​“Paint it Black” by Lou Ventura

Abstract Painting, by Ad Reinhardt (USA) 1963

​“Paint it Black” 
 
“I see a red door
And I want it painted black
No colours anymore
I want them to turn black”
– The Rolling Stones 1966
 
“A colour in art is not a colour.
Colourlessness in art is not
colourlessmess.” 
– Ad Reinhardt, Lugano Review, 1966
 
Didn’t Mick and Keith realize “Paint it Black” had 
been done? That they’d come to the party several years too 
late? Or were they each having conversations 
 
with themselves, separately in their own heads?
Like the conversation I’m having now, this morning,
the same conversation one might have 
 
standing in front of your black canvas, 
apparently monochromatic, but actually composed 
with variation in line and intensity, 
 
a two-way stream of nothingness populating 
the distracted mind, hearing a voice contained in the canvas, 
not uttered at the canvas, but somehow being 
 
repeated in my head, 
as if imbedded there by its very darkness
insinuating itself inside the brain
 
like a stylus following the grooves of synapses, 
those electrified connectors, 
in a mass of gray and silent matter. 
 
A conversation best represented in a colour 
that is all colours, comprehensive and inclusive, 
closed but strangely open, 
 
a kind of claustrophobic reckoning 
with infinity, and comforting, 
like nature’s darkness before it is interrupted 
 
perhaps at 7:21 a.m. on a January morning 
by a quickening of light barely perceptible
that reveals a flock of common grackles 
 
foraging on a grassy portion of yard, 
a suddenly visible oasis among the 
snowy, frozen landscape.
 
Lou Ventura
 
Lou Ventura lives in Olean, NY.  His poetry and prose have appeared in several publications including The Worcester Review, Sledgehammer, and Sein und Werden. His poetry collection, Bones So Close to Telling, is published by Foothill Publishing.