Parental Passages

Carefully we construct
security for offspring –
add luxuries to entertain
accommodate growth
play host to revolving-
door friends and dates.

And yet, we are graded
on performance – met
or unmet expectations –
held up against a stack
of other super parents,
silhouettes of perfection.

Still, we celebrate goals,
sprouting family, ignore
the slanders, and ease
into age with a tad of kook,
or wild inappropriateness –
all expressions of our love.

(First edition of this poem appeared Feb/’18.  Image from personal collection.  Submitted for Reena’s Exploration challenge, choosing the prompt: silhouette.)

Colourless Expressions

Consciousness commands
a shift of focus
tired of the clash of colours
stimulation overload
my muse is leaning towards
the nuance of black and white

A study of shadows
and shading
and how light
arouses the soul

Speak to me in subtleties
she whispers
in tones suggestive
of hidden depths
I am listening

And so I submerge myself
clear the palette of vibrant hues
and take up the lowly pencil
seek the promise
in a colourless world.

(For Reena’s Exploration challenge:  a colourless world.  Sketch my own.)

Scrambled Reality

quote-when-we-discovered-cubism-we-did-not-have-the-aim-of-discovering-cubism-we-only-wanted-pablo-picasso-84-32-26

Of cubism,
I am ignorant
yet, I relate

To express
depths of perception
concurrent aspects

Of a multi –
imagined
universe

Or even
to embrace
the possibility

of oneness
in fractured
slices…

I pull apart the pieces
re-create the image
still cannot find the whole.

(Reena’s Exploration challenge this week is cubism, a subject I know nothing about, but it does seem to fit with this self-portrait I’ve been working on.  Synchronicity in action.)