A bad marriage, John Lyons (40 x 40 cm, oil on canvas)

There are no abstracts
I paint what I see
sometimes what I see
in the paintings of others

There are no sardines
nor were there ever
but what looks like
some sort of seafood

though there is no blue
nor water no shade of sky
and the composition
is trapped within

a narrow palette
There is a continent
of white and a patch
of dark leather and yet

it amounts to nothing
that we can define
Words and colours
are poor relations

each one jostling
hopelessly
to out-express
the other

John Lyons

The painting illustrated is an unfaithful copy of a painting by William Scott (1913-1989) which can be viewed in Tate Britain.