Poem · The Road to Singapore Leads Through Mississippi, Part 2
Randy McGraw
Red polished smooth, yet black begins to rise,a dark beneath the bright that time abrades.Each meal has rubbed a scripture in disguise,a gloss that thins but never quite decays.
The rim is worn to second skin,its gleam both loss and origin.What fades appears the more complete,a hollow surface, vast, replete.
The trunks are mist, the mist becomes their ground,a forest leaning into open air.What branches trace is scarcely what is found,the ink repeats a form not really there.
The white between is dense as bark,a silence darkly drawn as spark.What seems unfinished proves the frame,a nothing large enough to name.
A crest of foam becomes a clawing hand,the mountain steadies, small as single word.The boats are splinters rowing into sand,the water speaks but cannot be implored.
The storm rehearses patterned grace,a script that drowns the human face.The greater form is not the sea,but silence posed as mastery.
A man extends a vessel toward the stream,its belly round, its mouth too small to catch.The fish is ink, the gesture half a dream,the paradox becomes the perfect match.
The gourd is smooth, the water slips,a comic laugh on painted lips.What cannot work performs the cure,a riddle framed to leave obscure.
A jaded figure clothed in robes of fire,the fabric alters as the seasons turn.Its stillness glitters with a dressed attire,yet jade within refuses robe’s concern.
The shimmer prays where fracture sleeps,a quiet stone the fabric keeps.What shines the most is least to see,a gleam that veils antiquity.
A thousand flames entangle into sky,their gilded creatures wrestle night and day.The wall repeats what passes cannot buy,a war performed in ornamental play.
The lotus blooms in painted fire,a form both shrine and funeral pyre.What moves in gold can never rest,a tale retold but unconfessed.
A papier grin with ivory for teeth,its painted snarl rehearses myth in gold.The dancer breathes an ordinary breath beneath,while eyes protrude in lacquered, glaring bold.
The jaw is set, the role devours,a visage stitched with borrowed powers.The face dissolves inside the play,and nothing true can look that way.
A loom repeats geometry by thread,a pattern set before the cloth was born.The warp is ancient, though the weft has fled,a fabric whole though endlessly outworn.
The threads conceal the hand’s mistake,a flaw no pattern can unmake.The cloth appears a perfect line,though every strand departs design.
A pastel bird ascends a peony cloud,its wings enamel, sky a painted gloss.The glaze insists the hybrid song is loud,yet fired clay remembers every loss.
The bloom repeats, the phoenix flies,their colors mask the fractured guise.What holds the water tells no tale,except through hairline in the pale.
The wax resists, the dye invades the seam,a leaf divides itself in mirrored hue.The cloth repeats a pattern like a dream,yet every flaw invents itself anew.
The crackle maps a second skin,an accident that folds within.What looks designed is half-surprise,a shape that slips from human eyes.
A single stroke declares its flowing law,the brush descends, the silence takes its place.The mark is speech before the tongue can draw,its clarity the shadow of its grace.
The ink still drips where meaning dries,a sign that blurs as soon as prized.The word is formed, yet breaks its sound,a voice erased but written down.
The chalk arranges alphabets in rows,the board rehearses speech as discipline.A hand repeats what every pupil knows,yet dust outlives the lessons written in.
The air records what cloth erases,ghost syllables in drifting traces.The blackboard shines as if it spoke,but every word dissolves in smoke.
The surface shines, a mask of what is gone,its shimmer bends around the absent core.The art persists by what it stumbles on,a gap more radiant than what it wore.
The loss repeats as perfect gain,a gleam composed of ash and stain.The seen is shadow of the true,the not-seen brighter shining through.
© Randy McGraw. From The Road to Singapore Leads Through Mississippi, Part 2. Reproduced here by the author; no reproduction or use without written permission.
Selected poems