Stuart Miller-Osborne

Fluted columns of bygone hopes are bathed in the light of the dying year All trains are migrating south leaving only the irregular pilgrims to shelter in their sacred formation In the poverty of the starlight only the wretched will celebrate its geography   1989  

She sat on the veranda of a white house not far from the sea. The house had been built some eighty years previously. Its decorative ironwork was showing signs of age. The years of heat and humidity had taken their toll and streaks of rust had started to mar the initial celebration. On the table […]

From the light years of my journey I will send you gifts Wrapped in blue paper You will not receive them As blue is not a reflective colour   From the depths of this space I will send you my frag songs Wrapped in blue paper You will not receive them Due to the density […]

I found him ill and in apparent decay His fingers feeble still touched her silent strings

With dignity he lay in the hell of another man’s war His head rested, stooped in his pewter green helmet As the battle grasses were shaken by her shallow breath He felt the ghost of her kiss on his bloodied brow   From the painting of the same name by G F Watts

Eternal Peace      (Issak Ilich Levitan) In the shadow of the church The peacock hides its full display Girl With Peaches      (Valentin Aleksandrovich Serov) She will not consume the fruit As its conversation will never cease The Rooks Have Returned      (Aleksei Kondratievich Savrasov) And await the summer birds The Reservoir      (Viktor Borisov-Musatov) Let us drink from […]

Viola (View from my Schoolroom) I could see the White Horse and the tall chimney of the cement works from my schoolroom Viola could not see these landmarks as she lived in Rhodesia Viola (Fireworks over Stonehenge) As the fireworks broke the mottled night sky Viola spoke to the moon telling it not to be […]

I Started At Dawn With Caution I Did Not Call You As There Were Many Pogroms in Phoneboxes On My Journey To Afrika I Met Cosmic Fairies In Isolation As I Passed Their Pink Mountains A Monk Stopped Me Giving Directions To The Closed Monastery Where The Cabbage Rose Grew Fragile And Unfinished

The gate by render of three steps led down to the river I did not bathe that day as I had done previously The peace had halted my activity I sat on the slender steps and awaited the ferry Which never arrived I applied for alms at my lodgings Nothing was received My host eventually […]

In this church space I see your leaves Casually spread But engraved Into the grass   I mistake your mosses For luxury cloths And hand them to the scavengers In this lower yard