Optical Illusion
Jan 29 2011


A portrait in black and white
is mostly grey,
every shade imaginable.

How white
depends on tricks of light,
fugitive shadows
a phantom gaze.

And how black is black?
How far down
into bottomless dark
can you go?

If only colour would last,
but it’s far too natural
for the stillness
I crave.
Knowing that nothing is permanent
and lies get told,
and even the camera obscura
over-exposed.
Like abstract art,
it’s all
in the eye of the beholder.

They thought the photograph
would capture their souls.
But in pictures, surface is everything.
And everything fades
to the same dull grey
in natural light.