Richard Westcott's poetry

  Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Surface 1 Superficially George looked on glass. I don’t know if he saw heaven.   2 Perhaps he saw himself? But that’s another story – a different surface altogether showed a lovely face.   3 I see you on the surface. My skin is where I start and where you meet the world – a membrane keeps my inside in and all the outside out.   4 It’s just psoriasis. A profusion of the epidermal layer – excessive and exuberant skin cell reproduction if you want to put it simply. Whether it’s guttate, erythrodermic possibly pustular, even inverse the psoriatic phenomenon declares itself upon the surface   5 where Perseverance searched. And others delve, descend and dig – prospectors poke the diver dives… what lies below the surface?   6 Qin’s massive mausoleum waits to be discovered.   7 Surface for the dry geometer is readily defined – there’s length and breadth, but never depth being two-di

  Cleanthes     Draw near my friend – you must hear what I say.   Be of good cheer.   I am old – soon to depart. All that was made is created again. Green grapes grow into clusters of ripeness, afterwards raisins.   I have worked, I’ve worked hard for wisdom and knowledge come hard to a striver like me.   Once I was strong and knew how to fight but now I am ready to stop, to welcome the rest. I haven't been eating.   The soreness improved after fasting – they told me to eat again but as I have travelled most of this road I won’t retrace steps.   He has his wish, whose wish is to have enough: I desire nothing, only to have what is meant to be. There is no need for me to make changes, so I will stay fasting.   Each step is a change, not into what is not, but that which is yet to be. Dear brother, give me your smile. Farewell to this life. My fire will find new fuel. Don’t be distressed.   Your pain is yours you make

    Freeze dried dead, extended, stiff leathery thing found in the grass where once it died and had its being.   Behind in flight those lengthy legs tapering into reptile’s wings –   all flesh gone, skin drawn tight   little misericord dark with age – arms like mine bring hands together across a mummy’s empty chest –   fine fingers intertwine and clasp in supplication.   Your eyes are closed as if at prayer.   Leap on   in faith my frog, and leave – leave earth and water far behind all forgotten, no longer needed   may I die like you in my own grass with no assumptions in full flight.     January may be the start of the year: a time for looking forward to new events, new experiences – new life no less; but at the same time, that two faced god Janus peers backwards at what is lost, gone for ever, now dead. An artist friend painted the frog I’d found. It may seem exaggerated, but it’s a realistic picture, almost photographic. We wer