Alchemy: The Day the World Stood Still

By Michael Roberts and Ian Thornton

When the planet went into lockdown, many who create for a living or for fun or as part of childhood found themselves being funneled into new ways of expression. Whether it was by design or the path of least resistance or by strict and enforced measures, the mind, we started to see, might adapt and evolve in many astonishing ways, for she needs to keep busied and purposeful.

I contacted friends, who in turn put out the word that there was an open forum, without specifications, without age limits; a blank page for those who wanted it. Seasoned and cynical poets, wanted hackers on the run, novelists, fathers, mothers, rock stars, grieving friends, ramblers, pals, big mouths, more shy types, Germans, and young uns. Welcome, all. Thank you, all.

This is your book.

When you are asked one chilly night far in the future, “Grampa/Nana, what did you do during the plague?”

You might rub your hands in front of a warm hearth, smile, chuckle and declare, “I was a poet.”

The proof of this you now hold in your hands.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Apr 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665704663

Michael Roberts

Michael Roberts is the fashion and style director of Vanity Fair. He served as fashion director at The New Yorker from 1997-2006 as well as the fashion editor of The Sunday Times, style director and art director of Tatler, design director of British Vogue, and Paris editor of Vanity Fair. He has contributed his photographs and illustrations to numerous publications, among them Vanity Fair; L'Uomo Vogue, British, Italian, French, American, Chinese, Brazilian, and Japanese Vogue; The Sunday Times; and The Independent on Sunday. He is also the author of four books of illustrations: The Jungle ABC, Mumbo Jumbo, Snowman in Paradise, and The Snippy World of New Yorker Fashion Artist Michael Roberts.

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Copyright © 2021 Michael Roberts, Ian Thornton and Friends.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any

information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author

and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of

the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of

people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or

links contained in this book may have changed since publication and

may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those

of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher,

and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Interior Image Credit: Truce

ISBN: 978-1-6657-0467-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-0468-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-0466-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021905460

Archway Publishing rev. date: 04/14/2021

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CONTENTS

Alchemy

The Critic And His Cricket

White Narcissus

Room At The Top

LSD & 2 E’s

Bod

Prayer

Stories From The Locker Box

The Choreography Of Shopping

The Hollow

Lockdown: Lessons Learned

R.O.G.U.E

The Virtual Game

A Light In The Darkness

Home Time

Death

What Is A Friend

Human Nature

Assassin

Scars From A Friend

Should I?

Loneliness

Poetic Justice

Look At Me

The Dream

Who Needs Love

Falling Down

Pollution

Stand Strong

Love Is Waiting

The Aching In My Mind

Petals

Nature

The Fears Of Dating

Sleeping At The Tip Of The Seas

An Open Ode To Poetry

Boom Boom We Go

Clementine

Le Vieillard

The Old Man

La Vieille Dame

The Old Woman

Chemin De Longue Étude…

The Path Of Long Study …

Librarian

Her

A View

Two Poems

Bee Doo Boo

The Interloper

Cold War

Release

Birdsong

Us

To Forget

Deluge

Hebden

Bempton Cliffs

Point No Point

Alpha To Omg Oh! Mega

Meditative Space

Rainbow’s End

Troubled Waters Troubled Minds

Millennium

Measure Of Love

Time

Little People Smile

Most Important Person

Clockwork

Coming Home

Imitating …

My London…

What’s Your Excuse…

Release…

Change The Narrative…

Power & Greed…

Car Windows…

Sunday Rules…

Grief…

Forever Chasing…

Constant Laughter…

Time To Leave…

How To Be A Man…

Concrete Ninja…

I Like You…

We Stand As One

You Tube-How To?

Charles Bukowski

Narcissus

The Truth About Truth-

Paint Your Day-

Viagra-

Forces That Be

The School Gates

Gracias, Hermano

Why Do I

Star Hopping

Around The World In Eighty Farts

Jack Frost’s Christmas

Saving

Lessons Learnt

Friends

Don’t Want To Go

A Little Red Poppy

To Boldly Go

The Castle

The School Play

The Pumpkin Knows…

School Bully

Pick Me!

Penny For The Guy

My Teacher

Whatever The Weather!

Panic

Let The Good Times Roll

What Have You Learnt?

Crab Carriage

Rabbit Through The Peep Hole

Getting By

Nothing But The Truth

Alchemy 2 – Winter

Epilogue

A War Footing

To my brothers-in-arms,

Steve Joseph and Michael Roberts. From your mate, Ian,

I killed the poet in me long ago,

Stomped his face in

And walked off

To make war with the world.

-Commander X

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ALCHEMY

By Christ, I will empty my head today

And scribble for fun and not for the pay.

"Are chipmunks soft?’ my daughter asks,

As I ponder today’s two unburdening tasks.

And if one day I am left alone by the flutey sea,

I shall heed the lessons of alchemy.

The city will bake three hours to the south.

She can do as she wants, she bothers me nowt.

For this is how death must feel.

Life goes on, and nothing seems real.

If I sit down with eggs for tea,

I shall note with ink such alchemy.

So this halfway house to death seems bliss,

A curious blue tit came in for a kiss.

She asked this man to be her friend,

Fooled by our blind rush to our end.

And when we leave the bears to be free,

Nature will master our alchemy.

And if here lies the body of this scribe,

Guilty of one last urge to imbibe,

Then this citrus morn with light on the lake

Takes a floundered spirit to shake.

The laps of soft tide on the hull entrance me

Like smoke to hold, this alchemy.

I once climbed a willow for a better view.

I breathed as a god and dredged up you.

Your Amalfi fig lips, I could not hear,

But this took me close to my elixir.

There was no fraud, just chemistry.

I shall crack the code of alchemy.

Rapture is sniffed in caveman-fashion,

Unwashed, unholy, elevated passion

Simplicity is the essence of fine

Immodestly feminine and divine

She with eyes of lime and verdigris,

My eternal, exposed love of alchemy.

My pocket watch is lost between noon and tea,

The yardarm in a pothole, yards above sea.

I cannot shove time, I must simply wait,

Far simpler a task than to relive a date.

And the patience I show in this wait to be free,

Is matched by a robust alchemy.

And with mid-morning here, I turn my back

On the water and boats, and womb of my shack.

Through golden midges and on country lanes,

I shall stick on 16 with my ill-gotten gains.

As I silently ask to share the po-faced lamb’s lea,

I start to grasp her lordly alchemy.

Day-by-day, I now shed all ambition

Tumble headlong into an old crackpot’s mission.

To Darwinian doglegs, too crooked to evolve?

A week more of this, this puzzle is solved.

A last breath is nigh, this marvel is free.

Armed to bright teeth with alchemy.

-Ian Thornton

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THE CRITIC AND HIS CRICKET

’Twas on a bright and sunny day

Upon a boat at sea

A Critic and his Cricket

Took rest and had some Tea

The Critic a stout unhumble man

Was eating all in sight

His Cricket just a feeble thing, piped up and asked for pie

The Critic foaming at the mouth screamed are you not a gent

For if you were. You needn’t ask and down his throat pie went.

The Cricket squirmed I’m Sorry Sir I never wished to beg

For

I.

Fear if I don’t Eat pie soon

I will end up being quite dead

Oh you’re so small

The Cricket bawled

There’s merely nothing there

And you’re so fat

the Cricket spat you really are unfair

Be off with you Critic yelled before I spank your hide

But as he spoke a wave did leap and swept the man off side

There is a moral to this tale

The cricket then replied

Never lose yourself at Sea

And never go with Pie.

-Michael Roberts, Leeds, England

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WHITE NARCISSUS

by a father

Recall the fine year the seahorses came.

They danced to soft harps and boys stroked their manes.

We wondered if it would ever happen again,

Recall the great year the seahorses came.

Before I was there alone on