April 2022

Frances’ Flowers

© Matthew Word Bain

architecture from the early decades
of the automobile, repurposed
in the service of
flowers
exchanged
as tokens of love
or care, or appreciation

this place looks a little tired
even in its current guise
I imagine floral sales
have been down
with everything else

the mint green portico roof
comes as a welcome surprise
as does the reincarnation of this
service station as home to a florist

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Still Life with Continuity

© Matthew Word Bain

look how quickly life returns
to the places where people
have tried to keep it out
after very little inattention
and from the most improbably
small opportunities – cracks, chinks
fissures, openings – anything that will
let in light and water, a tiny seed
and then in the blink of an eye
there is a tree where once
just moments before
there was only
bare asphalt
and Pan
has
returned
triumphantly
and almost as if
he had never left…

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They Only Come Out at Night

© Matthew Word Bain

shadow teeth and flaky plywood
a coat of green asphalt with deepening relief
a skin that calls to mind buildings half a world away
living things rooted in, growing from its body
transform this fairly simple building
from a boarded up business
into an array of shapes
and textures –
an unknown quantity
a one eyed creature waiting
quietly for the sun to go down

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Liminal Union

© Matthew Word Bain

where the Sky comes down
all the way to touch the Earth
there Earth reaches up

the red of her soil transforms
in the air beneath the Sky

new colors emerge
the pigmentation of life
in the space between

Earth and Sky where life itself
is the fruit of that union

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Hello, World

© Matthew Word Bain

there is a way of looking
that is a way of feeling
a synaesthetic perception
whereby self and other blur
and the aliveness of the world
is found to be undeniable
as it presents itself
in relationship
with those
who choose to
allow themselves
to experience it – and
sometimes even to those
who refuse to make that choice

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Liminal Perception

© Matthew Word Bain

droplets condensing
emerging from a liquid plane
a vertical plane, a pane of liquid
already straining credulity
and yet there is truth
in the image
even in the words
what on earth do I mean?
I am showing you what I see
I am mixing metaphors
with actual facts
I am seeking to facilitate
a shift in perception

this is poetry, after all
I am following a thread
it is a golden thread

from the actual liquid
of a pane of glass
arises the appearance
of condensation
albeit on a scale that is
altogether inappropriate
and yet there it is – seeing
is believing, right?

I see droplets emerging
from a vertical pane of liquid
I see inherent ambiguity
and I magnify it
shine a light
on it

what is the point
in this kind of play?
what value ambiguity?
I restore the necessary blur
to allow for the clearest Vision
I apply stochastic resonance
increasing the noise
in order to hear
the signal

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