Michael Henry
From a Different Palette
They want a Charley’s Aunt of a painting
that runs and still goes on running
where sheep bivouac in the gorse
and sing round the campfire at night
where cattle tramp their hooves on the common
and cowpats buzz with sultana-brown horse-flies
where bees pinball through vetch,
speedwell and celandine
where colours go quiet in the coulisses
They want California poppies
that wear phallic gnome’s caps before they unbud
They want red and white geraniums
that turn blowsy as old ladies’ bathing caps
They want a painting that changes its linen every day
Forget my something-else of a painting
where I dip my brush in a cowpat and just paint.
Michael Henry studied Modern Languages. He lives in Cheltenham and has published five collections, four with Enitharmon Press, the latest, After the Dancing Dogs, came out in 2008.
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