PGallagher69 – Stan and Bette Solomons

(Juvenal Satire I.4)
I

L’amour est mort entre tes bras
Te souviens-tu de sa rencontre
Il est mort tu la referas
Il s’en vient à ta rencontre

Encore un printemps de passé
Je songe à ce qu’il eût de tendre
Adieu saison qui finissez
Vous nous reviendrez aussi tendre

II

O ma jeunesse abandonnée
Comme une guirlande fanée
Voici que s’en vient la saison
Et des dédains et du soupçon

Le paysage est fait de toiles
Il coule un faux fleuve de sang
Et sous l’arbre fleuri d’étoiles
Un clown est l’unique passant

Un froid rayon poudroie et joue
Sur les décors et sur ta joue
Un coup de revolver un cri
Dans l’ombre un portrait a souri

La vitre du cadre est brisée
Un air qu’on ne peut définir
Hésite entre son et pensée
Entre avenir et souvenir

O ma jeunesse abandonnée
Comme une guirlande fanée
Voici que s’en vient la saison
Des regrets et de la raison

(Juvenal Satire I.4)
I

Love died within your arms
Remember how it came?
Love died, but you will meet
Again a love as sweet.

Another Spring has passed
And all its tenderness
Farewell to season past
It will come back to us.

II

O youth abandoned
And like a faded garland
Here comes the dire season
Of scorn and treason

Stylised the scenery
A stream of blood flows down.
Beneath the starry canopy
Of blossom slips the clown.

The cold light plays and powders down
Upon your cheek and all around
A pistol shot a cry
And in the dark a smiling portrait

Its glass long gone
Hovers a melody
Twixt thought and sound
Future and memory.

Young years abandoned
Like faded garlands
here comes the season
Of regrets and reason.

Roses

The yellow roses greet the dawn
honey, butter, clotted-cream.
Bright and optimistic
the Ruby rose looks down.
High noon, the golden roses fade.
The Piccadilly petals blush,
beguiled by Belles Courtisanes,
flaunting their bold and shocking pink.
The Ruby winks her eye.
In the drowsy afternoon
Fragrant Cloud in crimson glory
exhales its heady scent.
The Ruby rose is confident
wreathed in her subtle perfume.
Twilight, and all colours fade.
The shy white Damask rose appears
Luminescent in the dusk.
And the Ruby sleeps.

Rose

Magnolia

In Paintings by Bette Solomons

Food for Thought

Soft spring air of early morning
invites escape, conjures up thought.
Though Acre Lane is rough and stony,
hedgerows flourish on either side.

Hawthorn berries reddening,
elder flowers, frilly white.
Blazing leaves of pink herb-robert
fold broken bricks within their grasp.

Sapphire speedwells peeping through
and pimpernels with starry petals.
Flying flowers, peacock blue,
lay their eggs upon the nettle.

Rampant goose-grass clings and smothers.
Bindweed flowers explode in joy
as virile stems curl widdershins
and trap their unsuspecting prey.

Nature raw in leaf and stem.
Food for thought on such a day.

Tree

Trees and lane

In Paintings by Bette Solomons

The Kingfisher

Down to the Stonebow
to look for the kingfisher.
He was there two seasons ago

Past the cleft oak
lightning-struck black,
meagre shoots on fragile twigs.
Painters delight in its form.

On to the bridge,
its beaten-earth track,
the grass, the stone and the moss.
Never again will packhorses pass.

In the Plantation the brook is deep
with green-brown reflections
of ivy-clad trees stretching for light
and calm water flowing.

Two years ago
the brook was poisoned.
Mallards and swans disappeared.
We haven’t seen the Kingfisher since!

Now the Blackbrook’s clean,
and ready for fishing.
Minnows and sticklebacks
swim by in shoals.

Even as I gaze –

Swift – into the brook,
flash of cobalt,
chestnut orange,
Dagger beak leading.

He returns to his bough,
knocks out the fish,
and swallows it whole
– headfirst!

Stonebow Bridge, Loughborough

In Paintings by Bette Solomons

Pearls