pigment rebellion

for those, like myself, who wish they could paint as well as they write.

there’s now a tube of ochre paint
with a faint crust along the edge. 
the dried pigment has darkened
with time. widowed of the water, 
it is a sallow skeleton.

I was eleven, back then, when 
the salesman swindled 
me of a tenth of a benjamin
selling me a stellar sunset. 

in the basement, with a mischievous
grin, I filled my 
palette with ochre and umber
and a drop of violet. 

my Muse was not pleased.
she'd told me to stick with words;
she’d never given me permission
to paint anything. 

the ochre touched my brush,
but I met her angry eye.
the air was too thick, 
and the canvas swirled
like a carousel in my head. 

I quickly cleaned my palette,
condemned the canvas to the cold
basement, and refilled the ink 
in my pen, spilling it, as if that, 
too, was a pigment rebellion.

decades later, I still keep 
that tube of paint on my shelf. 
just too tricky, just too wet, a sunset
never could’ve been content with it, 
I convince myself. 

but I know the deeper truth. 
the mind and body always duel
with each other, like bitter
siblings. my mind decided

to paint a sunset, but didn’t check
if my body could embody it.
and since it refused, and my muse
knew it, she never let me 
touch that ochre pigment again. 

I wonder what that ochre could’ve 
become if it was sold into better hands.

a daffodil’s shadow, the linen of a book, 
the tassel of a graduate, the sunset
in a springtime forest? 

but now, it is dry, and will never touch a canvas.
maybe my ethics are ridiculous, 
but I feel pretty bad for it. 

so, I talked it over with my Muse, 
and she didn’t refuse my request
to write my eulogy for wasted pigment.

make some art of your rebellion, she said.

---

merkurymann

wrote a wonderful poem based off this one. Check it out here!

The Pigment Tradition