the artist

January 4, 2021 coolhermit Poetry

the artist

I did not know love,
what it could be, what it was,
but the artist stirred
something in my soul before
I even knew I had one

I stood on a chair

to sneak a better look at

the dazzling stranger

standing by our gazebo

shaking hands with mum and dad

plaited in her hair,

a weave of tiny mirrors,

catching the sun’s rays,

code messages? semaphore?

like in Secret Seven books?

dad spoiled it for me

at supper when he mentioned

she was no spy but

a ‘modern artist’ after

renting one of the attics

three flights above a

cave of colours cried out for

exploration – a

respite from On The Buses

school day grey and beans on toast

I crept the staircase

hoping for a glimpse inside

that magic cavern –

her paintings filled the landing,

I knocked a couple over

the door burst open,

“do not touch! do not speak! sit!”

I found a corner,

‘do you like jazz? – nodding,

I hoped ‘jazz’ meant chocolate

I watched spell-bound, mute,

as the seeming random strokes –

brush against canvas –

teased images into life –

“let there be… and it was so”

Ella Fitzgerald
wept from the artist’s Dansette,
“… I die a little…”
the artist wept too, salt tears

dripping onto her palette

her three best paintings –

a Scarborough holiday,

gazing out to sea

through a rain-swept window her

bored son sitting beside her

visiting Grandma –

in a stiff black Sunday dress

uncomfortably

perched on a stiff high-back chair

dunking biscuits, drinking tea

a derelict house;

(I reckon her childhood home)

behind the crumbling

facade she caught its essence –

a century’s history,

births, family feuds,

home-comings and funerals –

world wars 1 and 2 –

it survived them all – until

the day of the wrecking ball

the artist moved out,

dumped her keys in a fruit bowl.

mum and dad have gone,

to lie in adjoining plots,

not one of them said ‘goodbye’

the paintings are gone

but live in my memory

I’m often upstairs

reflecting on the artist,

the jazz – Satchmo and Ella,

filling the attic

with a worn scratched recording

of our ‘special’ song,

Every Time We Say Goodbye,

and a fair share of sighing…

critique and comments welcome.