This day last week, I was in a writing workshop (led by Kate Hastie) on how to make a poem response to artworks (“Ekphrasis”).  In response to this lithograph by Henry Moore, “Upright Motives” – I wrote this:

 

 

For Henry Moore “Upright Motives”

 

Reinterpreting the body with his pen,

Henry watches his model moving about the room

in velvet sunlight

Heads are too complicated,

he boils one down to a piece of broccoli

As the waist is to the mouth

as the rib is to the flag

as the neck is a tree

the knees are tiered like Padi fields

circling round a mountain

 

A lozenge, a curve,

a salsa dancing line to the shoulders

a lightness and brightness

an awkward hip

 

like double basses made by a surrealist,

listed unbuildings

flickering flames

 

Bones like a xylophone

armoured suits

beat a crackle allure

like the bones falling together

into soft places

 

© Heather Gregg, 2017