Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Erosion




I remember my grandfather
reading his sun-paled
Psalter, his arthritic fingers
pitted with coal-dust and age, the first bloom of cancer
sweeter than new-mown hay
through the lingering smell
of whiskey
and Oxydol

 John Burnside, from Erosion, published in the London Review of Books

Three orange Francis Bacon paintings (Tate Gallery) described here.