The Paint Stained Screamer (after David Hockney)

He’s always been tricks of light, you know.

Los Angeles, the East Yorkshire Wolds.

A right caution in his naughty boy days:

a bug eyed, paint stained screamer.

But standing here upon this stone

with ghosts of weavers, twitch and bone.

The point is he’s unraveling joy. 

Life is short when in-between.

He’s working fast from hedge and ditch. 

Frenzied fingers taming technologies witch.

Soil is the slave of unaccountability.

He’s always been sleight of hand, you see.