painting within a painting

painting within a painting
he sits nonchalant
to the shrieking children
to the couple arguing

the painter paints his dreamy
sense of a place:
cobble stone streets
bumped up against ancient buildings

bell tower clock strikes twelve,
without a flicker of an eyelash,
nor a moment taken to reach,
and scratch an itch, or quench
his thirst, with cool water

the painter dreams in paints
how he wishes to see
the world spinning--
in the blacks and whites of rational intuition

thinking his view be real,
he dives into the scene
with only a prayer, palate, brush--
changing the brushes infrequently;
he is painting in the flow

he wishes to finish
before the market place
folds up for the night

before the light changes
drastically at the end of the day:
the muted blacks and whites,
becoming fine misted greys


Kate Lamberg
10/11/11
Poem inspired by this photo, graciously sent to me by my dear friend, Claude.
Edward Clark, “Painting Sacré-Coeur from the Ancient Rue Norvins in Montmartre, Paris, 1946, from The Great LIFE Photographers