Sunflowers Poem by SHAUN TRAYNOR

SUNFLOWERS
In Hackford Rd SW9,
there is a house where Van Gogh lived:
there is of course the high, obligatory, blue plaque,
but more importantly, the woman who lives there
has placed a vase of dried sunflowers in the window;

a nice touch that,
the blue plaque, the sunflowers,
a little bit of green attracting sunlight into a city garden.

Yet across the road at the school where I teach
and the woman cleans -

there is a bunker
where the school keeper, keeps coal.

(Note: Soon after this brief and apparently happy sojourn in Hackford Rd, the young Vincent set off to the Flemish coal mines, to one the unhappiest periods of his life.)