Pete Spence


No Picnic!

Everybody has got something to
hide except me and my lobster

everyone seems to be eager for lunch
but it hasn't arrived yet and there's
no sign of its approach even the clouds
seem weak with hunger the empty
plates echo off walls has the World
Catering Authority flown the coop?
Caviar Emptor! no blancmange only blank
menus! the painters lay down their brushes
and come in from the desert somewhere
a radio is playing Rock Lobster!



Scene.

almost all of the sunlight
beats down on an enormous deckchair
taking up most of the valley
dwarfing the few trees stuck fast in awe
when the river turns up they drink
an old balding rock on a hillside
is deeply amused by the scene
a crow flies through a white cloud
a pebble falls from the sky



Some Romance!

though flying seems to be off the menu
the drapes swirl wildly through the spices
the spices are merely grafted to the cook
and heed less the wind and its fondness for drapes
the drapes are in love with the cook
and the wind in a sprint of jealousy snaps a twig
that lands desperately in the soup and drowns



Painting. C.1920.

a blue violin
falls on the red horse
a building faints
into the shoulder
of a ceramic pigeon
a plea for help arrives
as the air turns mauve
over a field sown
with dessert spoons
shining like the scales
of fish in the ebb
and flow of moonlight



Peeling Franchise.
 
the ceiling was peeling the sky was peeling
a lot of blue peeling over the grasslands 
edging as a sauteed light peeling towards 
the kitchen that steams there as clouds 
tourniqueting the peeling kitchen waylaid 
between meals the relief as the peeling 
odours intrigue the air scours the air's
shadow the shadows peeling loudly as the sun
is peeling through the overgrowth peeling 
into the byways roughing up birds whose
chorus nestling among the peeling ironies

Pete Spence was born in 1946. He is a poet, visual poet, editor, and filmmaker, and has worked in various jobs to cover the ongoing deficit. A collection of his visual poetry, 5 X Y, was published last year by Red Fox Press as part of the C'est Mon Dada series.

 
 

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