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Poetry
Sutherland reviews his Churchill
Mine was not the obvious intention
on this canvas. No bulldog,
no vanquisher of Hitler,
neither the smoker of big cigars,
nor statesman, orator;
not even the great patriarchal figure.
The Churchill you will never see
was the one we hurt so badly
on that post V.E. summer day;
the one who couldn't comprehend
rejection after all he'd done,
ingratitude beyond belief.
I returned him to the playground
in animal defensive mode,
crouching, glowering, instinctive.
I made him human, not a God,
so he could show his frailty;
without our crosses he was crucified.
The canvas is of course destroyed.
I should have realised
that the wound would open
with these brush-strokes;
to stem the revelation,
he dismissed it as a comic image, alien.
My contrast was too much to bare.
It had to be strong to strip
the layers of his self-made propaganda.
Once their eyes met there was only one end,
the stripped, palette Winston never had a chance
to make his peace with us, to mend his injury.
Copyright Bare Nibs 2009