Wishful Thinking Poem by Danielle Ward

The slick globs of paint glisten in the fading light.
Rainbow teardrops on the thin board.
Disturbed by my brush, the artist's dewdropp clings

Then bleeds across the canvas,
Softly sighing, laments the journey.
Swift strokes, flicks, dabs, curving lines.
Does the brush live the dream, or the dream live the brush?
A thousand images my hands seek to release,
My tremulous fingers quivering the scenes
I know so well.

Beyond the canvas, through glass,
The sky is weeping.
A brash streetlight boasts of manmade hope,
Every lone figure that shades beneath.
There are screams of emergency vehicles,
Bass coughs of cars rattling grids,
A timid tap of rain.

Upon the canvas the sun is shining.
While on the TV screen skeletons starves
Beneath a swollen star.
A dead man's face appears.
A million times over.

But not once on the canvas.
Not ever.