In This Mood

Sometimes,  perfect renderings of still life might signify a state of mind.

In this mood,

things become more defined, absolute, more themselves.

The silver sugar bowl is not just reflective,

but a collection of the objects around it.

The shadows between the soaking peas are as dark

and mysterious as those between trees in a forest;

scale is immaterial, the detail is precise.

Colours become experiences: I look into red,

as I’d search inside the flow a river; browns

take on the richness of mahogany,

a grain inside the colour, a dynamic.

I reach for the sugar and watch my hand, from mid-arm,

travelling over the table like a boat heading out to sea.

It seems that my eyes suck the energy that is in me;

build this crisp perception from my concrete,

leave me in darkness amongst the brilliance of things.

Depression. One Fruit

I must have written this on a quiet night. Occasionally I get depressed. Then the forward flow  of life is arrested and a disappointment settles over all. It might be triggered by something in particular, but the soft grey that settles has no particular focus. It locks out light and leaves you sitting energy-less and incapable of rising to the words of love that the sufferers around you deserve for their forbearance.

Fortunately, it's not a very regular visitor in my case, and after a day or few days, I'm back, slightly dented maybe and sometimes with a poem that has come from my deepest self. 

 

No Title

 

This evening I will leave my mask and crutch,

go to the well, immerse myself

till there is no chill;

till water, moss, sky and I are all one marble.

 

So when you find me, my love, this  smile,

my limbs and fingers will be milk-white;

rosaries will be hanging; petitions,

stuffed between my jaws, fluttering in the wind.

 

And the reason will hang: a faint quivering

of atoms in the air around you,

an SOS in a register just beyond audibility;

and the mask’s smile: a mouth full of soil.