A Painting of a Painting on Fire, by Kevin Jones

Yellow and Orange Abstract by Roger (Syd) Barrett (Britain) 2006

A Painting of a Painting on Fire
for Ryan
 
He lies along the roadside, his chin and elbows 
working a triangular dentation into a scraggly patch of grass, 
where the only flower he’s seen all day, maybe ever, 
lifts its face to be bathed in light and snapped still, 
captured in metal and magnets.
 
With the daisy face the size of his head, 
he covers one eye to lose perspective. 
With a brazen edge he slathers and scores a just interpretation. 
Eliminating at once the insworn relation,
he cuts the visual accord with a very real knife. 
 
The shreds are scattered and swept like petals across St. Margaret’s Square.
 
Now the light is artificial and aimed with shadow consideration. 
The paste hardens with the resolve of an Italian mosaic.
It’s the same camera and lens, 
the same iris and dilated pupil. 
It’s the same lens again, bent on a new purpose. 
 
He leans in and visions the change, 
Embraces for a moment the weighty detail of exposure, 
erases any false impression of life. 
As much as one relies on another, 
two can never be fully justified. 
 
Is it the weight or the depth, the perspective or the density that is right for sacrifice? 
 
He reaches for the secret, but it's too soon...
so he strikes a match and flashes back 
to where the imprint of his chin has filled with rain, 
and the fire burns like fire paint,

daisy yellow on daisy white.

Kevin Jones

Kevin Jones believes in the power of poetry to promote healing and inspire social change. He is Assistant Professor of Social Work at University of Portland (Oregon, USA) conducting research on the therapeutic effects of poetry writing for youth who have experienced trauma. He studied poetry writing with David Wagoner at the Richard Hugo House in Seattle and his poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Juniper, Two if by Sea, Ayaskala Review, Bamboo Hut, Lilliput Review, Pathos, and South District Journal. He lives in Portland, Oregon.