John Nimmo, Archives
Rothko's No. 14, 1960 [Published: Fall 2004]
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.
I have published poems in Rattle, Stirring, Snakeskin, Poetalk, Electric Acorn, and Sidereality. In 2002 I won First Prize for Rhymed Verse in the Foster City International Writers Contest. I have studied with accomplished poets including Sharon Olds and Kim Addonizio. My career is in environmental physics, specializing in ground-water problems. My poetry website is at www.rubydoor.org/jnpoet.htm.
This poem copyright 2005 John Nimmo. Do not reproduce without permission.