Paintings
Sepia eyes through square glasses,
a smile obscured by 1984 grain.
That’s all that’s left,
along with the paintings.
Cool, peachy, swirling forms
predominant through each landscape.
Sometimes I’d see him in my dreams,
Constantly telling me,
“No, no, that’s not right, the values
is wrong here, the lighting is off-
You’ve almost got it-“
Then I’d wake.
Apart from dreams, he’d appear in
the wooden hook mom wears
Around her neck, smooth and tawny,
In the burning gold eyes of the tiger
On the roof that glared at you for a moment,
then bounded away into the forest.
Ashes and old snakeskin in the river,
flowing.
A carved paintbrush, stained with the colour
Of a thousand hand-ground gouaches.
~
I found an old poem I had written about my grandfather.
a smile obscured by 1984 grain.
That’s all that’s left,
along with the paintings.
Cool, peachy, swirling forms
predominant through each landscape.
Sometimes I’d see him in my dreams,
Constantly telling me,
“No, no, that’s not right, the values
is wrong here, the lighting is off-
You’ve almost got it-“
Then I’d wake.
Apart from dreams, he’d appear in
the wooden hook mom wears
Around her neck, smooth and tawny,
In the burning gold eyes of the tiger
On the roof that glared at you for a moment,
then bounded away into the forest.
Ashes and old snakeskin in the river,
flowing.
A carved paintbrush, stained with the colour
Of a thousand hand-ground gouaches.
~
I found an old poem I had written about my grandfather.