AND IT WAS ON A CORNER / Barny Drabble

And it was on a corner, a street corner there

in Rotterdam, in the centre of Rotterdam

not in the harbour but in, on the tram, by metro

take a bicycle, to that corner there, by the water

not the sea but a river, little canal, a stream

with a bridge across and a corner was nearby

that same corner where it was, all of them were there

on that day, a big day, a big city, with all of them

the people, who were there in summer clothes

in heels, the women, in big cars with sunglasses

Yvette was there with yellow sunglasses and Arnold

who was there on the corner with flags

Annette's flags

they were all there under the sun and the flags

with red noses, cheeks and orange was the colour

the queen wasn't there on the corner on her day,

she was at home, opening presents, eating an apple,

on her birthday or something, planting a tree, maybe

but we were sitting and standing on the corner

Jay was behind the camera and then in front with a meter

a metre or two in front, measuring light for perfect,

apple portraits, portraying apples, the apples that were there

apples and Arnold, Annette with apples and buckets

and peelers, peeling, we were all peeling, peeling apples

peeling for the arts in fact

people need a reason for peeling and art was the reason

the arts and compost

Arnold was squatting, hunkering down with children

and standing straight with his pockets and peelers

standing and often talking with all those people

those people who were there, walkers, wanderers

queens day people with ice-creams on bicycles too

all of them were there, some, afraid to sit on peel would stand

Annette was smiling to them too with a hundred peelers

a hundred pockets and soap and water

in a bucket for wiping the stage, which she was wiping

for they had made a stage for the corner, on that day

on which the peel was sticking and which Annette was wiping

and Jay was saying that it was all great, the apples

the people and that the sun was staying and still shining

pulling films from the many pockets of his peeling jacket

like the jackets of Arnold and Annette but different

for their pockets were full of tools for peeling, orange and brown

were the colours chosen for the jackets, on the corner

on that day, with one, clean, silver peeler

hanging alone on Arnold's jacket, when people had come

and gone away, which was used for peeling then

once I had seen it and Cora was there too

and Lance made a star-wars tie fighter, or at least

he thought it looked that way, and so did Jay too

and people wanted change but we didn't have any

It's free, said Jay, hooray, with his van, around the corner

around that corner, on that day.