Wednesday, January 5, 2011

This poem was published in the speculative fiction anthology, Masques back in 2008. I might as well share it here as well now. It was inspired by an unusual self-portrait I saw where the subject was actually hidden behind a strange, plastic mask.

Outside the frame

Hidden behind multi-coloured plastic,
shaped as molten wax -
devil’s deal to hide a world?

Eyes agape through carven holes as
bare mouth hides behind that slash.
A scream or laughing out loud?

Might you be sneering at the world
within your visored fastness of
flesh and petro-chemical bricks?

Or screaming to be freed from
plasticised alien embrace
in colours like bad acid?

Maybe it is ET’s dreams,
drawn across your human face as
beautiful, insane nebulae.

Hey – any room in there for me?

2 comments:

Caroline Hagood said...

There's something so wonderful and secretive about this. I find it frightening and exhilarating.

Wordsmiff said...

Thanks Caroline. The picture in question was actually on the wall outside my poetry tutor's office at uni back in 2008. It bugged me every time I walked past it and one day I just sat on the floor, staring it with pen in hand and the poem resulted. I pretty much sweated blood over a short story for that Masques anthology but that was rejected waaay quickly. Yet I only sub'd the poem as an aside, not expecting it to be published. Anyway, at least it allowed me to add 'published poet' to my CV. LOL