Ragged Claws

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Folkestone, Kent, CT20

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

From TS Eliot ’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1915)

Folkestone Triennial

And a bewildered glitter of loose road;
Banks of bright growth, with single blades atop

Cornelia Parker's The Folkestone Mermaid, Folkestone, Kent, CT18

Against white sky; and wires a constant chain
That seem to draw the clouds along with them

Joe Grey's Triennial, Folkestone, Kent, CT18

(Things which one stoops against the light to see
Through the low window; shaking by at rest,

Charles Avery's The Sea Monster, The Sassoon Gallery, Folkestone Library, Folkestone, Kent, CT18

Or fierce like water as the swiftness grows);
And, seen through fences or a bridge far off,

Nathan Coley's Heaven is a Place Where Nothing Ever Happens, Tontine Street, Folkestone, Kent, CT18

Trees that in moving keep their intervals
Still one ‘twixt bar and bar; and then at times

A K Dolven's Out of Tune, Folkestone, Kent, CT18

Long reaches of green level, where one cow,

Paloma Varga Weisz's Rug People, Folkestone, Kent, CT18

Feeding among her fellows that feed on,
Lifts her slow neck, and gazes for the sound.

From Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s London To Folkestone (Half-Past One To Half-Past Five)

Langstone Rock

“It’s cold up here, and rather red,”
Sighed Spirit. “I feel faint.”
Good Opportunity then said,
“Crawl on, without complaint!

Langstone Rock, Dawlish, Devon, EX6

“This planet needs our shovels’ bite
And treadmarks in the dust
To tell if life and hematite
Pervade its arid crust.”

Langstone Rock, Dawlish, Devon, EX6

“There’s life, by all the stars above,
On Mars—it’s you and I!”
Blithe Spirit cried. “Let’s rove, my love,
And meet before we die!”

Langstone Rock, Dawlish, Devon, EX6

From John Updike’s Duet on Mars (2004)