Brian Purcell #22 The Fields

            The Fields

                        for Jean-Michel Basquiat

These fields intersect

coronas – beards – flutes

of spilt wine, I remember

painting portraits and freaking out

on buses because everyone’s face

spoke to me, shouted out

Listen! And the fields outside

roared, and passed into eternity

yet I was on the bus still

the fields moving inside me

I loved you and for once

it was okay being me

people looked at me, no longer

wanting to devour me

with their tongues, to push me

through slots and cogs

of unforgiving size, how it waited

no prose will do, no pose

is satisfactory, Torvill and

Dean, no pose but you

I love and I don’t know why

it was the start and the end

of something, it was my career

high and dry and wide 

and handsome

what crossed your mind

so you would still bear

that cross, that skull

so beautiful and white

Listen! It is your energy ebbing

it is this moment passing

It is yours, take it! take it!

for the fields are still emerging