Gazing, as we do

At the beginning of this month I wrote of the bumper crop of archive poems for November. Here are the last few from the files of 2012 and 2013: A Bequest of Wonder, a poem inspired by a painted banner of Chinese silk, a Chinese artist’s portrait and two detailed Shunga prints. I do. Do you?, in which all the antics

A Bequest of Wonder

Within the confines of a silken sheet, the observers attend upon the temple. Before it returns to ash and dust, they light a votive offering. It is   in a portrait the thumbnail of the painter’s right hand   the sparse arm-hairs of a samurai beset by ghosts   the frog at the woman’s feet,