Saturday, July 16, 2022

Martha Ronk

 


Mark Rothko, Untitled (Portland, Oregon), 19331933

                            Untitled, Portland (1933)


Aftermath

Rothko’s streak of black paint crosses from left to right             

halted by the frame on either side, its linear extension only surmised

and dredged up as a cry comes as a sharp cut in air

                             all that has happened, color coloring sound

                              what is a natural voice

I can’t even find it when I’m talking out loud no matter the color

                                                                                   of the sky

afterwords not only pages in books        but ones made in air,

on canvas          those iridescent black lines

a distant voice calling used to be a bedroom each of us slept in

out there out the window of what comes next,  

                             birds, crying crows

if nothing in words can be visual, what’s sound on a page

and yet below the black is gray or orange, a kind of silent enigma

                              so many colors

like sounds merging, one’s own and a washed-out ventriloquy

                                liquid moving

as balance wavers, a glass of water on an outstretched hand

                                 as turning silent in the midst of speaking as hearing

voices slipped in, no longer able to speak            sitting in the dark listening

to the highly purpled air, streaks of maroon.

 

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