A Drunken Desire for Yellow

One wonders if the artist stood,
stock still, waiting after painting the one black square
on a sea of cinderblock.

Did he wait, oblivious of the law and time,
to see just how the paint would drip,
how far and how long, to complete his art,

God and gravity, co-conspirators in the dark,
changing it’s sharp-edged statement into something more,

One wonders what drove him.
What darkness? What empty space, devoid of color
pushed him to paint just this?

Are the drips trying to escape
or are the missionaries of the night?
Were they intended on an intervention

of a world that refuses to be as dark
as the troubled would paint it?
Is it a finished work, intentional and complete

Or a thing unintended? You wonder all this
as you sip your seventh beer and stumble past,
midnight inspired, wishing you had a can of yellow paint.

About this poem

Thanks to my friend, Deb Rahalski, a friend whose essay this morning inspired this poem.

I drink maybe one beer all summer, so I have to imagine that seven of them would send me stumbling. You who drink more feel free to correct me.

The picture was taken in Asbury Park, NJ.

Tom