48 Old Morris

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Old Morris

‘I’m too bloody old’. His favourite moan.
‘I’m just too bloody old!’ he’d groan.
Still in my teens, I’d set my cut-off
Age for being young at twenty-five. 
I felt astonished he was still alive
And heartily endorsed his claim. 
He was even older than my mum!
‘It’s all these stairs. They’ll have me yet.’
Old Morris fell into our top-floor painting
Studio and then with hands still trembling, 
Rolled himself a life-enhancing cigarette.

He never painted anything that I considered ‘proper’ art’
Just messed about on a foot-square scrap of board 
With whatever tubes of paint others had left in the drawer.
No sketching for him to work out an idea. Instead he’d start
Straight in on top of last week’s abandoned confusion.
Compositions came from his head:
Flowers in a vase mostly, on occasion
A made-up landscape, invariably
A few schematic trees, blue sky
And powder-puff clouds. Childish stuff.
He only really panted up those stairs, glad
To share the bonhomie of fellow spirits.
He pretended to paint in order to enjoy our presence.
Apart from me and one other lad
Who’d failed in some examination
And came to learn to draw from observation,
The company was almost all old ladies.
Those few men there were smoked pipes in silence.

One day someone talked about
A new French film they’d seen.
Old Morris overheard and at once joined in. 
He’d been in Hollywood, he said.
Everyone was too polite or too discrete that day
To rebut his claim outright with laughter. 
Which was just as well, for what came after
Was a showing of old photographs
Of him when young that took the breath away.
There he was on a fine black horse
With palm trees in the background.
It was clearly cinematic California
And it was indeed Young Morris on that steed. 
‘We had to ride along this line
Of nearly-naked women.’ He faltered.
‘Christians waiting to be slaughtered.’ 
But it was not their fate that stirred his memory.
‘I can see their lovely titties now as we rode by…’ 
His voice trailed off in resignation and regret.
He lit another cigarette to quell a sigh.
Some smirked, a few old ladies
Turned aside to show dismay. 
What I felt was envy.

I’m older now than he was then by a good ten years.
I think I can claim to paint better than he did
Though I never made it to Hollywood.
I admit too I share his life-long reverence for titties.
And like him, I now know all too well what it is
To struggle up flights of stairs!