Beauty
If you put on the turquoise leather shoes
you can see through the round window
onto a coastal path, the smell of pineapple
coming off the sea. You will not remember
the woman on your allotment, counting your
raspberries. She is no more real than
a snapdragon’s bite in the walls of all those
suburban gardens. What you need to remember
is the softness of your dog’s ears, the trumpet
that will sound when he travels to a place
where he can run.
Suzanne Batty
Beauty
Tangerines and Christmas trees
the willow swaying in the breeze
Bacon butty – taste so good
reminds me of my mums rag pud
My reggae music thumping out
makes me want to dance about
Lots of sloppy kisses and cuddles galore
youth dew perfume give me more
fresh cooked bread, new mown grass
talcum powder for the babies ass
Sunshine and ocean, that’s my aim
to have a holiday in Spain
Christmas morning kids, their eyes aglow
and outside my window, it’s started to snow
All this is beauty – from deep within me
these things that are special, as special as can be
Janet Watson
Beauty
Caught light streams and shafts
Falling against your gentle touch
She asked about the closeness of hot buttered rolls
on a Sunday morning
and the pearls around her neck glistened with
sentiment and memory
Scratching soft graphite on paper
Melded with charcoal dust
I drew her affection
As she knelt in patience, acceptance
A slice of a moment, a whisper
A clutch of a hand, fingertips curled
Into safety
Not wavering, in passing
Her long fingers a voice
A gravel rough salve
Tastes of unspoken reassurance
This nonsense of texture
Freeform
Painting a trust
Standing still in her scent
It drifts through hot summer rain
Each moment comes to her
Captive, a notion
Caught behind the click of a shutter.
Lucy Whiteley
Beauty (Drifiting Summer on Air)
The smell of round green apples drifting on summer air
Sour, sharp, crisp acid on the tongue tickles the memory,
Of suny summer days spent on pennine picnics
The smell of peaty earth that melds with prickly heather
Burgeoning purple in the haze rolling across scarred moors.
Stopped at gritstone boarders or by cascading cool water
Which falls bubbling into peaty pools smelling faintly of decay.
Sheep bleating, perched on seemingly impossible ledges,
Sing in baaing monotones.
Whilst busy buzzing bees and rustling grey green grass,
Softly sing a gentle descant.
High above a red kite hovering on thermals
Scouting for prey with its pinprick precision;
And the black bent backed pines like old men
Trudge up the rocks barely clinging poor rock soil
Adding their pungent notes to the air
Down to the valley run the green hills a rolling floral blanket
Down to the heat hazed distant city and its claustrophobic streets.
Andy Brookes
Beauty
It stood alone in the field
so graceful and serene
a shining coat and flashing eyes
as if it were a dream
I walked ahead and dared to stop
before this creature tall
I wonder if I sit on him
would he cause me to fall
my hand held out to tempt him
maybe we could be friends
and gallop into the sunset
where dreams will never end
just me and him together
my lovely faithful horse
I love my pretty daydreams
they’re only that of course.
Janet Watson
