SUNSHINE AND SCHIELE

It’s a beautiful spring day here in sunny Whitstable, Kent.  Since I had a sports-related foot operation three days ago, I appreciate the sunlight shining through my window even more than I did before going into hospital.

I'm desperate to get back to work on my new book which is mostly set in Vienna where I lived for a year. After returning there earlier this year in April, I found it as magical as I did when I lived there. I miss it, in spite of the extreme cold in the winter and intense heat in the summer. I’m sure that many of you are used to far hotter and colder temperatures than I am, but I feel I’m melting if the temperature climbs above 28 Celsius.

Here is one of the poems I wrote when I was living there.  I find Schiele’s paintings disturbing, but they really make you think.

EGON SCHIELE’S SELF PORTRAIT

Behind your thoughts and feeling, my brother stands a mighty master, an unknown sage. His name is Self.’    Nietzsche.

The image in the mirror is not you,

but all the people inside you. Your portraits

are a quest to find out how many you are:

 Christ, Clown, Hero, Victim?

 

Narcissus in Vienna without a flower,

you exhibit yourself to the future in

distorted mirrors: electrified hair and

grotesque features drag Dorian into your life.

Not for you the cover of Klimt’s ornateness,

but exposure in all its flawed forms.

You monochrome your background

with energetic brush strokes, then place

your nude body on top; angled for attention;

coloured with movement:

creating a world in your own image.