The Secret Poet – and no, I can’t reveal his or her identity – has been inspired by the work of the Secret Artist and I can exclusively share with you poems composed in response to the SA’s Primrose Hill pictures.
The mysterious Secret Poet (SP) told me this:
“I’ve lived half my life in Primrose Hill so much of my writing is rooted here. My Secret Poems come to me as I walk to work. It’s hard to see everyday time as part of history, though it is. As the world turns with changing patterns, dislocations, shifting perspectives, I like to catch the ebb and flow of life as it seems to me in this place at this time.
“I don’t think of myself as a poet. I know that I need to live part of my life through the imagination. Some form of imaginative expression or creative immersion is defining and fulfilling for me. I believe that part of everyone is a poet.”
And, published here for the first time, I can reveal SP’s inaugural Primrose Hill poem, inspired by SA’s picture of everybody’s favourite kitchen shop, Richard Dare:
THE SHINING
Clattered, battered cooking pots,
Gleaming, steaming pans and tops,
Copper, silver, metals glow,
In the daily kitchen flow.
*
Washing, cleaning, scrubbing bright,
In the darkness of the night,
Guests long gone, the pots’ dull gleam
Closes lids, invites a dream.
THE SECRET POET, FEBRUARY 2016
THE YELLOW BASKET
I knew; I always knew that you would leave.
A tearing at the heart, a rip, a wound.
“But where? Of course. I’ll help. You’ll need some things…”
*
A drying rack, extension leads,
A lamp, a torch, some soap.
“This yellow washing basket’s bright”,
A kitchen knife, some soap.
*
Your face; your face, so known, unlined and hard
With purpose, fills me, claims me. I reach out.
And seek your eyes, my eyes; your eyes look past.
*
It is; it is.
And that is all there is
To know. I know,
But oh,
The pain to feel you go.
by THE SECRET POET
Lost in Blue
Inspired by Primrose Hill Bookshop
I climbed the tree to read from a young age,
The world spread out beneath me, shaded, vast.
Suspended, lost in blue, the hours passed.
This freedom stays, the heat and scent of youth
Is present now, as now I turn this page.
*
My pile of books, so distant from that tree,
So long ago and green, though held in blue,
That always, then assumed and never true,
That hazy time, those branches, felled and gone,
Yet turn this page, I’m there and I am free.
BY THE SECRET POET
Blanca February 2016
Inspired by the Secret Artist’s Picture of Jack O’Shea’s butchers shop
Another butcher in another city,
His doorway draped with plastic strips of red,
Such cooling clatter soothes, protects, takes pity
On those who enter seeking to be fed.
*
And I have found a Roman dog to walk with,
Her name is Blanca, gentle, fine and wise,
She pulls, insists, I tug, resist, she balks with
Urgent need. I bend and stroke then rise.
*
We walk on sharply, heading who knows where,
She leads me in the heat along her street,
She noses through the plastic and we’re there,
‘Ciao Blanca’, says the butcher, tossing meat.
BY THE SECRET POET
The Birthday Lunch February 2016
Inspired by the Secret Artist’s picture of L’Absinthe
I see her now in my mind’s eye,
Half-risen, smiling, head held high,
Her eyes still shining, life still there,
We gathered her and held her near.
*
I see the toast, the champagne cork,
The Bistro lunch, the cake, my fork,
But I can’t hear her anymore,
The picture’s slow, it moves before
*
I know it, and that birthday’s gone
With all the others, your sweet song.
BY THE SECRET POET
More Secret Poetry to come!
Find out more about the Secret Artist here:
http://iloveprimrosehill.com/2016/01/27/the-secret-artist/
© 2016 iLovePrimroseHill, all rights reserved.