The Power of Red, by Sue Wallace-Shaddad

Composition Six, by Wassily Kandinsky (Russia) 1913

The Power of Red
 
Cinnabar so like cinnamon
in name, exotic in nature, 
toxic mercury at its heart.
 
The Romans knew its vermilion
power; Titian clothed
his figures in its deep red.
 
Ground to powder, its flame 
illuminated manuscripts, 
monks’ records of godly faith.
 
Now a modern master
deepens the storm flood
he creates, a flurry
 
of competing angles, lines,
curves and yellowed space, 
stamped with carmine edge.
 
So many people sucked
into the maelstrom of war,
each generation unforgiving,
 
intractable, swallowed
in a whirlpool of hate,
bloodied eyes, blood-red.

Sue Wallace-Shaddad

Sue Wallace-Shaddad has an MA in Writing Poetry from Newcastle University/Poetry School London. Her short collection A City Waking Up was published by Dempsey and Windle October 2020. Sue was highly commended in the Plough Prize, 2021 and has many poems published online and in anthologies. Sue writes poetry reviews and is Secretary of Suffolk Poetry Society. 
 https://suewallaceshaddad.wordpress.com/