Abstract, by Marjorie Maddox

Lavender Mist, by Jackson Pollock (USA). 1950.

Abstract

After the Jackson Pollock movie
where Ed Harris won’t stop jabbing
that paintbrush and voice
into my non-cinematic air,
I want to make something big
and screaming.

My friend says I need a wife for that.
My husband agrees, complains he’s one,
but still brings me sandwiches
when I type shut the door,
whispering little words
too small for canvas.

At night, after the children
cry their separation fears,
we watch thrillers on a screen
the size of Pollack’s visions,
high-definition substituted for paint.

What can be super-imposed on this life
I love and flee from to re-create
the concrete, the already-here,
flat and fading on these walls
big enough for the expressionist,
for me?

Marjorie Maddox

This poem was first  published in Marjorie Maddox's book,  Local News from Someplace Else (Wipf and Stock Publishing.)

Sage Graduate Fellow of Cornell University (MFA) and Professor of English and Creative Writing at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published eleven collections of poetry-including True, False, None of the Above;  Wives' Tales; Local News from Someplace Else; Perpendicular As I; Weeknights at the Cathedral; and Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation; the short story collection What She Was Saying; the anthology (co-editor) Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania and four children's books. For more information, please see www.marjoriemaddox.com