Margaret Clayton's Art

Print by: John Ambury

Interlock

Join with me my brothers,

and we shall build a world

in which we can all live in peace.

Reach out from South America,

from Europe,

from Africa,

from North America.

Reach in with us hand in hand,

allied as one providing a strength

that only unity can deliver.

With a single disposition of mind

let us lock together

and battle those emissaries of racism, hatred, injustice

in whatever corner we may find them.

Help us to share, teach and love

spreading the word,

sowing the seeds of tolerance and acceptance

that all mankind should know

we are all the same inside

no matter where we begin.

We can overcome those old attitudes that keep mankind down,

the oppression of the soul in so many courts,

but we need to do it as one,

linking hearts and hands,

succeeding together.

© George Arnold                                                                 May 11^th, 2012.

Image by Margret Clayton

Are We Alone?

Hellooooooooooo…………………….

Hello….?

Are you out there?

Can you see us,

here on our little blue orb,

tiny speck in an immense cosmos?

We are sure you have been here before

the annals of faith record our allegiance

if not agreeing on your person

So many peoples,

over so diverse an area,

for seemingly all our history

have chronicled the stories of the gods.

We have awaited your return

in various forms

for so, so long,

We have built temples and pyramids to your glory,

left signs and symbols only you would understand

on such a scale as to be useless for any purpose of our own.

Did you come long ago

with a promise of return

our fear and adoration in tow?

Why have you not come back to us?

Are we so ultimately unworthy as to merit your interest

or have the mighty gods fallen, unable to return?

Are we alone?

© George Arnold                                                 May 11^th, 2012.

CURVES, BLUE

 

I watch you as you sleep

relaxed and oblivious

the arrangement of your naked curves

unplanned and guileless

profiled in the stark blue moonlight

reflected in the mirror, repeated in the shadows.

Epitome of nature’s design

template for abstract steel sculptures

inspiration to millions of artists

            from cave painters to Rubens to Picasso.

 

I watch you as you sleep

remembering the feelings we couldn’t escape

the phrases that turned back on each other

like twisted Möbius strips

fascinating, surreal, and endless.

Recurring patterns: he said, she said

you meant -- no I didn’t

but you said -- yes, but -- no, but

I love you -- I know, but …

reiterations of a cursive motif

            with no resolution.

 

I watch you as you sleep

remembering how we got here,

coming from such different places

the heedless urgency of our passion

the eager but incremental growth of trust

the cautiously spontaneous process

            of gradually curving together into a couple.

 

And I watch you as you sleep

            trying to understand how we got here

                        with pieces broken off and fingers burned.

 

I watch you as you sleep

I know your every curve and line

but I wonder if I ever knew you

and I wonder if you ever knew me

and I wonder

            if this will be our last night together.

  © John Ambury, 2012. All rights reserved.

SCENE WITH BIRCHES

 

Tom Thomson was here

moving alone through these woods

rucksack on his back

images forming behind his eyes

seeing this the way he or Harris or Varley did

not the way you and I do.

 

Tom Thomson was here

stepping back for perspective

seeking the one vantage point

from which he could see the composition

in his abstract mind

Ansel Adams said it’s all about knowing where to stand:

where to place the tripod, or the easel.

 

Tom Thomson was here

he sat quietly on his canvas stool

sorting tubes and brushes and knives.

He closed his eyes for darkness

then opened them for light

to see the vision fresh

new-made in front of him

needing only his inner sight

and his guided hand

to make it appear on the board

interpreted.

 

Tom Thomson was here

spending the day alone

letting the shadows drift

making the birches live

with sure, unhurried strokes

portraying the scene

as no one had ever seen it before.

 

Tom Thomson was here

alone.

 

A few days later

his body was found in Canoe Lake.

 

 

                                                     © John Ambury, 2012. All rights reserved.

                                                                       (Image © Derik Hawley, 2012.)

Daybreak Be Gone

Be gone and let me be, oh obdurate morning
‘Tis an unwelcome and unasked invasion of my privacy
For here am I, lost in mysterious musing
of what is, and was, and what may yet come to be.

Your glaring, blaring, beacon is tearing.
Its uncaring, tumultuous, slashes through venetian apertures
Leave lacerations in the ebon body of deepest contemplation
rupturing ruminations with unbidden coercion

I wish only to be alone, without distraction
Left, to my precarious darkness of mind, and mood, and thought
where ideographic thoughts intertwine
unrepentant and unsolvable in their murky complexity

I have no desire to cross that bridge to daylight musings
To become the jilted paramour in an elopement of my reflections
Abandon us then, my conjecture and I, to our rayless bliss
Come not, and grant us furlough to tarry in our nocturnal embrace.

Be gone, be gone and let us be.

©George Arnold                                March7th, 2012

My Heart to Yours

Come to me, love,

and we will seek that place

where only truest lovers can be found.

We will make that mysterious elopement together

beyond the distraction,

beyond the voices and the teeming of life.

Let us love each other in obdurate oblivion of the world,

holding only each other’s hearts and souls,

to the exclusion of all else.

Hiding in our privacy,

let our fingertips intertwine,

the joy of our passion becoming a bridge,

from my heart to yours,

from your soul to mine.

Let the heat of our love

be as steam in the midnight,

filling and penetrating the most precarious apertures,

that the morning light may find us

surely united,

indivisibly as one,

and forever true.

© George Arnold

Seeking the Bridge

The mind whirls,
perched on the edge of precarious thought.

With obdurate intent I probe psychic apertures,
archly insisting on cogent arrival
at the morning of realization,

That tenuous point
from which synapses intertwine,
forming a mysterious connection.

Relentless pursuit rules
A harsh and tyrannical dictator.

Mental distraction be damned!
I must realize that vantage,
that vicarious elopement
by which to bridge emotion and belief
privacy exposed no obstacle in dogging that elusive spoor.

For it is there, and only there,
that I can find the path to expression.

I know it exists if only because self delusion says it must,
hiding between the cinder piles of dogma and fancy,
caustic pitfalls to be avoided in the pursuance of clarity.

The path to enlightenment and enlightening is here, But where?

©George Arnold                                February 26^th, 2012.

DISNEY LIED

 

Reality check:

no kiss awakes the dead, ever

there is no talking cricket

no flying elephant

no metamorphing pumpkin

no Beast made princely

no wicked witch thwarted

no dragon slain.

 

Wish upon a star? see where that gets you

Santa Claus? ask that ghetto kid

Easter Bunny? a predator

Tooth Fairy? a night prowler

Tinkerbell? a glint of illusion.

 

Yes:

The magic wand is a powerless piece of stick

magic ring a bit of metal

magic cape a length of fabric

magic elixir a fool’s quaff

magic spell a silly saying.

 

El Dorado is a leaden slag-heap

Fountain of Youth a stinking sewer

Bluebird of Happiness a carrion crow.

 

There is no Arizona

no gold at the end of the rainbow

no Shangri-la

no Paradise.

 

We live in vain, die in despair.

 

            And yet we hope --

            always, we hope.

 

                                                             © John Ambury, 2011. All rights reserved.