The Living Painting by Gabriel Hart

Oil swirling in the unreliable

gutter river of my sight

blinding me from Heaven’s untainted reflections

two angels, suspended

confined inside a frame

one arm around the other

while its lover (sister, brother?)

faces the day

forever before

appeared no more

than a depiction of content perfection

until the hand on the other’s shoulder

began pushing that other away

their smiles wide, showing teeth

defeat to grimace

teetering

a vision of divinity

frozen

now, melting

into malediction

and I howled, complimentary

to my parent’s wall-mounted technology

“That’s not a TV,

It’s a painting?”

And I cried, thrashing

until I fainted

or they held me down

it took my whole family to pin me

(please, save your crucifixion jokes,

and other default analogies)

I’m actually, really

into whatever

strange forces

work

in

sanity

Oil swirling in the unreliable

gutter river of my sight

blinding me from Heaven’s untainted reflections

two angels, suspended

confined inside a frame

one arm around the other

while its lover (sister, brother?)

faces the day

forever before

appeared no more

than a depiction of content perfection

until the hand on the other’s shoulder

began pushing that other away

their smiles wide, showing teeth

defeat to grimace

teetering

a vision of divinity

frozen

now, melting

into malediction

and I howled, complimentary

to my parent’s wall-mounted technology

“That’s not a TV,

It’s a painting?”

And I cried, thrashing

until I fainted

or they held me down

it took my whole family to pin me

(please, save your crucifixion jokes,

and other default analogies)

I’m actually, really

into whatever

strange forces

work

in

sanity

Gabriel Hart lives in California’s high desert. His story collection Fallout From Our Asphalt Hell and poetry volume Hymns From The Whipping Post are out now from Close to The Bone (U.K.). He’s a contributor at Lit Reactor, The Last Estate, and Los Angeles Review of Books.