Fourteen writers,
heads bent, pens
scratching, grey hair,
blond, dyed (mine, that is),
imaginations aflutter, fleeting
competition resolutely pushed
aside. Faint mewing outside
‘shut up, Ted’.  Is our four
minutes up yet, we thought,
breathless.

Note: This poem is from the ‘poetry retreat series’.  We read ‘The Bean Eaters’ by Gwendolyn Brooks, noted the Van Gogh-like style and tone, and were asked to writer our own painting-poems in four and a half minutes.  As my first attempt ‘portrait‘ took only one and half minutes, I spent another two on this.