He walked alone

He walked alone

A sentimental journey if you like

Not a favourite place

But it had a poignancy

He and she had discovered Dickens’ house

On a clifftop

Overlooking a steel grey sea

Serendipitously whilst looking for a restaurant

They took a photograph

Raised a glass to the great man

In the pub next door

Conveniently located

What a place to be unhappy

With a wife no longer loved

If she ever was

Dickens was a loyal

But resentful husband

A reluctant father

With far greater expectations

Than to be a country squire.

Around the bay, Turner sat and painted fiery skies

They say he was tied to a mast

On a steamboat off the Harwich coast

Observing the change of weather

The prospect of a wicked sky.

As he walked he wondered

What was ever true

But it made a colourful story

For the curator

Whilst gazing at the Temeraire

In the National Gallery

Imagining the artist in a boat

With an easel propped up in the prow

Capturing the essence

Of a setting sun or was it rising

After all,

Turner was an East coast man,

A London boy

Always fighting for his life

Alongside the gentlemen

Who would-be painters.

Together they discovered the Turner Gallery

In Margate the highlight of their trip

A Grayson Perry exhibition

Pretentiously outdated

It is amazing how the privileged

Cavort themselves

For artistic effect

But the pots were very good.

He remembered how she had learned

To throw clay on a potters wheel

And was reminded of an interlude

Between programmes on the television

When he was a boy

Now,

They would have a whole damned channel

Dedicated to wallpaper music

Roaring fires, or sunflowers

The sand was soft underfoot

The tide would soon be turning

He glanced back across the bay

And just for a moment

Thought he saw her waving

Through a crowd of tourists

Eating chips from recyclable cartons

Dodging seagulls

Out to kill

But when he turned to look again

She was never there.