Love what you've done with the place

I’m trying to write a love-poem about paint.
Well, that isn’t strictly true, the poem’s about you,
but how could I stand here, sixty-plus, and say
my love is like a red, red rose, or claim that black,
black, black is the colour of my true love’s hair;
I would look ridiculous — and you my love are grey.

No, better we stay here, here where our love lives:
dust in our hair from rubbing down rough spots,
flecked with the colours of a score of re-dos.
Time for bed? But I’m trying to write about paint:
how it sticks to the walls, how it covers the things
we brush over; how it makes nothing new

but still freshens the place up a bit.
How we’ve got several cans in the shed.


Dennis Greene (Western Australia)

From Here Be Dragons (Puncher & Wattmann 2015)