His eyes look over our left shoulder
searching in an unseen mirror,
pondering his own reflective self.
White stands for thought he’d said.
But these thoughts are dark and blue.
Does he pause on which brush he should use?
Or on the sombre music of his past? I have
done better work since I stopped drinking.
Thank you, Theo, for the fifty francs.
He keeps an eye on us. You do not know
what it costs in pain and paint to make it true.
The cheekbone juts, the ear, towards which
the strokes which form his smock all point,
is not in shadow. A wind plays in ginger hair.
It bristles. Is he about to tell a truth?
Has he found himself? Can he? This time?
His thumb clamps the palette, his visage
is veiled. There he is, this musician in colours,
in a major key. Power flows into the stroke,
hammerlng his music of tones.
I had rather been a shoemaker.
The blue cavern behind his head darkens.
Will he shake off the grey? This time?
The blue tones swirl clockwise,
encounter the heavy painter’s smock rising widdershins. Does he recall the crossing
of an ancient church, the damned falling,
the saved rising, swirling round his head?
In the tower of his past a clock tolls.
Has that hand which holds the colours
made it true?
©Terry Hodgson2020
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