Just written, would appreciate suggestions on line breaks. Also, the poet’s eye is subjective, but I think a good poem touches universals through subjective experience. What I want to do in my poetry is to approach truth and search for answers through the subjective. Criticism welcome.
Untitled
Perhaps it was out of
a necessary optimism
that he painted all our houses
a daffodil tongue
yellow.
We,
amongst the muted tones,
the rust red, sky gray
beige and brown
of New England colonials,
lived in the shadow of a
forced sunshine.
A strange statement
next to his dogma and discipline.
Perhaps it was out of
a residing rebellion
that he painted the yard with
opposing, violent,
and obdurate colors.
The bleeding heart pinks
the Crayola color violets
the purple velvet irises
the angry orange marigold
the expansive flames of
the burning bush wall
at the edge of the yard,
and the obsidian leaves
of the Japanese maple
we were never allowed to climb.
And it was he
who strung the branches with
lights in the short days of mid-winter
he who hung
the bright plastic
Easter Eggs
in the late frost /warm afternoon
twighlight of spring.
There must have been
a cognitive dissonance
as he sifted the brown earth
though his fingers,
held the paint brush
in his hand,
lived his life through
the art of the land
and the heat of
his red blood,
and still saw the world in black and white.
The language of his mind was extremism
and absolutes,
but his hands – his body –
knew better.
And as he retires further into
the comfortable habit
of holding tight
to his colorless paradigm,
his dissonant and bright gardens,
Stravinsky bold
against all those safe muted New England tones,
still bloom.
And that daffodil tongue yellow:
bright,
optimistic,
indelible.