Omen Of Doubt

ON OMEN OF DOUBT

He caught my eye in the heat of afternoon
Transfixed my gaze for seconds
A cardboard cutout of a man
Alone and palely loitering

Transfixed
Imprinted in  that fleeting glance
The bespoke figure etched in my vision’s glass
Brought a faltering wisdom

Leaning on my sense of time
Disturbing my sense of normality
Suggesting some bizarre fantasy
Relating to Old Father Time
A reminder of both past and present
Yet warning of what is to come
A comment on my state of mind
And on my own unstable sanity
A pronouncement best left to fade
To curdle in the whey
Of a newly felt despondency.

The sense that age had brought me no peace
Only an uncertainty
That caused me to doubt
Not only my present vision
But my once accepted faith
in a sure future
Hitherto grounded in certainty
But now clouded in the unknown
And coloured in the shadows of doubt

Photo: WHB – Surrey, England – 2020

A Glimpse of Paradise

Photo:  WHB – 2019

I paused as I passed
Just a glimpse
in a miniscule
slice of time
Held in a bubble 
About to burst
A sense of the bizarre
The freaky
Outré and offbeat
Unreal yet lurid enough
As though I’d seen what I should not see
Felt what I had never felt

That entranced moment brought
Mirabile dictu
An exotic pain
That carried with it 
All meaning
The key to my existence 
The reason I was here
And nowhere else
Why I would live forever 
In the collective memory
Of the universe
An imprint
On the Tablet of Time

DALI IN LONDON

DALI  IN  LONDON

I saw on the London South Bank
This statue and to be quite frank,
I thought it bizarre,
Something from a bazaar;
Surely this is the work of a crank?

I was told I had Dali to thank
Surely a bit of a prank?
This mammoth in metal
My sight did unsettle –
Where taste goes I’m thick as a plank.

However that soon was outdone
By a dripping watch out in the sun;
Called ‘Nobility Of Time’,
Which hardly did chime
With Big Ben, England’s favourite son.

But then on this old riverbank
Another sight this did outflank,
A torso was carved
In two it was halved.
From exploring further I shrank.

Now I know you’re a self-publicist
And your paintings I love them to bits.
Senor  Dali, please choose;
You’ve nothing to lose
If you want to stay off my blacklist.

#     #     #

Photographs, apart from the top one of Dali himself, and the one of the clock, were taken by me in 2002.  The Exhibition of Dali’s work, previously housed in the old London County Hall, is now closed and the exhibits, one of the most extensive collections of Dali’s work in different media, are currently, I understand, awaiting a new venue.