Polished Stones:

After Meg Bateman’s Lapidary.

I like the idea of creating poems of
Hand polished stones
Revealing the hidden depths of colour.

Trapped rutile, sparkle of quartz
In the stone
Grey or ochre
Or black.

A window is ground
With carbarundum
Water
Friction
Force
Until the poem is revealed
Trapped slice of thought
Suspended in luminous beauty
In glowing colour and hue.

In oil medium glazing
Layers of colour in the resin
The slices of tints and shades in shapes
Trapped in the layers of glaze.

The oil glazed painting
Is like a hand polished
Poem
The painting in words
The slices of thought
Suspended in layers of time
A polished window on the
Grey exterior of lifes patina of repetition
Show the inner light.

The icon luminosity
No external light can produce this
No blonds or redhead spots
No halogen desk lamp
Can throw internal light on
These images and words.

The poems hewed from dreams
Abstracted and fragmented thoughts
The paintings pulled through
Fighting presumptions, fear, being allowed
Not to be a potter
Allowed to paint.

Allowing myself the pleasure of
Experimentation
in composition and balance of shapes
The pleasure of the process
and slow,
slow
Crafting of the image and the poem.

When are they finished?
When did they begin?
Building layer by layer the rich beauty
The inner fire – difficult expression

Awkwardly, learningley, here now. 

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