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John Ash

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Poor Boy: Portrait of a Painting

Difficult to say what all of this is about.
Being young. Or simply arrogance, lack of patience -

a misunderstanding about what the word maturity
can mean when exchanged among real’ adults…

I don’t know what kind of plant that is, but it
is green and has a small red flower

and the glass it strives towards is latticed,
yellowish and cracked. Beyond it

roofs are bunched together like boats
in a popular harbour
and through it the inevitable light falls…

And the light is art! It is arranged so,
over the bed and the pale dead boy,
his astonishing red hair, the shirt rumpled like sculpture,

the breeches…The breeches are a problem:
no-one can decide whether they are blue
or mauve. Versions differ. But the light

is faultless. It can hit anything
whatever the distance, -
for example, the squashed triangle of white lining
to the stiff, mulberry coloured dressing-gown,
the torn-up sheets of poems or pornography,
the oriental blade of pallor above
the boy’s large, left eye-lid or even the small, brown
dope bottle lying on the scrubbed floor
almost at the bottom of the picture. Of course

much depends on the angle. Much remains
obscure, but this only enhances
these significant islands of brilliance,

exposed and absolutely
vulnerable to our interpretation:

there is nowhere he can hide the hand that rests
just above his stomach as if he still felt horribly ill.

 

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