Black Square, by Patrick Wright

Black Square, by Kazimir Malevich (Russia, b. Ukraine) 1913.

Black Square

In this light the surface is a black mirror. I don’t want to see 
myself seeing back, not seeing black. Behind cut glass a black 
cat in a coal bunker, fur curled in a corner. Learn to see flat, 
see flatly in the way Freud listened. Does matt paint glisten – 
a sea creature raised from lightlessness; or is this vantablack, 
sense-deprivation, an anechoic chamber? The only sound is 
the nervous system, heart hurtling inside my cranium. Here 
I see the starlessness between galaxies, the black of nothing 
quite happening, of consciousness closing, fastening. Could 
this be a Madonna and Child, figures excised (suprematist and 
still a mother and child)? And this black has a dead Christ 
uncanniness (Holbein’s panel for Prince Myshkin). This is 
also Gallipoli, field artillery (out into history). Closer, this is 
only a semblance of black: stygian tones, a rainbow, the web 
of a shattered phone. A buffalo, torso, legs, a head hurrying 
towards some wilderness.

Patrick Wright

​Patrick Wright has a poetry pamphlet, Nullaby, published by Eyewear. His poems have appeared in several magazines, including Agenda, Wasafiri, The Reader, London Magazine, Poetry Quarterly, Ink, Sweat and Tears, and Iota. His poem ‘The End’ was recently included in The Best New British and Irish Poets Anthology 2018, judged by Maggie Smith. He has also been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize. He works as a Lecturer at The Open University where he teaches Creative Writing.