Brian Louis Pearce

Poet and Novelist

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Poetry

Storm on Primrose*

For Francis Bacon

On Primrose Hill,a stormy
light catches you, the last past
master of broken marks; plast-
ers you against the downcast
black mass of ground and a sky

scarcely lighter. The thin mast
of post, put there by Brandt no
doubt, is even darker. So
strange is it then to see glow
from its lamp-glass and your blast-

blitz of a face wired for light
even in Dis, let alone
age. Alive to the blood-bone
of grief, what chaw did you own
here but obsession; insight

into the mess of things, see-
ing nothing to follow, yet
in your cups, in the dawn wet
cellar, howling despair, let-
ting love intervene, like three

figures on a hill even.
When you could see no rainbow,
pillar or night-light, or know
the bread and wine's word, you'd go
out and find love even then.

*Francis Bacon on Primrose Hill, photograph by Bill Brandt.
The Proper Fuss, University of Salzburg (UK distribution Drake: Baileys)

© Brian Louis Pearce

This page last revised 29 October 2000