home> poets> Geraldine Paine

about Geraldine Paine       more poems           Members’ Events Listing       Shop Online

last update:

15th Nov18

Geraldine Paine photo
e-mail Geraldine

 

poetry favourites:
Poetry Library
Poetry School
Poetry Society
British Library

 

and in the shop…
collections –
“Disappearing Tracks”,
 
“The Beginnings of Trees”
 
and
 
“The Go-Away-Bird”
Lapwing Publications

 

 

 

With the Artists’ Rifles

     Vieux Berquin 1918
 
He tried to crumble the earth but it stuck to his fingers.
Clay, he thought, needs compost, fine peat mixed with …
he didn’t want to think of blood and bone
as he bent to clear the stones, the few blades of grass,
the bits of metal casings, ready to sow the seeds.
Packets of larkspur, sweet peas, she’d sent him
 
He could hear the rats feed, their little teeth
gnawing; had seen men fall to pieces, young men
who wrote and painted, their canvases unprimed,
their notebooks open, only the rain to mark their place.
He took a single seed, then another, planted sweet peas
against the wire, scattered larkspur where he knelt.
He wanted the colour to survive. Afterwards
they said, it had occupied his mind.
 
 
The ‘Artists’ Rifles’ Regiment then was composed of painters, sculptors,
musicians, architects, actors and members of other artistic occupations.

 

Geraldine Paine

longlisted and published in The Canterbury Poet of the Year competition anthology, 2017