Crazed caught on canvas, caught in colour,
thought tempered in sweeping strokes,
we can be carried away in seas of grass,
coral greens awash in the garden,
catch the canvas before its fold finds favour
in other fields the mind has yet to fathom,
we can be crazy. Quick comes the crow
upon the harvest, bleak beacons,
art is not always to be understood
nor the artist always allowed the freedom
to express; we want cream walls
and canvases to comfort the canapé,
expression doesn’t always please the pattern.
Crazed comes to life on canvas, see
how he called to us; potato faced pickers
pealing in broken browns, aged in ochre,
acrylic is not a cover up, the canvas is not
a vision of vanity, even the sun flowers wilt
before the irises of our eyes. Fields, fields,
far flung fields of amber grain, far from home,
far from fame, trying to catch the elusive light
bearing down on the bails of honeyed hay
before the black wings hanging in the horizon,
painting eyes, other’s eyes for us to learn from,
to weep for the long loss after the colour
no longer connects. Quick, catch creation
before it catches fire, before it ricochets in a bed
in Anvers-sur-Oise, electricity only illuminated
the intensity, insanity is not always sedated
after the shock. Colour cannot be captured
by constraints in a brass bed with brown
leather straps. Colour is conveyed on canvas,
in connections, in the bend the brush makes
to blend, in the waves the stars twist
into that night sky, in the lines of letters
to brothers who know us to be better
than the light sometimes allows.
He was a captive to the colour,
a captive to the canvas, to the voices
dark and distant, cut it off and the voices
still come a calling. Capture colour
before they caption you as crazy.

All words and paintings by Damien B. Donnelly

34th poem for National Poetry Writing Month