<\/p>\n
Re-painting the Cave with Jackson <\/em>When he returned with his learning, He revealed the instability of our reds, We women shuffled and muttered, They made us go elsewhere while they peeled Invited to view his masterpiece, we stood, blinded <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>unformed figure, Jackson Pollock, 1953<\/p>\n
\nfull of bombast and new ideas,
\nhis travel sacks bulging with bright tins
\nthat sprayed thick liquid, which,
\neyes shifty with mischief,
\nhe would demonstrate to anyone prepared to watch,
\nwhile declaring how bored he was
\nwith the clumsy stick figures of cattle,
\nthe sketchy outlines of people,
\nscratched in
\nall that long time ago and fading, the walls yellowed
\nwith smoke from our fires, blotched with the smudges
\nof naughty-fingered children, the stains
\nof badly-cooked food thrown by angry men and boys;
\nwe began, cautiously at first, to listen.<\/p>\n
\nour yellows, tossed out the iron ore we\u2019d used to mix them,
\nour well-worn pestles and mortars, warmed by skilled
\nand loving hands, while mocking our charcoal blacks,
\nour crumbling chalk-whites.<\/p>\n
\nabout his bizarre contraptions that could spray
\nthe highest ceiling without the need to puff dizzily
\ninto bird-bone blowpipes,
\nbut our men and boys listened to his rant,
\nfingered his stiff new brushes, rubbed them on their cheeks,
\ntheir bare chests, relished the prickly tufts.<\/p>\n
\nand scrubbed away the old shapes, the lean-haunched
\ngazelles, bristling with arrows, the hunters bent to their bows,
\nour short-legged, hammock-bellied horses,
\nbut rumours drifted up to us on the hill
\nwhere we\u2019d been sent to wait:
\nof terracotta bodies, bare and writhing, in a colour richer
\nthan the rusty brown of wild plum root,
\nand slashed through with yellows, a chromium that dulled
\nthe old dyes of broom, lichen gold, and of deeper greens,
\nnot found on trees or hillsides.<\/p>\n
\nby this orgy of naked colour, already pining for our past.<\/p>\n