Facets of Flint

Facets Flint of

Keith Wallis

contents

1.

angel child

2. he only haunts in daylight.

3. rainbow arching (haiku) 4. turtle emerges 5. the waving sea 6. leaping in the cathedral 7. the bat 8. angle fish

Š

Keith Wallis August 2012

1.

angel child

Flint angel, child with wings unfurled, sits amid shardy chaos gazing away from darkness.

Bright light shining gloss echoes in the daze of sunfall and its singing rays, a melody of sharp reflection.

2.

he only haunts in daylight.

Mid-day shadow reveals a ghostly monk within the wall.

He only haunts in daylight.

The flint sings its un-plain song as the ghost slowly moves with the passing of the sun.

As dusk falls he goes to rest in the homogenising dark.

3.

rainbow arching (haiku)

Describing the arc, an oily meniscus edge.

A rainbow arching.

4.

turtle emerges

From the stony beach new life emerges, flinty egg abandoned.

What taste has fresh air ?

What strange manoeuvres can new limbs perform ?

What safety is left behind ?

5.

the waving sea

The waving sea, tightly crested, frozen in flint thirsts to move on, held in stony abeyance.

Careless touch this sharp relief and blood will flow bringing salty tears in a sea of crying.

6.

leaping in the cathedral

Look hard; Unseen by passing tourists in their admiration of grandeur, a pale horse leaps from stony eternity its hornèd rider urging it on.

Unseen by passing tourists parading through the cathedral unheard prayers wait in queue at the bank of faith.

Unseen by passing tourists, candles splutter in their passing warning a revelation of horsemen.

7.

the bat

This bat keeps sentry watch in daylight’s forbidding brightness.

Come the release of night with no eyes to witness will you whisper evensong too high for human ears.

8.

angle fish

In earshot of the port, a push-me pull-you angle fish, within an obtuse mortar sea, opens its mouths.

The silver sliver scale catches the light its only food on this July day.

The photos were taken in July 2012 and are mostly of a wall alongside the refectory of Norwich cathedral where the flints are ignored by those who, with their minds preoccupied, follow the signs to the toilets. The others, #6 & #8 were taken in the yard of a ‘row house’ in Great Yarmouth.

Whether the reader will see the same images within all of these flint facets is unlikely.

Author’s note: I took the liberty of poetic licence to transport #6 to the cathedral.