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Adrian Atterbury

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The Yellow Room

A man dressed in blue, in a yellow room
Smiled as he wrote poetry
Inspired by a picture on his wall.
The poem was about a woman writing a book.
The book was not in itself violent
But contained a subplot
With a deranged character
Obsessed with the colour green
Who made films about other people’s books.
A character in one film who dressed in yellow
Had a tendency to murder female authors,
However the woman writing the book
Countered with another subplot
About a female author who dressed in yellow
And, though her books were normally placid,
Wrote a play about a psychopathic girl
Who loved the colour red
And who teamed up with a man in yellow
To burst into a yellow room
And shoot the man they found behind a desk.
The picture opposite the desk
Was of a man and a woman dressed in red
Being married in a field of yellow tulips
By a priest dressed in green.
Standing over them was a figure in the sky
Outlined in blue.
They stood and looked at the picture for some
                                                                time.
Until the poem was finished, in fact.

 

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