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The sea is light green light blue light blue and light green…
Then, moving up, black with a little green, where the land…
is? Would be. Then light gold with yellow, inset with chunks
of purple. Then white, in enormity. Cerulean blue.

Five minutes later, the lower blacks are disappearing.
Harbour colours are narrowly complex, both green and blue.
The bay is mid-blue. Streaks of black; brighter blue further out.
Dark green for the land, the further headland navy blue. Then green
in gold and purple. Then dull yellow. And, above that,
patchily, a cheap coat of magnolia. Fast spray-can strokes
of yellow; and a deepening blue the higher one looks,
the lower heights fluffed with white. With good glasses
and the time taken passed, the land on the other side of the bay
becomes green below purple. Orange specks resolve into illumination.

Two fishing boats at their work, the buildings on Carn Brea sharp,
a seagull growing broader than people on Smeaton’s Pier.

The east headland becomes powder blue, below misty.
White is clearing. Rough knives bearing yellow have scraped southwards
over Hayle Towans, almost to Camborne. Boat shadows
become distinct. Yellow scratches take on greater depth.
Each look returns a different image to the artist brain --
the change is rapid -- in the direction of Marazion.

Two horizontal breaks in the purple are crammed by furnace gold.
A third seems dormant. What were marks on the surface of the bay
now stand out from that facade, a bit like seals’ heads.
A fourth horizontal split appears; and ignites. The third ignites.
The sun takes over, topped and tailed at its poles; unbearable  --
a meandering line runs softly from its incandescence
across the slight waves, just missing a north-bound fishing boat,
and touches the out of sight Wharf. No fires start. The line fades.
A fishing boat leaves the harbour. The four vents in cloud slam.
Bright beams radiate downwards from hidden sun, setting alight
a thin dark cloud, Carn Brea and the tv mast dissolving,
and straddle the Hayle. The tops of dark deep and rising cloud blocking
the sun are shining. Squashed and attenuated colour charts
climb the atmosphere. A man pulls by with a wheeled suitcase.



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UNFRAMED GRAPHICS by Lawrence Upton
42 pages; A5 paperback; colour cover
Writers Forum 978 1 84254 277 4
wfuk.org.uk/blog
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Lawrence Upton
Dept of Music
Goldsmiths, University of London