IAN SCOTT MASSIE: PAINTER AND PRINTMAKER
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Poetry: People

Poetry about People by Ian Scott Massie

Waterfalls

Its is only when I am afar and alone
My three loves,
That I see you clearly.
Glittering,
Poured like wine over silver,
You are my roses and my rain.
Hard on the ice-bound edge of the year
Or drowsy in folds of a summer meadow,
I sleep with your dreams running sweet through my song
And know you,
In truth,
As the only gold.
I am always in awe of your matchless light,
But ever I aim where my strength will not follow,
So I am Icarus and you are the sun
And I die for your joy and am glad in my sorrow.

The Visitor

He walks slowly
Treading the monastic track delicately
As if he were en route for Marks and Sparks
By way of Woolies.
He doesn’t catch the scent of pines in the evening light
Or the depth of green in bracken
On the threshold of August.
He sees the discarded wrapper
And vents his middle-English spleen
On the despoilers of the land.
He sees the spent cartridge
And unrolls his wrath for the
Nouveau riche
Flash bastards.
He is a sad man and I am sad to be with him
In his bigoted, blighted bubble.
Pointless though it may be to point him at beauty
I cannot help myself,
But he can only see what he believes,
And he believes blindly.

Grockles

Crisp cloudflakes brittle and horsetail the sky.
Ewes are clenchnailed to the greenscape and understudded by lambs.
Curlews carve sickles of song in the ethereal cup of light.
Blubbering thighs, dimpled as tripe
Carry the sagging belly of the city
Across the gaunt boned fells,
Flapping map cases and dribbling melted vanilla children in their wake.
Such tides of fevered longing have I seen
Ebbing and flowing
In what they call their eyes
That you would fear to know
What is passing through
What they call their minds.
But time is merciful
And, like mayflies,
Their passing is swift and complete.
As the bankholiday sundaymonday sunshine fades,
So they to the steaming pits and towers of mammon

Pass away.

The First of the Last Days

Moving from darkness to light
From North to South
From love to love.
As the morning comes so the light comes
Shifting the eastern skyline from imagination to reality.

Smudged finger painted towns grow and fade
Beyond the time smeared glass.
Northern orange street lights turn
Pale Midland rail towns turn
Blue London slate.

In the morning river flowing underground
I am looking out of eyes
A thousand years old
At the journey everybody makes sometime.

Through steel cathedrals and grey washed warehouses
Through monoxide rattling skies and the insistent pull of memory
Through birdsong heard above the white noise of conversation
To brutal concrete muted corridors and a last breaking through of tears.
I have not arrived too late
But I  will wish forever that I had arrived earlier.

Leaving

I keep wondering if this is goodbye.
Not a real farewell but
A shrugging off of one life
And a putting on of the stiff fabric of the new.
Are you leaving for a while or forever?
Can I lay down my memories like wine
And take up the tools of my old age now?
Or will you be back for one triumphanty blast
Before the mooring ropes are slipped.
What do I hope for
Except to hope for the best?


Sometimes I Talk To You

Sometimes I talk to you.
Sometimes I hear you.
But I miss you so much when I have news to tell.
Who is there now to hear
What only you are waiting for?

If I Close My Eyes

If I close my eyes you’re so close
That I can touch your within from without.
If I close my eyes this fable fades away.
I know the truth without the need of proof,
And I can feel you
Together.

In The Gardens

Wood pigeons hoot in harmony
In pasadoble time
Waiting for the rain.

Flower stalks and cedar,
Flagstones and shadows,
Buff tailed bumblebees
And lavender.
She dips her hand to the herbs
And lifts it,
Smelling something wonderful.

Pictures of New Year Day

Blue pink sky, high pale moon.
Grey muttering ducks in ochre rattling reeds
Spatter the slow brown burgling river.
Ice crusted grass splintered under boots,
Beside fossil bike tracks chiselled in stone hard mud.

All sounds pin sharp, razor thin,
All words newly minted,
Smoky breathed in the shiny year.
Gallons of last year’s rain glaze the field edge,
Puzzling sheep gazing to grass ungrazed

Through rough rippled windows.
Two children happy as Bruegels
Surfing ice panes on the solid pond.
And you holding my hand
In the cold bright arctic sun.

For No-One

I have never done my best for no-one.
There’s always someone for whom I sing my song.
And as I stand alone I sing for no-one
Knowing that someone will one day know.


Ian scott massie


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  • Home
  • Art
    • Paintings and Prints
  • Commissions
  • Exhibitions
  • Contact
    • Contact
    • Where you can find me
    • Previous Exhibitions
    • Biography
  • Books etc.
  • Courses
  • Art Tuition
  • Blog
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  • Dreams in Stone