Look! Here! At The Amazing Poetry, Painting and Photographs In This Life

www.antoniarolls.co.uk for my website
www.jesusonthetube.co.uk for my other website about Jesus on the Tube
www.agracefuldeath.blogspot.com for the exhibition A Graceful Death, paintings from the end of life
www.twitter.com/antoniarolls follow me on twitter

A Treasure Trove Of Wonderful Things. 

Poetry - Rosie Miles and Nicola Slee

Painting - Flo Dickerson

Photographs - Eileen Rafferty ...

Rosie Miles is a wonderful poet.  So is her partner Nicola Slee.  Both are writers, thinkers and jolly nice people, both teach and publish and eat and rush about, both have only good to say about other people and both love their cats.   Nicola's poems touch my soul, Rosie's poems touch my heart.  So - through the post came their birthday poem for my 50th and I am still swooning with joy.  No one has ever written me a poem before, not many of us get this kind of privilage (Rocking Rev Rachel Mann did in Manchester this year for her 40th, and Rosie performed it too on behalf of her and Nicola, and pretty amazing it was too).  So here I am feeling like the Most Privilaged 50 Year Old In Sussex.  It is built around all the paintings I have done and is so very very kind.   The Poem, your Honour - the Poem - here it is:

Woman in her PrimeWith Knobs On 

(50 Brush Strokes for Antonia)

She is looking at Steve

painting his dying

painting the life draining our of his cheeks

painting the pain of it the utter bloody waste of it

painting the way it happens while angels

stand at bust stops or make cups of tea.

***********

God is online working in the study

when Jesus tweets:

Just getting on the Tube.

Back later.  Can u do supper?

************

The Male Madonna is

rocking Antonias inner child

and singing her a lullaby:

Loolay, looley, lovely Antonia.

The 4 a.m.  Madonna doesn't mind

being woken up by baby Jesus,

who's jumping up and down in his cot

because it's Antonia's birthday.

Mary is sitting at her dressing table

not taking the slightest notice of Gabriel.

She's got more important things to do:

like paint her nails and doll herself up

for Antonia's party.

******************

They are all here:

Orange Lady, Greeen Lady, Black Lady'

Blue Brunette Lady, Green Top Lady, Red Bottom Lady,

Red Knickers Lady, Blue Redhead Lady, Yellow Lady.

Blue Teapot Fairy has put the kettle on.

Domestic Angel has removed her apron.

She won't do anymore today.  Tired Angel has

put aside her broom.  Shy Angel creeps in.

Angel practising dancing on the head of a pin

has perfected the art of twirling perfectly

and spins and spins and spins.

They are all here to celebrate Antonia's birthday.

To offer her several squares of happiness.

******************

Snowy the cat is lying on a fluffy

angel's wing, purring and enormous

heavenly purr and waving her beatific tail

in honour of Antonia's special day.

******************

She's bringing it on:

the colours, the angels, the bodies,

the feather boas, the dancing,

the divine in the mundane,

the sideways look at

the dying and the rising.

She's a woman in her prime,

priming her paints and painting her life.

Easy God in conjuring new colours just for her

and placing them carefully in a spangly new paintbox.

Rosie Miles and Nicola Slee.

The Painting.  By Flo Dickerson.

Flo is in her early 20s.  Don't you think that this is the most sophisticated image for someone so young? In the real painting the colours in the sky are amazing and rich, and the brush work very confident and clever.  Flo did this for me to keep when she was here last weekend, and I am so very proud to show it to all of you as the work of a very talented young woman.  Thank you Flo, I love it.  Do More!  

The Photographer.  We All Know The Eileen Rafferty And Never Have Enough Of Her Photos.

A teeny elephant that lives near the sugar bowl.  It is typical that Eileen would see a tiny object and capture it in detail, making it look absolutely wonderful.

 We had these little flower displays on the Ceilidh tables, and Eileen loves detail, colour and plants.

A glorious shot of the fairy cakes Annabel Church Smith made (she is the Fairy Cake Boss) on the cake stand that Darling Dublin Friend gave me, and just behind is The Pavlova that Cousin Maddy made that finished off the weekend and nearly sent us all to Over Eaters Anonymous but we were too fat to get up from the table by then.  Eileen has made an art form of the theme of the Rolling Weekend of Cakes, and captured the loveliness of the cakes and the display and the whole atmosphere of the weekend.

A lovely tasty shot of one of the teeny Cup Cakes from our own CupCake Guru (Annabel Church Smith). Again Eileen has made a very tiny object deliciously detailed and the close up of it doesn't lose it's sense of being tiny, it emphasises its delicacy and is a superb example of the stength of Eileen's simple shots.

Oh the clever and perfect way Eileen has caught the different patterns and colours and shapes.  Again, from the Rolling Tea And Cakes Weekend we had in August.

So.  There you go.  I know more clever people too, like Darling Dublin Friend who is a Graphic Designer to Make You Glad To Be Alive.  Or is that just her anyway?  Well, Rosie, Nicola, Flo and Eileen are the stars here today, and thank you to all of them.