#1298 - a close world

 

1298

22.vii.23

4.204

a close world

ekphrastic for Weaver Hawkins’ 1922 ‘Morning Underground’

at the Art Gallery of NSW

 

this is a passage through the moment

every picture is

 

everyone reads someone else’s paper

even folded under the arm

 

down deep

these are the miners of another age

 

ferrets and moles, worms, curious insects

 

bowler and tophat, the worker’s caps

 

cigarette or pipe, and there’s a cigar

it’s as if the whole pit were smoking

 

hanging from a strap

it’s the working man, a clench in the midst

the one without a seat

looks as if he could almost see out of the frame

but falls short

just for a moment

to judge his fellows and his betters

 

a lurch and back

an incandescence flickers almost out

 

the epiphany passes

 

the ads affixed and the broadsheets

rouged cheeks re-lit

all too generic to read

 

a close world

downcast

much severe

 

the only breath is smoke