Poem of the Week, If Dali Painted Icarus, Anthony Mason

This is a gorgeous poem and Anthony Mason is British. FYI, being British is a great leg up on being in The Toucan (well, so is good writing). We're unabashed Anglophiles.

If you're at Chicago's Printer's Row Lit Fest Tomorrow, stop by the Columbia Fiction Writing Department booth and say hi to Editrice Liz! Also offer to pass out flyers while she runs like mad to the bathroom. She's alone, you see....

Happy June!

If Dali Painted Icarus

by Anthony Mason



She told me about her idea..
only I'd already written it in a poem,
but neither of us
could claim it to be ours;

A Dali painting (melting)
in the sun.

We feel the vastness of space is limited
to our dreams of returning home,
running away..
That there is no corner we can hide,
no place out of the light we can transform.

Fluttering, flickering- violently;
eyes become butterflies trapped in glass
slowly affixing to the hush of disappointment,
of stillness, like so many images drowned in language.

We watch our childhood reflections
grow wings and fly away with beauty.
Watercolour wings dripping melancholy
as if Dali had painted Icarus.

Solace is found in desolation now,
Scrap yards of art;
the smell of burning frames on the breeze.
Torn scraps of Picasso
dancing in the air like butterflies.

Eyes swell like blown glass
in hope to catch
them all.