The Visit

Dead Mail

The old man at the very rear of the shop, 

Sitting behind a narrow counter on his chair,

Faint, motionless, still, with a deathly stare;

"Happy St George's Day!" said I, "Can't stop."

But that old man with those deathly eyes on me

Said nothing, and seemed to shrink where he sat.

"It's our day," said I. "England's day!" See?

But he did not see. He was not me. He was flat.

At least, was the thing on his head. His cap.
And then it struck me that, unlike the past,
Nowhere, apart from my abode, did a flag flap;
A flag of white with red cross and made to last.

I repaired to an acquaintance at another place;

Indeed, another shop. "Happy St George's Day!"

I awaited a response. No flicker on his dull face.

Out of his mouth came: "Yes, it is, so they say."

But no desire to bestow on me a similar greeting.

I wrote to some old friends via the internet,

Like Laura, Linda, Laurie; expecting a meeting

Of minds to reciprocate. But they did not. Yet

 I thought Arthur might offer a St George greeting;

Until I realised, like the old man in the chair,

He was not alive to this day, this day so fleeting.

Those who continue to carry the banner are rare!

Farewell Farrant

Adieu England

Another year ends in a century I do not recognise where even the living are more dead than the dead. My solace is the old footage from half a century and more (and only slightly less) ago. In these fading images where a scintilla of civilisation is still sensed about our blessed Isle, where a feeling a familial identity remains strong, where faith and nation actually counts, in a past where I discover my beautiful England — now lost amid the cacophony of treacherous political parasites and whining degenerates chiming in unison like some grotesque chorus of demented baboons on strong hallucinogenic drugs. 

Yet if I did not have that past where the dead are less ghosts than those now living, I would have nothing to remind me of how much better it was then. What I see around me mocks that distant time, and I despair of what has replaced it in the here and now. Things can change, I know, but such change would have to be monolithic and unflinching in its resolve. Like the phoenix, my England might return, as its death throes quicken in its twenty-first century flames, and I would be the first to welcome its restoration, nay its resurrection. For I would dearly love to have that mono-cultural Christian England back, and with it all that made this land and people so unique, wondrous and great.

Though, sadly, I fear, like the departing year itself, we have become little more than a memory —  just the stuff that dreams are made of — England itself a buried thing of legend — our lives rounded, like King Arthur, by a sleep. Fare thee well, enchanted England. If for ever, still for ever — fare thee well!

Oh yes, and adieu 2018.

The Forgotten Portrait

They came as Christmas approached and, being artistically inclined, some found various pictures and portraits to admire in and around the gallery and dwelling wherein it is situated on the ground floor. 

Yet one portrait in oils eluded them. Perhaps the most important of those I have painted this year. They saw it not even though it is a sizeable canvas situated close to one of the large Christmas trees.

Below is the oil painting that sadly nobody saw or indeed sought. I now call it The Forgotten Portrait.