Three Poems

Looking at Lucy's Painting of the Thames at Low Tide Without Lucy Present

Water is terribly difficult to paint -
and to drink, also, don't you find? - it's terribly difficult
to drink water. In winter in particular.
Lucy says we must drink eight glasses a day,
but the truth is I can't abide it.

Lucy's face looks terribly bruised, do you find?
Especially under artificial light.
Is everything all right with Lucy, do you think?
She seems quite abstracted, most of the time -

and artists will insist on painting water,
despite its obvious difficulty
and, above all, its secrecy
(they say the marine world is notoriously 'close-knit').

I detest it, of course - the work.
I simply can't stand the academic realism of the whole endeavour.
...