A NEW PUBLICATION:
MODERN WORKS 2020 ~ 11 – POEM 9
To celebrate the launch of my NEW booklet containing 16 diverse poems and essays entitled : MODERN WORKS 2020 – I am happy to offer a signed, printed hard-copy and FREE worldwide delivery. All but one of these 16 pieces are BRAND NEW WORKS completed during 2020.
This latest collection of written verse – MODERN WORKS 2020 – comes in the usual edenbray-pamphlet A5 format and is printed professionally and beautifully in a 36 page booklet style publication with a cream-stock card cover that I have self-published to my own specifications.
I am able to offer my 2020 Annual of Verse at an opening price of just £7.00 inc. post and packing for shipping to literally anywhere in the world. So please use the PAYPAL Link below to make your purchase or you can contact us by leaving a message in the comments box at the foot of this page or please email me directly at:-stepheneede689@btinternet.com – I would sincerely appreciate hearing from you and we will make sure you get a copy of my new book/pamphlet and also keep you up to date with any developments regarding my work. – (please indicate if you would rather NOT receive emails concerning my work when you order)
PAYPAL LINK – TO ORDER YOUR COPY OF – MODERN WORKS 2020
https://paypal.me/SeedProducts?locale.x=e
Many thanks ~ edenbray
Finally, to Celebrate the launch of my NEW BOOK I am posting all 16 poems over 16 consecutive days RIGHT HERE on my edenbray-BLOG-SITE B – TODAY – the Poem – LONDON TOWN BY THE DIRTY WATER : ~
. . .
MODERN WORKS 2020
by edenbray
. . .
LONDON TOWN BY THE DIRTY WATER .. .
( LONDON TOWN BY THE PURPLE WATER )
.. .
Walked from the West End to Streatham once
we had been out on the razzle-dazzle
Lived there later, I knew London Town
it’s back streets and its souvenir trail
I drew street women in art classes at St Martins
met the tallest man in Britain
When Holborn, Longacre and Covent Garden
still showed signs of the forties war
The Garrick, Queens, Adelphi, Dominion
the theatres were old and cold and lived-in
.
Salt-beef sandwiches on rye with mustard
from the Turkish Bar in Garrick Street
Or the Sandwich-Man with spotless hands
in his tiny shop of mirrors and three bar stools
Hamleys, The Wedgewood Shop down in Regents Street
turn left at Oxford Circus, up the road
Past Selfridges and the Bond Street stores to Marble Arch
and heaven, which is Mayfair! – then left again
Down, opposite the Park, where the Bunnies hopped
next to the elegant Dorchester Hotel!
.
So many the places, so many different coloured faces
don’t forget to mention the art,
Walking over Waterloo Bridge to see the Messiah
or the Moody Blues at the Festival Hall
The buildings, museums, stadiums and stations
and the dirty river, must not forget the dirty river
The old, cold river, the colour of liver and onions
or the docks where it all started, this town
On the East-end side, north of the Tower
and Southwark, Lewisham, Greenwich
.
We were St Dunstans kids in Surrey
ferried around in a greenline bus
A bus de-commissioned for trips such as this
it soon smelled of kid’s travel-sick and piss
Then in the middle of November
in sixties mist with that drizzled rain
A trip to the Docks, its boats, warehouses, cranes
children of under-11 on a day-trip with Mr Weston
I now know what ‘the Origins of London’ meant
100 miles down from the town at Thames Head
.
edenbraytoday18.11
‘. .. London Town by the purple water .. .’
edenbray ☢︎ - a BEAT POET 
MODERN WORKS 2020 ~ 12 – THE ART MAN I
A NEW PUBLICATION:
MODERN WORKS 2020 ~ 12 – POEM 10
To celebrate the launch of my NEW booklet containing 16 diverse poems and essays entitled : MODERN WORKS 2020 – I am happy to offer a signed, printed hard-copy and FREE worldwide delivery. All but one of these 16 pieces are BRAND NEW WORKS completed during 2020.
This latest collection of written verse – MODERN WORKS 2020 – comes in the usual edenbray-pamphlet A5 format and is printed professionally and beautifully in a 36 page booklet style publication with a cream-stock card cover that I have self-published to my own specifications.
I am able to offer my 2020 Annual of Verse at an opening price of just £7.00 inc. post and packing for shipping to literally anywhere in the world. So please use the PAYPAL Link below to make your purchase or you can contact us by leaving a message in the comments box at the foot of this page or please email me directly at:-stepheneede689@btinternet.com – I would sincerely appreciate hearing from you and we will make sure you get a copy of my new book/pamphlet and also keep you up to date with any developments regarding my work. – (please indicate if you would rather NOT receive emails concerning my work when you order)
PAYPAL LINK – TO ORDER YOUR COPY OF – MODERN WORKS 2020
https://paypal.me/SeedProducts?locale.x=e
Many thanks ~ edenbray
Finally, to Celebrate the launch of my NEW BOOK I am posting all 16 poems over 16 consecutive days RIGHT HERE on my edenbray-BLOG-SITE B – TODAY – the Poem – NOLI TIMERE ~ DO NOT BE AFRAID : ~
. . .
MODERN WORKS 2020
by edenbray
. . .
THE ART MAN – I
The Picture of Jesus
A look of recognition, the sun streaming making abstract shapes on the new, suspended ceiling, a Miro!
She stepped through the door, I harboured a good feeling, a pantechnicon crashed past blocking the sun intermittently and heading south
The light in the shop flickered as though the fluorescents by the door needed a new starter, nothing like the fireworks that were to follow after
I disappeared from view into the cool, half-lit stock room where we stored piles of Beswick, Coopercraft and other gifty boxes
In the corner, stored safely in large, manilla bags, some wrapped in corrugated – the completed, framing orders waited
She seemed a fragile and inconsequential soul but for all that, obviously she loved some kind of Jesus
She had seemed damaged by religion, fragile, emotional, somewhat irrational I thought but you have to appear non-judgemental
Yet the way now that she was standing at the counter made me nervous, the expectation was tangible, though the lights had stopped their flashing
I try to put my customers at ease, you must use so much discretion, send the message in your eyes, ‘we only aim to please’
Two weeks before she had bought it in, a triangular thing knotted at the back, in texture and in colour, a monks habit, a hessian sack
‘Its a picture of our Lord’, I could tell, ‘you’ll take great care of it I hope’, I thought I heard her say – those words always make your day!
Well, what can you say? ‘Lets get down on our knees and pray?’ I mentioned it to Michael as I always thought to do
The traffic outside was noisy, light played again over the pictures on the wall – a Turner, a Gainsborough, an Utrillo, a random bag of daubs
I questioned with myself should I tell her no, just tell her where to go or try to sort it out, leave Michael to decide
Michael, he retorted she’s pulled the stitches far too tight – I’ll have to damp it, stretch it, see if it comes out all right
Michael calls on Fridays, before the weekend-trade, Saturdays always are the busy day, busy people just got paid
We unpacked her tapestry almost as the golden sun streamed through our picture window for the first time that day
And Jesus shone, the lumps had gone, the triangle square, I in awe of total transformation, a miraculous resurrection
How does it look?, her question was intense as I peeled back the sellotape and pulled her Jesus from the bag – ‘I think you will be pleased’
I’m sure the sun only shines through that window and it was hot, hell-hot, I never saw a face so changed, so anguished
Mary Magdalene, by Raphael did not paint such a joyless study, her face, by observation replaced by Dante’s view of Hades in Van Eyck’s ‘Last Judgement’
This needlepoint disciple, her chagrin broke, her face contorted, Saint Peter spoke, hot spears of tears squeezed out from her eyes
‘What has he done?’ she lamented, like my Jeremiah, a cardboard poster I kept of Rembrandt’s famous study, I considered him my buddy
I used my Jeremiah to back my daily sales graph, it hung on the store-room door, I tried to reason, ‘Honestly, our framer really could have done no more’
It was twisted, it was pulled, it had almost been de-wooled, out of shape, wouldn’t budge – the work that Michael did was splendrous, Jesus, please defend us
The customer is always right, this poor creature’s face now ashen-white, blushing in the cheeks, where a women’s tears will always make you guilty
A monochrome in grief, despite my disbelief, she tugged at my conscience as I had tugged relentlessly at her abysmal tapestry, with no joy!
‘I don’t know what to say, I’m not sure you understand, what my picture-framer has achieved is quite beyond belief’
Her attitude had changed from sad to sassy, there was definitely more behind this complicated lassie, ‘I hate it!’ she cried.
Well, here comes the great capitulation, not the famed oil of Velazquez 1635, just one more dent in my jaundiced view of humanity
Standing behind my oak and plate glass counter I offered now this little weeper to send it back or make it cheaper – she took it cheaper
The Pillars of Deceit by Michael Lang come to mind, so was the broken lady really so cast down? Could I tell my framer his work had been maligned?
And how can Jesus happy be in a cheaper casing, how can this lady sleep at night with her Jesus hanging, stretched and mounted on her wall?
edenbraytoday 18.09
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