Stanley Spencer – A Happy Resurrection

Photograph of Spencer at work in Cookham Village … by WHB . . . 1957

Stanley Spencer, CBE RA (1891 – 1959)was an English painter. Shortly after leaving the Slade School of Art, Spencer became well known for his paintings depicting Biblical scenes occurring as if in Cookham, the small village beside the River Thames where he was born and spent much of his life. Wikipedia

The sleepers awake
from an imagined death
A teasing adventure in insubstantial earth

Pram pusher extraordinaire
in the Village that lit up his life
inspired his vision
Trundled easel hearse
put to work in progress
To see, to feel, to breathe
destiny on the village green
The past become the present
resurrected in tranquillity
Life-lite under the churchyard yew
this moulded flesh – full featured
bringing joy from the stern grave
Life’s resurrection imagined
in hope and the churchyard
in his eyes and his pigment
Drawn and deified
Death and Resurrection as Spring
As buttercups in the greenest of fields.

The sleepers awake
from an imagined death
A pleasing adventure in insubstantial earth

Stanley Spencer: ‘The Resurrection, Cobham … 1924-27. Tate Gallery

WHAT’S NEXT?

Photo by Julia Volk on Pexels.com

When the Quietus comes
Then is the Night
The end of my Beginning
The start of The Next
That infinite Unknown
That never wished for Future
So far safely hidden
Forestalling the Pain
Shrouding the Bliss
Of what will come
By drawing life’s Curtain
Over its darkening Window
Its haze obscuring 
That indeterminate Vision
Of the meaning of Destiny
Of what is Next

IN THAT OTHER LIFE

Take me back to those distant days
When time stood boldly still;
The burbling beck flowed green and clean
Beside the bellowing forge;
When each day brought new hope
And the healing world invited me in.

With that street gang
I fearlessly fought,
Braved the imminent threats.
Regrets nor desire for retribution
Clouded no horizon
And danger held no thrall.

Little I knew or even thought
Of what new years might hold.
Each day brought its gratitude,
Each birthday took no toll…
No future promise was worth a penny
Beyond tomorrow’s stretch.

But now, even in my clouded vision,
I see with unblinkered sight,
The past held all my future
Up to its proffered light,
And could I but have known it then
I nothing would now overwrite.

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 Vision Of Love

Do you remember the first time we met? 
A long time ago but hard to forget. 

Still so alive in my memory, 
The feed to my every reverie. 

Do you remember that first ever kiss, 
When soft lips touched in newfound bliss? 

Raw hearts first bled in ecstasy, 
The thrill of our conjoined energy. 

Do  you remember that first night of obsession
Love fully felt, all fervour, all passion

The need for each other at last fulfilled 
The essence of joy in conjunction distilled. 

All those memories now, facing reality,
Time and circumstance have brought finality. 

The last test awaits, giving pause for decision, 
Oh, let it be you who completes the Vision.

 

 

 

A Glimpse in Time

A Glimpse in Time

 

A video plays in my head

as my body drags itself 

from the long night’s dream. 

 

The images continue 

holding me

their plangent grip

hurting but healing 

as the dream itself 

fades from memory.

 

Because it was of you

I let the screen run on

seeking to retain

its fast fading force 

Visions of a possible future 

wherein I wake each day

to your warmth

Live in the  shade 

of your love 

Gaining strength from your fortitude

Resolution from our nearness. 

 

As the images disappear 

I attempt to grasp their dying light  

urging their resurrection 

to heal my fading hopes.

 

But all now is lost

and I am left 

Defeated by a glimpse 

of what might have been. 

 

 

FRAMED

Caught in time’s glimpse
A captured snapshot
Framed by Nature’s eye
Its green circumference
Centring on river bank seclusion
Concentrating vision in
The artist’s eye
Releasing both skill and passion
Into a waiting world
Where
Few will notice
Many will ignore
Hardly any will imbibe
Maybe one will benefit
Whilst the artist’s tears
Spill into his next vision