H
H
by A.g. Synclair
suppose an impressionist
dared immortalize you
on stretched canvas and easel
brushstrokes damp in sepia
and something called
Zap Green
I could frame you
closer to the bone
than marrow
your air
the resurrection
of a hanged man
Elegant little e.e. cummings meets w.c.williams in form/style here (not to take away from your personal touch which is content). i appreciated the ‘suppose’ at beggining of poem–haven’t heard that very much where a poet will draw in the reader with a proposal. That’s interactive! The editor’s choice of pic really got my blood pumpin’ too–like an erotic Mary Engelbreit fantasy formaggio!
Words in poem: Sepia: “Sepia is a dark brown-grey color, named after the rich brown pigment derived from the ink sac of the common cuttlefish Sepia.The word sepia is the Latinized form of the Greek σηπία, sÄ“pÃa, cuttlefish.” (Wikipedia).
I didn’t like the sound of ‘sepia’ at first cause it reminded me of septic…but after researching the definition i’m liking it more…there’s such history in definition! Some poets, like myself, will shy away from words that have sounds similar to other common words thus lending a connotation thru sound. It’s just an odd observation of how poets use their craft. The denotation of ‘special all-star key words in a poem’, of course, is more important but probably more academic.
But the poet comes back in the 6th line with a very ‘pop’sounding color–‘zap green’. Loved that!
The 3rd and 4th stanzas get to the meat of the poem–or the ‘marrow’, literally. lol. So what may the theme be here, one may ask? Well, once the subject (the reader might imagine this as him/herself) is immortalized on canvas, the poet (possibly the painter) says in the 3rd stanza: “I could frame you closer to the bone than marrow”. Marrow is inside a bone. One might presume from this that the act of ‘immortalizing’ someone in paint is a gross inaccuracy and impossibility. Not only this, in the 4th stanza the poem ends with this seaming reproach: “your air the resurrection
of a hanged man.” So i think the poem is pointing out the vanity of human nature, or the extremes of its possibilities, and is saying basically that our mortality is what makes us what we are–that is the marrow! Either this or the author hates impressionism. Just kidding. Well done, sir! I enjoyed the read very much!