Kenneth Allott (29 August 1912 - 1973 / Glamorganshire/ South Wales)

I take you looking at the statue
the smile is yours and the stone is you
the stone is simple and the smile is playful
the smile is stolen and the stone is fallen
I ask you to stand and smile like that until
thinking you stone, time has forgotten you.
They say but really I forget

however picturesque
however figurative
whether so often and so quizzical
whoever it was crying in another voice ...
Let us sit like tailors. At least 1 am sure of this:
man or woman or beast I recall no face.

The night is kind so please to bend your arm
hide your head in the hollow of your arm
nobody will take you unawares, nobody
and nobody will take you unprepared
for time it is now to step out of time
and sleep will come as easy as kiss my hand
and you will find sleep kind.

Sleep has few terrors if we sleep like you
it is a cooling shower that falls on you
the water running through mirrors noiselessly
dreaming in doing things you dreamt to do.

But now all brawn Colossus straightens up
and stammers in the language of birds
and the sea goes mincing back into the sunset
strange to have lived so long upon this planet
daylight and moonlight, all the fun in the world.