Colours, by John C. Mannone

Abstraktes Bild [599], by Gerhard Richter (Germany) 1986

Colours

            after Nuno Júdice


 
If you wish to paint the colour

of my heart, start with a palette
of your smiles, and soft-brush
my face with the marigold sun

shining on yours; the meadow
green of your eyes for mine.
Your lambent blue whispers
in my ear burn azure as the sky.
 
But this only colors the blood

in my veins. I breathe you in,

inhale the scarlet of passion.

I quiver incarnadine. Our lips
blend together, grisailled with
the charcoal of our shadows.
Pencil each stroke intensely

purple, just as our moans.
 
You will then see the colour
of my heart

          melt in your hands.

John C. Mannone

This poem was inspired by the painting shown, and by a poem by Nuno Judice.
Receita Para Fazer Azul, by Nuno Júdice (Portugal). 1994.  (Translated by Richard Zenith.)

John C. Mannone has work in/forthcoming in Adanna, Anacua, Number One, Artemis, Poetry South, and others. He won a Jean Ritchie Fellowship in Appalachian literature (2017) and served as the celebrity judge for the National Federation of State Poetry Societies (2018). He’s a retired professor of physics living near Knoxville, TN. http://jcmannone.wordpress.com