Special Guests

Blue
hot blue
oil blue
indigo blue
that pool
is so Hockney,
it’s freezing but baby I want to swim.

*

We walk through the folly
and stop to listen
to the bees.
There’s no sign
of their smudged yellow stripes
amongst the echium
but their hum
wobbles
all the way down to the sea
and I know they’re here,
somewhere,
sweet-talking the flowers
y gwenyn misterioso.

*

We stroll through winding gardens
following fresh blue rails.
You touch the wet paint, say you weren’t sure
whether to trust the warning signs: paent gwlyb!
I know, I know, it’s hard to believe
an Italian village balancing
on the slate shoulders
of Snowdonia.

*

Pink
pastel pink
strawberry pink
sorbet pink
baby, look at the colour of those drainpipes!

*

We take turns
looking through your sunglasses
at sea water.
There are shoals of small black fish
only visible through your polarised lenses,
they swarm like flies
overwhelmingly present,
I see them! I see them
shimmying in the reeds
then suddenly
vanished
y pysgod magico.

*

A man scrubs the yellow facade
of the ice cream parlour,
pushes grit and rain along the walls
with a fat sponge.
We watch him in the distance,
his body aching for summer.

*

Orange
yolk orange
burnt orange
setting orange
the sun lowers
over the village.
It’s raining softly,

grey orange
grey orange.