Painting
But completion
arrives in the most
limited sense,
outlines enriched and
filled with lush
darkness, the red of
an accumulated passion
for texture, for subtlety in
shade, the tactile being
one facet shared with
odor and the black hand
on the wall, the
staircase spiraling
upward, resultant desire,
body of lust, this wall, our
doing, the gathered home.
“Painting” first appeared here in December 2015.


Really triggers my imagination … is this painting with oils on canvas? Or much larger brush on room’s wall? That black hand – takes me back to painting my son’s room after he went off to adulthood – trying (failing) to obscure India-ink fingerprints left from his cartoon-drawing frenzies. But the spiral staircase takes me way beyond physical paint in spite of references to texture. Intoxicating poem!
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This was written years ago, after my wife and I painted our loft, which we access via a spiral staircase. The black hand was a gift from a friend. But of course the seed of the poem grew into something else. π
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Intriguing.
And I love how rich your writing is.
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Thank you very much.
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My pleasure!
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A painted black hand on the wall of an ascending staircase… best poem about atheism ever! π
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Even without a Star Wars reference?
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Wait! No reference to Nien Nunb? Worst. Star Wars. poem. ever…
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Ah, my faith in you has been restored,
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Arigatou… or as a Kabuki actor might say it… arigataki shiawase koto de gozaru!!
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π
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This is cushions for my mind. A gentle rest to appreciate the stillness of passing time, and material for soaking in imaginations. Thank you.
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Then I have done my job. Thank you!
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Pingback: Painting, by Okaji – Kedy Prince Kwakye
Oh, I missed this one before! I can vividly smell the charged brush… It’s been 5 years since we moved into our home and never set a brush to a single wall; this will be the year we fix that. π
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There’s something about that odor and the transformation from one hue to another!
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Your words are rich paint. This is incredible. β€
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Thanks very much, Kindra.
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You’re so welcome! π
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And the questionβ arises: Is it yours more, or less? Do cosmetics change that status, or are they simply an indication that it was yours all along?
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In shaping something to your own aesthetics, you may make it more your own. That is, if you don’t destroy it by doing so.
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Reblogged this on Orthometry.
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