Archives :: John Nimmo
Rothko's No. 14, 1960
Appeared in the Fall 2004 issue.
Orange
glows, grows, explodes
out of the painting.
Blue
below, fuses into the dark
brown that surrounds.
Nearly nothing,
it recedes. It sinks.
It tries not to be there.
Together
they become
plus-minus, in-out,
boy-girl, up-down, pain-joy,
hot-cold, push-pull, scream-gasp.
Smudges
mar the orange.
Explosions are messy.
Purity turns to dirt.
Without crud
how could it glow?
The blue has sucked itself clean.
Mark, this is obvious.
Rectangles
fill space and fit
with nothing between.
They are bricks, windows,
postage stamps, driveways,
scarves, credit cards,
beds, books, sarcophagi,
sarongs, doors, bathmats,
suitcases, milk cartons,
quilts, Persian carpets,
almost every sheet of paper I’ve seen in my life,
and oil paintings.
Balance
draws me in.
Retroceding blue repulses.
Fulminating orange attracts.
I can walk away,
take the balance
out of the room,
and leave No. 14
sucking and glowing.
View bio information and additional poems published in Half Drunk Muse on the author's main archive page.
Copyright 1999-2008 John Nimmo.