Big boats in small harbours

Alfred Wallis the famous painter was born in 1855
Went to sea in a Devonport schooner as a boy aged only nine

When 20 he married an older widow and moved to St Ives
They had and lost 2 children and he loved her till she died

Sad and lonely at 70, he started painting for company
Using half empty tins of boat paint he captured the mood of the sea

Big boats in small harbours the perspective is rather strange
But the sails and ropes and boat parts are accurately portrayed

Sold his pictures wrapped in newsprint for shillings while alive
It was Wallis who started a trend for artists to move to St Ives

Now his pictures are really trendy and are exhibited in the Tate
They’ve put “Alfred Wallis Artist and Mariner “in tiles on his grave

Haiku poem

The storm felled trees in
Ninteen eighty seven, now
wood turners make bowls

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=178023
Seamus Heaney's Glanmore Sonnets - VII about the shipping forecast is particularly good.

Haiku poems

Greensand ridge, tall trees
Straight trunks, high branches, pine smell
Sun beams strike the ground

More fibs

Boys
Walk
To school
But today
Big load so drove them.
Selfish drivers, bad parking, grrr!
.............................................................

Inspired by teaching sport to 9 year olds:
“Its
naff.
Don’t want
to join in.”
“Here, shall I show you?”
“Cool, can I do it again now?”

Fib poems

Dull
Green
Hairy
Ovoid shaped
Cut in half its art
What is it? It’s a Kiwi fruit
..............................................

Marsh
Reeds
Reeds' seeds
Insects eat reed seeds
Rare birds eat insects: Twitchers watch
.............................................

High
Dry
Tibet
All the rain -
India’s monsoon:
The Himalayas are a pain

Runners in the sun

Apart from the distant clatter of a train, the only sound is the breeze in the trees and my running footsteps. I’ve left behind the muted light and pleasant musty smell of the woodland track and, as I leap down from the stile into the open field, I’m startled by intense light as if emerging from a cinema in mid-afternoon. Out in the sun, I see a tall, lean runner keeping pace with me. She’s wearing exactly the same clothes but I’m envious of how tall and lean she looks stretched out on the ground in front of me.