Wednesday, April 20, 2011

On Jackson Pollock's "Number 1A, 1948"


Once, there was a
town that had no windows
and streets that never intersected,
like the twisted insides of a dog.

It had no sun, no moon,
just glowing dreams
splattered on crumbling walls
with streetlamps that were only
half-hearted lullabies to a black, black sea
spitting smoky fumes at empty streets.

In the view lay a solitary shape,
an unmoving form drawn like a shadow,
a colosseum imperiously descended from the heavens.

It was where I woke up,
battered into submission, thrown into
a marbled pool of splintered statues,
a graveyard of eternities - 
frayed foreheads, orphaned swords, crushed chariots,
wounded wings,
gods that once strode the clouds
now mere rubble
clinging onto the soles of strangers' feet.

Born of a chisel, cursed with unfailing sight,
I watched the starless rainy sky
ruthlessly bring down its thunderous wrath
on the very spirits that once contrived it
as the sea of their weary voices begging for mercy
rose and fell wordlessly, unable to escape
the immortal stone their hearts were carved out of.

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