Cover Vincent van Gogh as a young man Pencil and pastel sketch 2012

In January 2012 I was told by a gallery owner that portraits were not commercial and did not sell. This was very upsetting. Portraits are one of the most difficult of the technical skills for an artist to master. A line in the wrong place, a shadow over done and the likeness is lost. This little chapbook is one attempt to celebrate drawing faces.

e-PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR The right of S M SPIERS to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 & 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 All poetry works are fiction. No resemblance to any person living, or dead, is intended in the poems. The portraits are of dead people, or studies of technique, or those who are in the public domain, or who have given their permission for me to draw/paint them. I drew all the pictures, I wrote all the poems. The aim of this chapbook is to encourage others to pick up their courage and have-a-go at painting, drawing, or poetry, or whatever they have always wanted to try and never got around to doing. I make no claims for talent or ability — I just enjoy drawing. First Edition 2012

Pencil sketch with oil pastels 2012 Workshop exercise

Blue shirt with a white collar

The day we met you wore a midnight blue shirt

with a white collar and a striped silk tie.

I was captivated by your brown-velvet voice,

smooth as butter-cream, vowels melting,

baritone slow, oozing concern, sincere and caring.

I fell in to trouble deep within, in that moment

of clarity, acknowledging a need for solace.

But, looking back that was half-a-lifetime ago

when the blood stirred and blossom was on the tree.

Before the loss of an innocent.

Before rejection and declining second-best,

before weary years of non-commitment.

Before that absolute betrayal.

Before the shame of shared denial

as others intervened leaving their mark.

Without a battle, without a shout,

you and I slipped through each others’ fingers

leaving behind only a catalogue of regret

and no hope for a happy ever after.

June 2009

Pencil sketch 2012 Workshop exercise

Arreverderci Sorrento 1980

Lacrima Christi! The Tears of Christ.

A full bodied red; ripened and matured in oak

with an age of its keeping.

Red, red wine.

Deep as the reflections on a glass smooth lake,

as the setting sun turns the world to gold before

it says good-night.

Born on the slopes of Vesuvius, its latent fire

explodes on the tongue in a quick violence of sensation,

only to as quickly die exhausted and spent,

given over to weeping.

A pure expression of emotion, pulled from lava-blackened soil,

dragged through sun-burnt vines to the swelled and bursting grape.

Lacrima Christi doesn’t travel well outside The Bay of Napoli

without a spilling of its tears.

2006

Pencil sketch — quick study for oil portrait 2011

Adoption

Save the whale, adopt a tiger.

Save a child’s sight in the valley of the Niger

Adopt an orphan covered in flies

Donate three quid to change some lives.

Pay out each month, debit y’r account

Even if it’s only for a small amount

So some corrupt officials in foreign places

Can line their pockets with smiley faces.

2011

Oil sketch on canvas board - study of reduced colour scheme 2012

Vengeance

An eye for an eye, and everyone is blind.

Playground battles, sticks and stones; never mind.

Marry in haste then wonder why! Hubby soon gone!

Child bride, unwanted children left struggling on.

Faith and fervour, shouted prayers and songs of praise,

teaching who to hate: whose homes to raze.

Political parties, psychos, fools and frauds,

stealing ‘loads of wonga’ mid wild applause.

Vengeance is mine sayeth the ... WHO?

Where to start? Too much to do ...

2011

Workshop Model : Pencil and pastel sketch 2011

The tunes of Gaia

The wind is free,

waves roll in hour by hour,

water and sails turn wheels.

The sun shines down,

the earth smiles,

listening to the tunes of Gaia.

2012

Workshop model : Pencil and pastel sketch 2011

America : LA 1995

LA was a mystery.

The airport was a long way from the hotel.

Everything was a long way from everywhere.

The streets were empty.

No one walked anywhere,

it wasn’t safe to, or, so we were told.

Armed response notices banged into verges.

Security guards patrolled – swaggering.

Food parcel lorries on the freeway –

charity handouts for their poor.

Taxi drivers didn’t speak English.

Taxi drivers didn’t know where they were going.

Theme parks were truly artifice.

Museums aimed for very wealthy visitors.

Art galleries were impressive:

containing vast numbers of old masters.

Vast numbers of historic, priceless originals:

incongruous.

Being wrist stamped at zoo caused offence

to elderly Jewish traveller. He said nothing.

LA: a town where Thatcher would seem liberal

but then, what is a liberal anymore?

Mall Food Halls: Mexican food was wonderful,

loved fiery bean chilli and salsa with coriander,

but, could have bought similar at M&S.

Subway rolls ... long remembered with fondness.

2011

Pencil sketch — quick study for oil portrait 2011

A Price Too High (Carers’ Rap)

When the price demanded by love is too high,

long days - short days - years passing by,

Carers holdfast: taking up the slack,

sleeves rolled up, they’re on their jack.

Unqualified nurses’ demanded sacrifice.

‘Try more tea dear, come on be nice!’

Teetering on the edge of personal abyss,

Wailing inside, keening for what they miss.

With no let up on the morrow,

just another day of toil and sorrow.

Slogging hard from early light,

with every frustration and another fight.

Carers always die first, statistics show

worn out, defeated, always on the go.

While unburdened, the ‘cared for one’

happily lives on and on and on and on.

Not ‘Voluntary’ work! Just unpaid.

Bowed and broken: nerves shot and frayed.

Shattered, living on a different planet,

Every sacrificial hour tested to the limit.

Caring isn’t a choice, it’s not a ‘vocation’.

There’s no chance of a fat promotion,

no direct lines of communication.

No-one sane signs up for tribulation.

Without respite, without let up,

day in, day out. Over spilling cup,

losing their own life’s inner beauty,

caught on a spiral of love and duty.

Pencil and pastel sketch — study of hand anatomy 2011

Anthem of the repossessed

Captains of industry

Grasping greed

Sank the economy

Unemployed queue

Shocked and humiliated

Gasping in ignominy

Shout the homeless

Homes repossessed

Clutching few possessions

Bonus culture

Fraudsters in mansions

Redundant generation

Shake with trauma

Snaking dole queue

Human drama

Banners: loud drum bangs

‘Twas the suits

Who caused these crimes

Corruption and greed

This has all happened before

Another bloody encore

Grubby snouts

Troughs of the privileged

Bitter consequence

2010

Pencil sketch 2012

Certainty?

Idea implies thought.

Kindness implies care.

Violence implies hatred.

None of the above are necessarily true.

Ideas can be thoughtless

Kindness can be random.

Violence can be instinctive.

Some of the above might be true.

Silence implies sound

Darkness implies light.

All of the above are true?

2009

Pencil sketch — quick study for oil portrait 2011

NEW YEAR 2000

Never did like January,

cold and rain and sleet,

kids with runny noses,

dogs with dirty feet.

Looking out at the garden,

weeds in back and front,

lawns that all need cutting.

Naah, that would be a silly stunt.

Dreariness and misery

abounding all about,

not a scrap of happiness

found inside or out.

New Year! You can keep it!

Always the flipping same,

bills, with no cash to pay them,

what a ruddy awful game!

Pencil and pastel sketch: VINCENT VAN GOGH 2012

December Drowning

Through confusion now she wanders lonely,

trudges, brought low, along empty streets,

passing bright signs and well-lit houses,

where never once a friendly face peers out.

No kindly host, no golden saviour,

to be found under leaden skies, beneath bus shelters.

Continuous bombardment by cares, real and imagined,

that hammer beat with every blow.

Worries stretch in a never-ending thud

along the margins of every hour of every day.

Ten thousand queuing in a dance,

tossing: jostling in every dreamscape.

Shopping trolley, abandoned by taxi rank,

too cold to wait longer. Wanders away. Unloved.

Shouting voices inside her head leer.

Inadequate. Inadequate. Inadequate.

Oh, for the quiet bliss of solitude:

tempting, dark glass-still waters beckon.

2011

Workshop life model — pencil sketch March 2012

Ward Walking

Between birth and death what happens?

From blank canvas mewling

to a complex filed index.

Well worn. Well thumbed.

Over used. Tired. Jaded.

Overburdened. Riotous.

One voice in too numerous a setting.

Another place. Now another life!

Calmer now, and quiet

ward walking – entirely alone.

Inner peace denied. Talking out loud.

People stare, faces seem familiar.

2009

Pencil and pastel sketch 2012

Hometime

Monday to Friday

5.30 on the dot

The gate would squeak a warning,

watching from the sink by the window,

a damaged heart would sink to boots.

That florid countenance,

that angry stride,

with finger tips that accusing inspection.

Was anything out of place?

Any speck of dust visible?

Was dinner hot enough?

Was his laundry immaculate?

Were his shirts starched to perfection?

Was the TV on the news channel?

Were the children quiet?

Was . . . .?

No matter . . . something would always

fall short of the mark:

only on the victim do the marks never fall

short.

2010

Oil sketch for portrait 2012

Who today?

Merely a residue of experiences?

Is personality shaped by selective memory,

safe behind interior walls built brick by brick?

Silently screaming, are jagged injustices

seeking closure through smoke and mirrors?

Emotionally dead and buried!

Yet seeking redemption in the small places?

An amalgamation of all knowledge

events, relationships and skills acquired.

Always vanity! Always vanity!

Donning ‘rosy spectacles’ for the looking-glass

for behind the union of haunted mindscapes

reflecting confidence wanes and ebbs.

Victim or survivor? Who today?

March 2009

Pencil and pastel sketch 1st attempt — needs more work 2012

Alrewas: Their names will live forever

A circle henge of sacrifice

to six decades of conflict.

The brightest flower of youth

reduced to scratches in stone.

Portland hewn Memorial

paid for by mothers’ tears.

A damning testament to failed

diplomacy, and the futility of war.

2007

Pencil and pastel sketch 2011

A Drum: A Big Drum!

When my time is come

I want . . .

no old frauds wailing in embroidered sashes,

no medieval mumbo-jumbo,

no part-time taxi drivers picking their noses,

no gritty-fingered sandboxes,

no trolling out of superstitious belief systems

which have been long superseded

as irrelevant.

No I want a drum!

A big drum,

banging loud

to shout

this unbearable suffering is over.

Then leave me quiet

with the good earth above and below

squirrels, field mice and rabbits for company.

2008

Thank you for taking an interest in this chapbook.

If you’ve ever felt your fingers itching to pick up a pencil ... have a go ... you might surprise yourself.