April Poems 2016/06

Wasp Totem 1989

An antique night stand

supports a square of heavy glass

an artist's palette

smeared with oils and dripping linseed

a hundred brushes in jam and coffee jars

bristles to the ceiling.

The canvas sags on its heavy pine stretcher,

the weight of paint exceeding tolerance.

It may need restretching when it's dry.

The brush held loosely, upright,

the tip of the thumb on the ferrule

one-inch ox hair

stained Prussian blue from the bed

of this laboured work.

A smear of Titanium white

to highlight the hollow

of a Payne's Grey eye socket,

while Alizarin feathers allude to the violence

perpetrated on old bone

while an iridescent eye stares out

pinning the viewer

as an etymological specimen.

Outside the multi-paned windows

night falls in stop-motion.

City lights flash on the flyover

a thousand people rushing home to their families,

The reek of the chippy on Piper's Row

and the cloud of stale curry

an artist on Lea Road.