Opium Sea of the Dead

Opium Sea of the Dead

"Poppy, Sir?" he said.
I moved my head
From side to side.
"They're all dead,"

I said. "And why?
Why did they have to die?
Was it for you and I?
Or was it for a lie?" 

"All in a good cause, Sir," 

He added with a look 

I recognised from the blur

Of the dying dead in a book 

I'd read a long time ago.

"But," I asked, "Did they all 

Have to go

And fall?"

This land, I thought,

Has since been sold

And bought

For fool's gold 

To those they elected

The dead to protect

Us from 

On the Somme. 

They lied, of course.

It was to disarm

Us that force

And alarm 

Manifested

To test us

Again

And again and again and again ...

He saw the image of our Queen
And with tearful eye:
"I'd go again, Ma'am. I'm no has-been.
For you your Majesty I'd go and die!"

I looked at his decomposing face
And thought you do what you will,
But I have seen an island race
Become near-extinct for that thrill.

From the darkness we turn to the sun;
To search beyond endless blood red
Poppies in the opium sea of dead
Who are for ever gone, gone, gone ...

Kandinsky

I was first introduced to Kandinsky

By a blonde female artist in London

(Whose name now escapes me)

Whose own art I frowned upon.

I would have been five months old

When Kandinsky died of a stroke

(At Neuilly-sur-Seine, I'm told)

And that is when I imagine folk

Spoke of him being the bloke

To paint abstractly on canvas

With a different kind of stroke

To that any single one of us

Had hitherto seen before.

He was the first and some say best;

So when in July I received a card

Bearing a Kandinsky it was hard

Not to like it more than the rest.

When that sender of the card came to see

Me another time, and we had a bite to eat,

I thought I would offer him a real treat

By taking him up to see my Kandinsky.

And so I did.

And that is when he raised the lid

With a comment I had not forseen:

"I don't like Kandinsky," he said.

"Can I show you my magic lantern instead?" I intervened.

Though I recall a time not that long ago

When viewing one of my artistic endeavours

He remarked: "Kandinsky at his maddest!"

I was duly flattered, so told him

His was the nicest review there had been,

But now I had to go

And paint another for the world to view

Before it ceased to flow.