25 March 2013

Tuesday Poem: When X Doesn't Mark the Spot

When X Doesn't Mark the Spot 

There are images we can use
to explain how you are
feeling

We can say that
you have run out of masks
I ask you who you are
and you can only say
who you once have been

You are an actor
on stage
without a script
without a costume
the spotlight shines brightly
as you stand
alone and naked
on an empty stage

Another metaphor
is that you are a painting
all the colours have been removed
even the under drawing
the lines to guide the brush
have gone
all that is left is the primer
all that you have left is
a bare white canvas
and the knowledge that somewhere
underneath
there is a painting
waiting to be
discovered.


This was the first poem of mine to ever get published (well, anywhere other than the school magazine), back in, um 1995 maybe? It was in Poetry NZ, and I was very proud. I'm posting this in honour of the subject, who has had to put up with being in quite a few of my poems over the years. She's just had a special birthday and is coming to stay, briefly, for she is a woman of itchy feet.

More Tuesday Poems over here: http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.co.nz/

1 comment:

Michelle Elvy said...

This has some zip to it, as well as some unidentified sadness. I like how you manage that. And I like the title.

Itchy feet -- that's a good thing, too.