Thrilled to have my poem The Two Saltimbanques (Picasso) published in Issue 11 of the excellent Melbourne Culture Corner Magazine. My thanks to Lead Editor Steven Pearman.

https://melbourneculturecorner.com/blog/

THE TWO SALTIMBANQUES (Pablo Picasso)

when words don’t come easy
they make do with silence
and find something in nothing
to say to each other
when the absinthe runs out.
his glass and ego
are bigger than hers,
his elbows sharper,
stabbing into the table
and the chambers of her heart
cobalt clown
without a smile.
she looks away
with his misery behind her eyes
and sadness on her lips,
back into her curves
and the orange grove
summer of her dress
worn and blown by sepia time
where she painted
her cockus giganticus
lying down
naked
for her brush and skin,
mingling intimate scents
undoing and doing each other.
for some of us,
living back then
is more going forward
than living in now
and sitting hereat this table,
with these glasses
standing empty of absinthe,
faces wanting hands
to be a bridge of words
and equal peace
as Guernica approaches.

Copyright Strider Marcus Jones