Black and White Photo

Do I have to look at him again?
With no clothes on?
Do I?
Again there he stands naked but for a small cloth, not that modest.
But it’s ok
because he is safely contained within the parameters
of a life size black and white photograph.
He’s behind the surface of the paper and he can’t hurt me.
He’s  is locked behind the matt finish photographic paper and I never need to see him like this again, you are behind me I am in front of you.
You are ash.
You are ash like this black and white photograph
made of tones and shades, that is what you are now.
You are ash.
You are in a box, that is buried under ground and I never have to look at that ash or touch it.
Your flesh is like that photo,
flat dead,
mourner’s confetti,
its safe now, its ok, you are gone.
The feeling of malevolence the fear, the anxiety, the dread, it’s gone too.
The flat photo is all that’s left and that’s safe too.
You are locked away and will never come back no matter how large the photo is
no matter what anyone says, “don’t judge him – he lived his life in full rebel mode”.
Which condemns me to be the opposite,
there is nothing I can rebel against that he – which they together have not already done.
The breaking of taboos, unmarried holidays, hitching with no tent, no money all across Europe, protestant-catholic marriage, class difference, no one got it, the life modelling, the art school, the Bohemian life style lived above a pub.
No one understood – inside the closed door of our house the cliff road house,
where no one came, Victoriana ruled.
Strict Catholic values, Victorian authoritarianism, unspoken laws like commandments
and house codes, full of mystery, confusion and puzzlement.
Stay behind the mirror,
naked,
don’t come out
it’s my turn to live, it’s my chance to have a life lived out of the shadows,
it’s my place to fight my way through walls of flesh that are this life
peopled with friends lovers and children, it’s my turn.
It’s over.
Stand there, naked and grey,
you have no power over me now I’m not scared anymore.
Stand there, locked forever in that pose, a moment stolen from your life.
Those feet those hands, I know them so well because they are my feet my hands.
I stand planted and strong
it’s my time
and I stand in full living colour, in glorious Technicolor.

I live.

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