Fauves of Luxury, Calm, and Desire, by Janiru Liyanage

Luxury, Calm, and Desire, by Henri Matisse (France) 1904.

Fauves Of Luxury, Calm and Desire

1.
They stand there,
each one with a throat - a reservoir
of furious words,

beating themselves into being,
dragging, their songs out,
slowly, untangling that urgency,
pulling limbs over their heads 

2.
Their words are heavy,
Their questions, bigger than themselves,
all swallowed by
colour spiralling, into bodies,
expressing the emotions

they almost felt -
there on that dry plane, their body
questions -

there, with the unparceled
twirling of time,
in their mouths
are the compounding rhythm of question

Watching the day
whirl away
 
Slowly, with their feet,
they coax the sun back

3.
I can no longer speak the emotions,
the way I first could

the way, I first said
couleur 
instead of
colour

the way I’d
doubte
instead of
question

Like that painting -
that fauve,

I am beating the words,
so desperately I want to say,
into being

but all of them, are lodged
in my mouth, drowned  

At night, my eyes flecked with remorse,
my eyelids slowly doming shut,
I’d watch old
French movies,
hoping the weight of each word would
sink back in

There, battering the wall
with white TV light,

I sleep,
quietly echoing hymnals from my mouth
for no one to hear,

scraping each syllable from my throat,
my tangled tongue of want,
a roving beast -

and in that transcendental state,
each word is a wish

Janiru Liyanage 

Janiru is a fourteen year old Sri-Lankan/Australian student and poet who lives in Sydney. Aside from poetry, he loves maths and has received numerous awards in both national and international math competitions/olympiads. He is the 2019 junior winner of the national Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards and is also a prolific participant and winner of poetry slams. His work is forthcoming or appears in [PANK], The Journal Of Compressed Creative Arts & elsewhere. Having just begun his personal poetic journey, Janiru is eager to find his own voice in his work.