calling them by name

calling them by name

think of a colour, any colour

is it threatened?

will it thrive?

sky-sill yonder, you must imagine

and over, peering, see

blue is the colour of up

just for instance

aurora pinking

blossoming cheek

apple in the drawer rots

the robin in the cage

there are corpse colours

vanishings from and till do us part

seas of all shades, beaches

come grain by grain – eternities

then the eye travels

to catch

frondingly green, a jungle

tip of the tongue

is a damp patch of colour

prism of sap and bark

you could live there

or begin with other fruit –

a shade told each

peach to nose…

eat from the tree

kind of a crocodile hue lurks

swampwise, just as likely to snap

…

these are the naturally occurring …

all of these colours are ours if we see

but who? and how? threw paint?

drew line?

a whistle blows and all adorned

yellow for a tunnel ending

parchment as we pull away

a float-by palette for depicting

by brush and stipple, take a tide

or there are pictures of nothing at all

say rose and everyone will know

symbols! dialect tones

colours halfway familiar

others we are yet to discern

and here are the colours of things

all sorts just themselves

I mean that some things simply are their own colour

(think tint, ramp up saturation, scale away the grey)

beachtowel or piano, swan either side

butter and the sun, a rage

socks and in the dream

of course there is your skin

continuous with others

the colour of your touch

…endearments

and when the colouring’s out

as after fire

and in the fore-dawn

not yet sung

letters are colours

and numbers are too

(blood and the colour of money)

but tell me the breeze

can you catch this breath?

listen, sniff, touch

any language has its own colour –

names of all the beetles, clouds

make a synaesthete’s rainbow of these

every colour’s a language too

take a bath, blow bubbles

then in a picture where everything’s borrowed

books on a shelf until dust

won’t you?

(it’s a kind of dare)

ask what’s my lucky colour (?)

I’ll take the rain falling

say see-through

chicken, egg

trickle of persistence

lie in a rug, cloth of gold

threads of which a told story

or track along a printed circuit

(actually in the picture then)

there are shades of, for instance

butterfly, mud

world’s curve – what colour?

music is nothing but

and what are the colours of dizzy?

how are your differences told?

like a bicycle chews up road as it goes

seasons of leaf unfolding

leaves fall

gives us the colours gone

(historic pigment, flag to blush)

what you see is only reflecting

colours are on parade –

a uniform and tin soldiers spread

in the air and on the waves

harshest colours creep over a map

(the old invasions a matter of fact)

the colour of plastic is choking on fish

colour of coal smoke sinks islands, archipelagos

raises up the deeps

rivers run

all of the oceans are one

then see you later, will we?

what colour are the stars?

they’re hot!

put on your dragonfly suit

all who are here –

shall we say that the colour is survival –

vivid!

a rainbow put out for pride?

time and past time

to show true colours

let the green all come back

where a forest will grow

keep the dot blue

as far as we go