Poetry
Is it oblivion or the windshield wiper clearing the rain?
The dust off your eye in this wind-
Or the chaos we personally bring within?
Cosmic struggles
Brushstrokes clearing the pain
Chunks of obsidian black and lava red-
The tension to master the
dread.
Folded edge on the unmade bed
The coffee steam from the cup of dreams,
The seam of the scene-
Stitched together with every motion
The unknowingness of the host that gazes
At the painting
With devotion.
Our abstraction is spread out like the stars that compel us.
Some dark manifold of the beauty
Pulling us in-
Turn the page and start
Again.
We are collapsing pain and eternal joy,
The wildest tumult in the crashing soil-
The seed invoking the droplets into its
Core,
The chasm of sensing something more.
The horizontal pull while against this teeming
Earth,
The words gathered in the brushes,
The painter seeks only to
Leave the impression of all this
Some remnant of a life
Pursued.
Bliss and a nebula for the consciousness,
To know more deeply and carefully,
The unanswered questions-
Of phrases that fade off before
we hear them.
A resonance to help us be more endearing.
Francis A Willey 2022
(Paul Marshall’s painting)