The Colors Part 1: Orange

The following is a poem that goes along with three others and a painting; these are collectively named "The Colors". They were an exercise in positive-emotion-expressing poetry that I created in 2018. This first one should strongly engage the intuition.

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Crayonlike tears

Clementine light

The luminosity of burden,

Burning, bright

A weight pressed down

Molten wax seal

The message is delivered:

It tells how to feel.

Ember in a laser beam

Wisdom doused with water

Ineffable assurance

From your intervening author

Frankincense fumes

Astringent sage rite

Clarity emerging:

The medic's great insight.

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Thank you for reading this poem. See my profile (linked below) for parts 2, 3, and 4. If you would like to read about the painting that accompanies the poems, keep reading:

The upper part of the canvas was drawn on with a very fine-tipped pen; I then used a combination of black acrylic, chalkboard, and gray acrylic paint to achieve a multi-shaded black and dark gray below. Those parts combined are meant to be reminiscent of the New York City skyline and aesthetic.

Each of the color patches was inspired by the methodology of Rothko. Each has multiple layers of different variations of the named color, though each also had light gray as the first layer.

The color patch of this poem, Orange, included watercolor in addition to acrylic. The color patch of the second poem, Pink, included a white with blue iridescence. The color patches of the other two are, I believe, standard acrylic.

The upper part of the canvas was drawn on with a very fine-tipped pen; I then used a combination of black acrylic, chalkboard, and gray acrylic paint to achieve a multi-shaded black and dark gray below. Those parts combined are meant to be reminiscent of the New York City skyline and aesthetic.

Each of the color patches was inspired by the methodology of Rothko. Each has multiple layers of different variations of the named color, though each also had light gray as the first layer.

The color patch of this poem, Orange, included watercolor in addition to acrylic. The color patch of the second poem, Pink, included a white with blue iridescence. The color patches of the other two are, I believe, standard acrylic.

[If you don’t want spoilers for the other poems, don’t read on.]

My motivations for choosing the particular version of each color were a matter of having a specific feeling and mindset with a particular shade and hue.

For Orange, I had this image of wax and ancient tombs in my mind. These are things I associate with clairvoyance and other supernatural and ancient practices and items. I wanted to describe what it felt like to instantly know how you are supposed to feel; rather than not knowing or simply feeling in the moment, having a gut feeling of what one ought to feel is a sort of dissociated, pseudo-telepathic mode of feeling, though it can still be intense. I have had this experience, in the overwhelmingly intense form, a number of times; in the year or so preceding the writing of Orange alone, there were at least three.

For Pink, I was trying to conjure the feeling of a crush or butterflies. I would not admit that at the time, but that was the inspiration. To me, that feeling was a shimmering bubblegum pink.

As for Yellow, I’m not sure at what point I started associating the color yellow with intellectuals and scholarly items and activities, but that was an association I formed which was the basis of that choice of color. To me, the reading nooks and the like that I tried to evoke the images of in the corresponding poem all elicit positive emotions and nostalgia for me, and I believe the poem reflects that in its tone. So this one is more conceptual, but it still is overall positive.

For Indigo, what I had in mind was a bit different- I wanted to express some queer feelings, and I chose to use surreal imagery to try to accomplish that. Indigo, I thought, paired well with neutrals, and I imagined an anonymously tall and lanky queer woman clad in those colors.

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