Red Bird. (Revised).

My poems are pictures 

painted with words,

and not true poems.

For example -

Aware of the intensity of sunlight

as July approaches

I rejoice that colours now zing off the canvas

hot and vibrant.

Flamenco colours

Shimmering in the sun.

This morning I watched a red bird dive and soar,

Cutting the blue haze with the edges of her wings

that beat with a frenzied fierceness.

I blinked, the sky was empty,

the distant woodlands silent - but

across the blue

a deep wound slowly opened

oozing crimson blood.

I tried to put this vision down on canvas -

with the first paints that came to hand.

Acrylics do not keep their lustre

unlike oils that always seem alive

with an inner light - a fresh vitality.

That red line I slashed across the canvas

is less vibrant now the paint has dried.

Memory is like that line,

it lacks the vivid intensity of moments

lived with red hot violence.

An adolescent kiss.

A quick fire brutal slap

imprinting traces on cheekbone and skin.

A strange red bird

swooping on prey as the dawn breaks. -

My memory of that red bird is debased

dulled by these words that I am typing -

and the picture I have sketched.

But the picture has a reality I can grasp,

Solid as this floor on which I stand.

Words are black and white upon the page.

I love the dangerous energy of colour.

Trevor John Karsavin Potter. 

June 19th. - 20th. - 21st. 2022.

Dedicated to Malcolm Evison. A socialist poet and painter, and a good friend.