National Poetry Day Trio

Ikon Gallery

Don’t listen to me, see what joys abound

As you look around, don’t sit down

Join with me ,in the gallery, and soar,

Like you have never done before,

To places you have never been or seen

Dare,  to dream.

To see what others

Have laid bare, with their fingers and imagination

Lose your inhibitions in an exhibition - of Solakov

Join him “In the City”, share his “folders”

His fears as he flies alone

“Top Secret” revealed, encrypted phone

View the index cards of his life

His pain his strife in “My Conscience Tormenting Me”

Or his murals in 3d

Or his toilet graffiti

A big man with a small idea in his head

Is what he said........

He would like that.

For you to know

A little more about, Sedko

For here is to explore

To tell others what you saw

To live just a little bit more

And maybe, for you to remember a phrase, a word

From that  poet , whose thoughts you heard

St Martins

Assailed on all sides, by time

Man and money

Glimpsed

St Martins Stands

Walls hunched tight

Against the onslaught

Yet eternally prevails

Here folk spoke, of King Henry

When the world lay flat.

Hammer beam roof hangs and guardian Angels gaze

Listen !

To the peace in the eye of the city’s storm

Catch, if you can, the sixteen bells peal

In darkness the silvery Selfridge’s shells glitter

Whilst the blue light on the Ssuth transept’s window  flickers

Spire reaching upwards

Grimshill stone finger grasping

For the stars.

Seeking salvation,

As a City sleeps

Cafe Blend

Where gossip sits on the froth speckled lips

Of conspiratorial customers

Dripping like over applied gloss

Where ladies that latte might risk a frappe

For a dare

Where lovers meet, unaware

And shoppers exchange compliments on

What they have bought to wear

Where, for a fleeting while, time stands still

Where waitresses are pretty, and the waiters just as lush

And the blaring traffic outside is reduced to a hush

And snatched  conversations lazily come and go

Did he really say “I’m not inflammable, you know,”

Across a gently cooling , Americano

And the Baristas entice and flirt to procure

An exotic drink or a house made liqueur

Chocolate and cake lie in wait to breach dietary trust

As you stop stare in anguish crying , “I shouldn’t but I must.”

At the next table, to me

She left suddenly, her handbag tightly clutched

Her drink barely touched

Her head filled with doubt

As she rushed on her way out

I wondered what for

As she slipped out the door

I should have said hello

I just wanted you to know

A mysterious end

To her stay at Cafe Blend