In the depth of these three poems by Mervyn Seivwright, the artistic minds of yesterday inform his now, his longing tight-ropes his boundaries, and his surrealism steeplechases into a tangible belief…
by: Mervyn Seivwright
The Zone Behind the Mirror
I.
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, who had ever been alive.”
― James Baldwin
Are you ready for the world itself
to paint colors on the lines defining
the rules of existence, the rules aligning
as string to guide a tree’s branches or ourselves,
ink blotting our trauma with invisible
ink, just enough to recolor the spotlight
trigger—unavailable, the pen breaks, still,
not recycling the ink blot to invigorate
the pen’s casing, however hiding away
the fragility, before baby’s first step,
becoming the torment twisting, hollow eggshells
thrown across a stream’s shores, not to openly play
in puddles, feelings, not be sidestepped
streamed on social replay, skin thinning frail.
II.
"Who sees the human face correctly: the photographer, the painter or the mirror?"
- Pablo Picasso
Pablo could not realize all the unreal phases of our faces
behind phone screens as the photographer, now ourselves
exhaling before we fix our faces, after the hours of make-up,
fashion fixations, site searching and searching, perfecting ourselves
as cinema pre-take, while in the mirror we add two, three, four faces
to Picasso’s paintbrush he sensed existed. Our emotions in conch shells,
our emotions in sunken spirals leaving vapors, falling, while
the world sees sculpted smiles with filters, draining the gritty bits
out of the fine coffee image. The voice is rehearsed, tone, pitch
tuned by internal conductor. A minute TikTok, a propaganda
of our best lived life, laughing mentally to those fooled away
outside the mirror. Their voice could be, I love the color spectrum
in shoes, skirts, slacks, shirts dashing fashion, screaming
look at me—for a moment. Not too much, to stalk, not allowed
unless you linger before swiping to the left on your phone.
Our touches are in thumb emojis, our touches are care emojis,
our touches are in heart shaped emojis secure from unreadable faces.
Time is quickly dating us from our existence to be human.
In Tokyo, I saw a group holding signs stating, “Hugs For Free,”
cheek kisses are still welcomed in Rome and in Paris
while many in America are observing each muscle movement,
each voice intention, casual hand snakes on shoulders—masculinity
will take a bow, or should it without balance, without graceful
contract. Are the colors, the sun, or the colors, violets and pansies,
or a Mediterranean bright teal sea, or thunderstorms with eyes
and eyes and eyes from chaotic anxiety shaped heads on the canvas
we paint.
III.
“The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls.”
- Pablo Picasso
In Café de Flore, I sit on a vinyl red chair
at a chic emerald round table and think
of Apollinaire, the phones are the shepherds containing their flocks.
I would love to see utopia, dimensions of shared thoughts
shared minds regionally in lyrical harmony, a yellow submarine
rainbow colored dream state.
Is it the Instagram followers we cultivate
Is it the Grand Canyon divide of polarized political spectrum
Is it Israel, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Palestine, Ukraine raining sorrowful cries
Is it the baobab tree age, to be old enough, thick enough for world saving prayers
Is it that we only think of the next post and not linger thoughts on eternity
Is it to be a GOAT, and have a star at the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Is it God, clasped tech in your hand for each living day
Is it the sleeping bag flowers slumbering in city sidewalk crevices
Is it this narrative has no victims or heroes
Is it a woodland escape on unknown trail for healing
Is it wrapping in the disgust of discrimination blanket—hands hooked on
Is it the lens we don’t loosen for gender, tribe, caste, colour, or country
Is it that we are inked differently, then paint ourselves to fit
Is it the mirror you sculpt bare to only see the surface
Is it you
Is it you
It is me
I Long for Utopia
layered in my mind, filled with scented wildflowers,
singular trees communing, transverse wind-gusts
vibrating, echoing, along with bird songs
strumming as harp strings, a phantom place
invisible to those quick trotting, many voices
too sharp, too flat for earthly melody
to hook heartbeats, to meander miles of minds
to mellow localities of a calibrated orchestra’s
harmony. I long for the longing in autumn
forest walks, summer sunset beach imprints
of sandy steps, fingers finally reaching last
sharpen rocks of mountain climbs, from high above
nimbostratus clouds, gazing over the valley’s canvas
carvings. I am not hazily moving, or mooching,
munching on Licorice or Fritos but laboring
with ached joints, connecting community to the present
moment. I long not for collections, piles, miles,
square spaces of stuff and stuff and stuff, only searching
for medleys of smiles, joyful tears, shared moments,
sunrays of hugs and hugs and hugs with honest heart
as honey without a desire of ill affection. I long for
modulating my ambitions, hushing the hunger for what
is not mine, what drives me over mountain cliffs
to reach a single peak, unable to ferry anyone
or anything along, not believing loved ones are shackles,
stripping skin on ankle’s boney bits, to linger alone.
I long to open the cryptex of beauty in the shadows
passing in time’s shade, each soul at the crossroads,
in a highway spiral junction, in each soul a seed
of light can shine, blinding those with crystalized ice
layered walls of hurt, of suffering, of memories
flash-reels clicking and unclicking within eyelid walls.
I long not to linger in the mirror, not for stages, film length
selfies, nor showcases, nor notice, but I need others to notice,
to exist in a society where trophies define me, where
labels list one’s existence, where I pull with brittle hands
from a deep well to define myself. I long for me—to be.
I Am the Existence of My Yesterday
Blessed are the skin cells lost in ecdysis shedding their blink stages, a burning and burning
of phoenix ashes, revising the draft of me in the mirror. Yet society recycles pictures, posts,
motion pictorials of yesterday’s yesterday, imprints of painful lashes, moist bruises unhealing.
Blessed are oaks, pines, beech trees, marking the marathon of years in green, amber, and
nakedness of winter. The cold inscribing rings in bones each recurring season, until age
aches ring, chime melodies echoing in hollowed bones, whistles whispering wheat skin hairs.
Blessed are the oceans, rivers, creeks, their sonic organ, flute, piccolo voices, that mold flint,
hollow shells unearthed as submerged sandy treasures. The echoes of seagulls or undercurrent
flow stalling hourglass granules. Its refuge, my shattering glass cell away from despotic cries.
Blessed are human monuments, mammoth steeples, stately homes, sky-rises mankind toil
to flash and boast greatness, paths created for pilgrims, worshiped in mobile phone pursuits.
I fringe at faces in sleeping bags curled as pill bugs, mornings in chilled crevices.
Blessed are the memories, the family joys cradled in cocoon embrace, the cherry blossom
butterflies, a May Day Pole dance around me. Family forgetting the trauma of abusive fear
delivered as icy jagged glass loosened by tongues, ice fused tree fingers scraping in winter.
Blessed are my shortcomings, hand shaking stick figure drawings. The decisions of buried
failures, stench of sulfur surfacing, refusing a future of lessons I recycle. Even the old oak
knows imperfections make us beautiful, that the most identical is a differential of space.
I am not the perception of others, shrouding me with paint-protector sheets, retaining me
from what is precious. I am not your belief in body language, facial stills listed on papyrus,
or an abstract painting you shift or twist to tolerate or your Le Penseur who doesn’t cry.
Only yesterday speculates if my feet stirred earth’s surface. Only I can accept—I exist.
Mervyn Seivwright writes to balance social consciousness & poetry craft for humane growth. He is a nomad from a Jamaican family, born in London, England, & left for America at age 10, now residing in Kaiserslautern, Germany. He is a Spalding University MFA Graduate & has appeared in AGNI, American Journal of Poetry, Salamander Magazine, African American Review, & 74 other journals across 13 countries, receiving recognition as the 2024 Marvin E Williams Literary Prize winner and is a 2021/2023 Pushcart Nominee. His new collection is “Stick, Hook, and a Pile of Yarn,” (Broken Sleep Books).
