I’ve been slowly evolving from my photographic practice to include other forms of creative expression such as drawing, writing, etc. What I find stimulating in these experiments is the combination of art forms. Here is my latest, combining photography and… poetry. I have posted other poems, the kind that rhyme, on this site, but this one doesn’t. I am a complete novice at this and I’ve rewritten this one so many times, my computer screen is raw and bleeding. And I’ll probably rewrite this again, maybe add to it and most assuredly remove it. It was inspired by a photograph that I took while waiting for a train at Viau Metro Station, sitting facing the empty opposite platform. This space, that I almost never see so vacant, was the ideal stage to replay a scene that I’ve witnessed several times before, or maybe just dreamed.
The girl on the opposite platform
Invisible passengers invest the station,
shapeless spirits over ordered tiles
dragging listless footsteps along the platform
momentum dampened by distant trains.
A girl glides smoothly over silent strides
tracing an arc like a plane on final approach.
She stops to lift her head through parting hair,
her glance across the void a vision of someone in a mirror.
No one speaks, voices quelled by parallel lines
engulf the dream in a rumbling rush of ruthless noise
and a blurring smear of glass and plastic.
As departing chaos fades to echos of static hum
she leaves behind the taste of silk and lace.
Crossing lines that never meet
I’ve confirmed that such intent
was never real but only felt
in a stare forever cast o’er transit’s pit.
The ghostly vision resumes its taunting frame
to ever suggest that finer trail
of hair and swirl and alluring scent
cast on shimmering flumes of light.
She appears again across the dark
rekindling tales of improbable hope
To what reward? T’will be the call
to shed the dream and morn the love.
From left to right the time it takes
to create such stories that bring to being
a world of wonder, of poetry, of lust
Till approaching rumours reach their crest
and harken back to primal life.
