Paint Poem

 

Day Thirty

I like a poem because it's not like a painting.

Because I'll confidently cradle something

stainless; hold the exceptional eye of it,

which is sarsen grey. It's accurate masonry.

A poem is trapezoidal.

It will sit on the ground, you can walk

around, point prosodic

right at the solidity of the stanza.

The straight line in a meter, go -

run your thumb assuredly

all along the perfect surface;

Any line with a defect

lies forgotten in the quarry.

That's why I like a poem. At least

in theory, shaped pure and

fine-finished as a citadel.

But I wonder if Machu Picchu thinks

- or even knows - about the faults

in her foundation. She's sitting up there

on the nerve of a natural defect,

and she don't give a damn.

So I did some painting, to be like the Inca.

To be painted, myself, whimsical-like.

And the acrylics were so alien, they

were such a clamour of colour, they

were howling! All striving -

Idiots! - mucking and muddling

and setting themselves too previous.

I almost kicked over the easel.

But, like the Inca, I learned

a bit about building. About drainage.

I began to see the sky bloom purple,

fruit ripening in stone,

an uncertainty of green in the grass.

I built something new, and I found 

I did not so much mind the cracks. 

 

Okay, it's a little skew whiff.

My brush, he forgets the meter;  

only knows a ruffled rhythm 

of colour, that might?

breathe life to a sarsen stone.

Even, perhaps, in purple tones,

refute the sky and its blueness.

So step back, squint your eyes;

It looks just like a poem.