Easter Procession, Palma

Two hours before the event,
a slow thrill rose in the crowd.

Floats swayed through the alleyway
carried on bent backs.

Serious boys and girls, doll-like,
parade their proud costumes.

Trumpets shout; drumming
insists on certainty.

Plaster effigies copy Christ's blood.
A wooden crucifix is dragged on stone.

Virtue, sacrifice, belief,
are celebrated here.

Chains pulled.

The weight.  The weight.

The blessed isle.

Fig Trees, Alicante

Four fig trees together
form a canopy, shading
those of us who sit below.

Two black-clad waiters swerve
between tables in an opera
of service.

A dead leaf falls on my shoulder.

I take my first sip of horchata.

These trees have been here for hundreds of years:
their dreadlocked branches, veins;
their roots like dead snakes.

The waiter opens his arms in greeting.
He gives a young lady a twirl
under his arm. 

Two deaf mutes at the next table
wave their arms about excitedly,
shouting in conversation.

Five ladies with well-cut hair
cover their lives with recollections.

The deep roots.
The canopy of mutual support.
The love of language, company,
and children.

The respect in ceremony of the
miracle of procreation. 

This is Spain.

Backstreet, Naples

I am Thomas Jones, painter.
I paint large canvases for the well-off.
You can see them in Wynnstay,
glinting off the silver service.

I make a living with them -
the larger the better.
The oils for forty guineas -
skinny trees, landscape with river.
Much admired.

But here I am at home
on the roof terrace.
I take a sheet of Dutch laid writing paper.
I can feel its ridges under my thumb.

And away with that silky landscape
that I can sell!
Here is me, looking.

Back there is the Castel Nuovo
and the Dogana del Sale.
Important buildings.

I am looking at a plain wall,
its brown the colour of worn life.
Hanging over the top edges
is the day's washing.

Its white fabric
shifts in the breeze
like miniature sails.

This is life.
I put it down as I see it.

Sometimes it feels good to break away
and be just what one sees.

I cannot sell this painting.
But it is me. Here.  Now.

In Memory of Jake Thackray

We shared a classroom, but he dominated.

His tall muscular body, his extraordinary face
with its drooped eyes, flared nostrils and expressive mouth.

The thin walls of the school with their worn plastic panels
enclosed the thin kids from the Council Houses. 
It was where he came from too.

They sat there mesmerised by his presence.
His baritone voice drew pictures in the air
from the backstreets of Armley,
and from Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth.

When I came with a mattress on the roof of my Mini -
for one of his children's beds -
to his house up the curving drive overlooking the Wye,
something had changed.

His wife turned her head away.

He told me how he had to stand with his guitar case
at the bus stops. 

There was a shadow across his face.

As I left the house
I had a strange feeling in my chest,
as if I had suffered a bereavement.