Paint, Wet and Dry

For an artist, watching paint dry
     Is painful in a different way.
            As stars fade at the draw of day,
     Fluid figures solidify.

      And faces painted wet as eyes,
            From pallets, pink and white with blush,
      Lose color, even as the brush
            Stirs life into September skies.

So inky black, and slippery white,
      Were mixed into deep liquid blues,
            And there were oceans in those hues,
                 That yet were set to fill the night.

But sketched on canvases belie,
      The scenes, the dreams, so idealized;
            The scheme that might memorialize
                  A perfect moment lost to time.

But we cannot have it both ways.
      Our minds are pallets, quickly drying.
   While we are panting, painting, dying;
      Trying to outline hazy days.

Author's Note

All comments are welcome.

Reviews

[TL Boehm]

Fluid figures solidify.

And faces painted wet as eyes,
From pallets, pink and white with blush,
Lose color, even as the brush
Stirs life into September skies.

this is lovely work - looks like you are absent from the room these days. Wonderful poem though.

[jacob erin-cilberto]

"trying to outlive hazy days" "can't have it both ways"

we paint the memories in our minds and on the page as poets---that secures they will stay with us...yet we often write them as therapy to forget them, to get closure...so yes, it is a complicated contradiction.

you make such nice use of rhyme here...so subtle.

[Tom]

Tremendous indeed, you have encapsulated the artist's genius and how he/she interprets and creates a scene from life onto the canvas !

Eloquently portrayed with creative metaphorical imagery, perhaps even a masterpiece !!