Poetry in Response to Visual Art

Lovely Worcestershire poet Jay Rose Anna has visited my studio and written poems inspired by artwork she saw there! This one is inspired by my paintings ‘Heatwave’ and ‘Wilder Seas, Porthleven’. I’ll be posting another of her poems soon!

Brannigan’s Word

  by Jay Rose Anna           https://www.jayroseana.com/

Brannigan warned them, he warned them all. Of fire and brimstone, end of times, the coming apocalypse, raging heat storms ‘Don’t stay at home’, he slammed down The Word, ‘Our church is protected, our Saviour watches over us all in the sanctity of his holy house, give the Lord a Hallelujah!’.

Nobody ever listened to the old drunk, citing the end of days and the holy book, Brannigan preached empty sermons every Sunday to mice and birds, and the lost, from the bottom of an empty whiskey bottle. Sometimes even to the bats in the rafters as he lay upon his back, pointing with yellowed fingers, stinking of ale and cigarette butts. Occasionally, throwing up on the stone-cold hallowed ground.

The Baker, in the tall house on the hill, ‘the best place for gravity to power my mill’, woke to fire raging from burning sky and today the wheat was especially dry. ‘Brannigan warned us, we didn’t listen, Saviour protect us!’, empty words as the mill burned, the Baker clenched a single photograph of her long-lost love whilst praying for rain. A non-believer citing the Lord’s prayer over and over again. As spritely flames wrapped around her feet, photographing curled under the heat, all that remained was stone and grief.

Brannigan awoke from the sleeping pew, dragged himself up and plunged his face in the baptism font, shaking his short grey hair dry before picking up a cigarette butt and pushing it between his deeply cracked lips. He opened the door to the chapel, felt, then witnessed the heat storm from a fiery orange sky. In shocked disbelief, Brannigan’s unlit butt-end cigarette dropped from his mouth. He glared upwards to the sky, to the acrid smoke rolling over the hill, then stumbled to the vestry, tipped out the desk drawer upon the floor, a bottle smashed to the ground, he reached down to clench his once white-collar he stumbled back across the chapel floor to the chapel door.

The Painter, a dejected city socialite, in the house below the Baker woke to the smell of burning canvas. Through her bedroom window she crashed, landing on hot smoky grass, screaming ‘Brannigan warned us, the Apocalypse is here”, as she ran, in blue striped pyjamas, hands waving in the air, towards the little Chapel, catching the Baker with burning hair. She never knew of the dry paper letter from the British Art Gallery commissioning her now ashen collection. Her one way back from city-life rejection.

Brannigan grabbed the Word, pushing his whiskey-soaked-off-white-collar around his neck he unsteadily and slowly headed out of the chapel to the cliff face, facing the calm sea, arms wide, The Book in one hand a rosary wrapped around the fingers of the other, crucifix swaying in the hot breeze rolling in behind him, burning his fingers. Lost in thought but focusing more than he could muster, tides rose, and waves began in haste up to Brannigan’s waist. Moses would be proud, but Moses had faith, Brannigan had Southern Comfort and on a good day Beam and Daniels.

The Schoolteacher, arms full of books, threw his stick to the fire in an act of angry defiance, an easy target for the lick of red-hot flame, made it to the chapel and threw the books through the wooden door, flame shadows licking at his feet. “BRANNIGAN!”, he screamed, “save these books, I have to go back and help the children”, pushing the chapel doors closed tightly, he disappeared into the hot burning smoke. One by one, the children were saved but when all were secured in the chapel hall, the Schoolteacher disappeared, was never seen again, some say the burns drove him insane. Stories say his shadow can be seen reflecting against the school hall in the evening rain, and if you listen very closely on a windy day, the words ‘save the children’ still carry the weight of a determined soul.

Brannigan recited the Word, cool grey piercing eyes challenging the red sky pale Sunrise. A spaghetti Western duel, driven by cold stares and hard glares. Gripping the rosary caught between the fiery heat and the rising cool sea breeze he stood determined as the fire roared towards the chapel, and in a moment, the Lord spoke to him through waves rising above his head, the day of judgement, the day for faith, the day for Brannigan to prove himself. Brannigan stood taller than a mountain, he raised his head above the clouds, and prayed for living, and the dead.

The only building to survive that day of judgement was the old stone chapel on the cliff by the sea, engulfed in smoke but doused by unusually high-tidal waves, a meteorological anomaly, some say it was hope, some that it was divine, but all agree it was Brannigan’s will, that he found his faith in the watery tide, and he stood defiantly still, never once did he run nor hide.

The village rebuilt, over time, the baker and the painter found each other as they became the new school head mistresses, and more, and the stoned cold chapel, now full every Sunday morning, raises the roof with a Hallelujah. The town drunk, once again Pastor, reclaimed faith, mostly, as his congregation grew telling stories of the legend of Brannigan’s word.

Jay Rose Ana