Ghosts with Imagination

It is dark. Too early for full sun.
Rain outside.
On the way, slow hand blues played
as the car swished on wet roads.
You will play more of the same
as you prepare to paint.
Perfect music for the day.

In this light, the studio feels haunted.
Wrinkled drop cloths.
Old tables full of brushes and paint.
Half finished projects everywhere,
More like a place left than a place lived in.

Let the haunting begin. Turn on the lights.
They have become your friends,
No longer a threat, you dance together
and they no longer flee in the morning.
They look over your shoulder
as you draw brush to paper. They pose,
hoping to see themselves in the cacophony of color,
often dissapointed.

They are creatures of imagination,
your ghoulish friends. They see themselves
even when they are not there.
No matter. It keeps them happy.
as you paint futures and nows
in bright colors that never existed
when they were alive.

About this poem

Inspired not so much by what was on my mind as by stumbling on the picture, and writing to it. Most of us probably have ghosts that have ceased to haunt. If not, hang in there. It’s a wonderful thing.

The picture was taken in my studio, as you walk up the stairs to enter it.

Tom