A painter without a brush,
that’s what I’d like to be;
a painter without a brush
or any paint:
to paint with words alone
the things I see,
without too much of artifice,
without restraint.
I’m not sure I could paint you
a sunset sky
in poetry,
and anyway
you know the way it goes:
all crimsons, lilacs, pinks,
the softer shades between
of sunset colours you already know.
Perhaps I could paint you
the sad face of a girl
jilted at the aisle, one summer’s day
you’d see a tear run down her cheek
etched like a figurine
upon the cake
uncut and moist as unbaked clay.
It isn’t my skill to paint with words
the landscape,
or the muted contours of a still-life scene:
I paint with words
the life within those forms
within the words
where truth is often heard, though scarcely seen.
© Experimentsinfiction 2021, All Rights Reserved
Written for dVerse
Laura is hosting Poetics tonight, and has set us a special challenge: write a poem based on the title of a work of art without looking at the artwork first. I love this idea of a reverse-ekphrastic, as I find ekphrastic poetry especially difficult. I therefore used the prompt to put into words my frustrations at trying to write this way. It was not an easy challenge but I certainly enjoyed it. Here is the painting ‘A Painter Without a Brush‘ by Gerhard Richter. My first thought after looking at this? Thank God I didn’t have to write a ekphrastic poem on it!