(part 1) Unremarkable Poem by Effie Yalena Steyn

The day I killed a leader with my brushstrokes was unremarkable.

I sat in silence, an epiphany
of thought made my pencil throb against lily
white paper, achingly
blank with failure.
It wasn't art I needed, it was words.
Swirling around my head were thousands,
millions,
waiting to be lined up into some suitable poem,
short,
novella,
pasa doble,
some beautiful sonnet that they could rejoice in being made of,
and I could be proud of,
and she could be jealous of,
and he could be part of.
That was where it all started.

The longing for his dexterous fingers that could form such masterpieces, the longing for the thinking that could form
countries of my eyes.

And so on I paint,
and on I yearn,
and on I fail,
and on continues the unremarkable.