J. M. W. TURNER (1755-1851)

 

The quiet canals

And sunbathed ruins

Of his stately classical style

Melt into the later whirl

Of colour and instinct

                                                 That will become

The new world

Of Impressionism;

The indistinct now his forte.

 And he is away:

His vision going where it will

Without constraint.

Ships with skulls for hulls

Pulled into the harbour

For the last time;

A steam train in the rain;

Blizzards and blazes;

Mist and hazes;

Eruptions, fog and typhoon;

Waves and wrecks and cloudwrack

And human figures - though faint -

Almost lost

Amidst the torrential blur.

 Black sails in the sunset;

Golden days before they end;

                                        A brilliant yellow zig-zag

Splashes without precedent on a lake; 

Sunset, moonrise, nightfall, daybreak:

And Turner is in his element,

In the eye of the vortex;

Spinning the weathers

In his revolution of paint.

(2015)

Three years ago when I began what has turned into this series, the artist I most wanted to write a poem about was Turner - but it simply wouldn't come. It finally arrived in the spate of poems which came out in late 2015. The picture - referred to in the final verse - is sometimes simply called Scarlet Sunset, sometimes Sunset at Rouen.