Gentle Hues

I dream of the colours that seeped out of the substance of the earth

Finding better places to be

The blinking blue of the sky,

The wet wash of the sea,

Storm grey, lachrymose

An infused broth and vapour

Foaming convalescent on the glass

Above the raging chemistry in bewildering spin

Lurking black, bleaching white

Fanged green and demented red,

Pink flesh, chaos orange, the magisteria of purple, the feast of yellow –

Keep them.

I would give a sack of silver for a mystery azure

I would trade a pound of gold for honest brown.

There is wealth on the palette of the world,

Colour me crazy,

with those left over.

I’ll take that outcast, wring out the prism invisible

Gloss mud through opalescence

For oft the lens is more valuable than the rainbow it creates.