Painter, by Amy Louise Wyatt

Title Unknown (the Matchstick Men paintings), by L.S. Lowry (USA). Date unknown- prob. '40s or '50s.

Painter
 
Outside this window is a Lowry.
Thick white sky, painted around
 
stiff terracotta chimney pots:
not quite straight/ smoke can’t
 
travel in a line/ people relate
to imperfect things, anyhow.
 
Stick men trapped in tableau
of oil and turpentine; a mass
 
of layers and fixings; my viscous
realisation of you.   Elucidation
 
in snow and gloom; in bright
white pain; or grey confusion.
 
Noxious candyfloss urban scene;
a city with black lungs;
 
factories puffing dirty smokers’
breath into claustrophobic panorama.
 
You, flattered with colour;
naïve; matchstick unstruck.
 
This window does not complicate.
It caught you in a grid:
 
segmented/ abstracted. 
You wouldn’t recognise yourself.
 
Still, I see so much of myself,
in what I’ve made of you.
 
Amy Louise Wyatt
 
Amy Louise Wyatt is a lecturer, poet and artist from Bangor, N.I.  She has had work published in a range of literary journals and magazines. Amy has read her poetry on The BBC Arts Show and at festivals throughout Ireland . She is the editor of The Bangor Literary Journal and was shortlisted for the Seamus Heaney Award for New Writing 2018. amylouisewyatt.com

---