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Poetry Library Southbank Centre - The Poetry Library housing the Arts Council Collection at Southbank Centre

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Peter Sansom

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Covent Garden: some

Still dazzling, being from the sticks,
the short stroll from the National Portrait
to here. Knowing next to nothing
about him, I wanted since I first saw them
to write not Leonardo or Van Gogh
but Ben Nicholson, whose paperback
works I might own for thirty quid.

A church or opera house or gallery
must be smaller than it is, seen craning up,
from what it means to people, and bigger.
I'm going somewhere to not be famous
or paid, except expenses: some of which
are coffee in a little bit of Italy,
what I've heard of it. A woman says goodbye
to her phone and redials to connect again
with somewhere else in the world. There,
two gay lads who may be actors or dancers
half my age: they smile instead of talk
because everything could happen
and some will. Knowing what you can do
and doing it are not the same thing
and really something, sometimes.
They're beautiful. It may be only part
of their talent. Knowing what is wanted
is something else and unless it coincides
with what you are, it's nothing.

His paintings aren't like photos
or most paintings and only look like life
if you look one of the same ways he did.
From hand to hand in the square
behind a ghetto-blaster buskers
throw some fire in the air. Night.
Whole shop windows are doubled
in places by rain. Doc Martens, some,
are signed in gold by celebrities
only some of whom I know who they are
and not that but what I know them for.

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