The Visit

A poem that doesn't rhyme.

 

The Visit

© 2008 Mark Pearce 

 

 

 

November 29, 2001.

 

I remember that night.

It was my fifteenth wedding anniversary.

 

He sat there, in the hall,

in a simple plastic chair.

Another man – who looked a lot like

Eric Clapton – sat beside him.

Both were dressed in green, surgical scrubs.

 

The two were engaged in pleasant conversation

admiring a painting at the end of the hall.

It was a work that I had painted, and lost,

many years prior.

Lost to me, but I saw it again that night –

 

On a gradient field of yellow and orange

an aquamarine, Rorschach-like blot

suggestive of a horse – its four legs tapering

into foreshortened nothingness.

 

The two men liked the painting.

Aggressively liked it.

Congratulated me on it, in fact,

giving me a new enthusiasm for my art.

 

That night I felt very pleased

and proud.

 

I woke up to the news that

George Harrison had died

the previous evening.

 

It was so nice of him to have stopped by.

 

 

Author's Note

I hope that you read English.

Reviews

[jen -- JG]

A poem doesn't have to rhyme to tell a beautiful story.

The ease of this, the flow of words have a essense of their own making, in fact a rhythm of livng and moving on.

A Physic vision, out of body experience, a dream or a scene in a meditation, this is an abostle gem.

Thank you for writing this one.

Cheers

jen

[Ken Simm.]

Excellent work. A Jungian experience.

[Emily B]

This is a gem. I wonder that it took me so long to find it. The strong brush strokes of a lost painting. I wondered about the two men in scrubs. A story within a story. Intriguing and mysterious and meditative. This is excellent work.

[Noah Ellis]

Great Poem! I loved the rich images. And the matter of fact way the poem reads. As if everything happening in it was no big deal. Like someone talking to a friend or a person writing in a diary. The wonderful observations you added in to the piece bring it to life and keep it from being bland. Great stuff, very down to earth and anti-romantic stuff, reminded me of Bucowski. Great job!

[Donald Meikle]

Loss is oddly repetitive is it not? And what a pair to keep your attention on a fifteenth wedding anniversary.
I lost The Last Supper once. It has yet to turn up. The guy said he loved it. Still married?

[Michelle Tarnowski]

English? No. Oh wait....yes I do. I was thinking how I would have liked to have been sitting behind them hearing what they said. It is funny that you used the form of a dream to convey your poem, sometimes I wake up in the night and have to write what I heard or saw in a dream or it haunts me until I do.

[[untitled]]

Wow! I wish I had written this! The words have such a dreamlike and magical quality to them. Was this inspired by a dream? Some illusion to inspiration? It opens the readers mind in such a clear way to the prose. I think it is wonderful to read.

[Silent Kim aka mizmetap..]

Very engrossing, wonderful visual words that brought me into that hall with you all.

[holly]

Your careful selection of words adds to the pull of two very different feelings conveyed in this poem. It's intelligent without losing heart-sense. I'm glad I read English so I can appreciate its subtlety.