Spectral smears
on patches of oil
floating in a warm puddle
on the sidewalk
nearby
swirls of rainbow taffy
melt in the sun
a feast for ants.
– matt at shadow of iris
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She weaves a rainbow
high above her head
a bright swath for all to see,
they say that she’s obedient
to a fault.
Chiefs of state address
unintelligible questions
and apply unorthodox procedures
to erect a superstructure
with great care
but it comes down quickly
when the winter comes
and the winds begin to blow.
A vague human form,
an outline of a man
but too long and lanky;
a head like a football helmet
but made of bone
and old
and cracked;
all of mankind’s ills
balled up together
into yarn, web, and wires
then aged a thousand years
and spread out again
then lifted
and tossed over his shoulders
covering him like a net
or a shawl
and melting into his body
melding with it
into something strange and new
and yet frighteningly old;
a place for snakes, lizards, insects
and vermin;
a small, sad boy
hangs up tiny mementoes
among the shrapnel of his body,
dimunitive emblems
that contain photos
of his mother and father,
his aunts and uncles;
little bits of hope
amid the miasma of decay.
Conspiracies and lies,
dreams that hold you
and won’t let go;
a dark angel that lives
in an orange box
strung around the neck
of a ghoul
with a thick oxygen tube
that stretches up
to a head
that is hollow.
– matt at shadow of iris
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[Inspired by the work of Barry Windsor-Smith and Zdzislaw Beksinski.]
D. H. Lawrence is one of the guiding lights here, as well as the rainbow:
The Rainbow
Even the rainbow has a body
made of the drizzling rain
and is an architecture of glistening atoms
built up, built up
yet you can’t lay your hand on it,
nay, nor even your mind.
– D. H. Lawrence
“And then, in the blowing clouds, she saw a band of faint iridescence colouring in faint colours a portion of the hill. And forgetting startled, she looked for the hovering colour and saw a rainbow forming itself. In one place it gleamed fiercely, and, her heart anguished with hope, she sought the shadow of iris where the bow should be.”
From D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow.
