
here mountains,
now a garden riotous with sepia flowers.
This one in Trafalgar,
timeless pigeons
in permanent mid-air
around the heads of two laughing girls.

Please add yours as the muse uncovers them for you and, of course, comments and suggestions gratefully recieved.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Album 6 – Diana and Ladybird on the Berkshire Downs

This one has colour depicting bright sun
and the wind whose hand strokes
the distant fields to a paler green,
tosses her hair in a hurly-burly blur
of curls that she tries in vain
to tame. In the distance the cushion
of the downs roll away under clouds
that mimic the swell of long dead sea creatures
at her feet. Almost hidden by her shadow
and the grass, a red dog, tongue lolling, eyes alert,
looks out at unseen intrigue only he
can scent. I know this girl, this dog, this place,
can hear the curlew above the rustle and bluster.
It is a remembrance.

 

[Tzara]

http://artworksmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/kenna-hillside-fecne-study-2-teshikaga-hokkaido-japan-20022.jpg

Climb

Here, in a wavery line,
Is Truth, zagging over some summit.
Such a hard road,
Slogging Truth over into grey.

 

[Tzara]

http://www.theawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/joan2.jpg


Joan Didion, with Stingray and Cigarette

The car is like an animal
whose long, low haunch she leans against
as if part of its pride, languishing
over a kill. The burn

and smoke at her mouth are her laugh.
Superiority,
as if Style equated to Life,
which I suppose it did

at some time in the 60s. Dylan
might have written a song about her reportage
if he hadn’t been loopy on drugs
or depressed by constant rain.

She is small, in this photograph. Thin
as a whip—but still supple, unweathered,
a pine on a rocky headland,
wiry from always facing into the wind.

 

[haomen]

She is small, in this photograph. Thin
as a whip—but still supple, unweathered.http://www.filii.info/g.gif

 

[champagne1982]

http://www.theawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/joan2.jpg
Joan Didion, with Stingray and Cigarette

The stark shadow lines in the V down her abdomen and ending in the outline of a medallion there, just over her womb makes me wonder... Piercings and chains or simply a long necklace left below the slinky jersey knit gown? Lovely.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

http://www.theawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/joan2.jpg


Joan Didion, with Stingray and Cigarette

The car is like an animal
whose long, low haunch she leans against
as if part of its pride, languishing
over a kill. The burn

and smoke at her mouth are her laugh.
Superiority,
as if Style equated to Life,
which I suppose it did

at some time in the 60s. Dylan
might have written a song about her reportage
if he hadn’t been loopy on drugs
or depressed by constant rain.

She is small, in this photograph. Thin
as a whip—but still supple, unweathered,
a pine on a rocky headland,
wiry from always facing into the wind.

This was before
the year of magical thinking
when letting go of one life,
no, two, was nigh on impossible.
She is one of life's
walking wounded, a survivor
whose sad eyes are sadder
for the bargaining.