Still Life with Still Frames

Still Life with Still Frames
A Poem in Eight Parts

A Moment Late
-in which his first brush with chaos upsets his worldview-

The cameraman captures his quarry in mid-stride
as the young girl turns to her left.
In the next moment, the image is perfect.


In The Negatives
-in which his vagaries of the past take flight-

As his camera rewinds,
the last frame pressed neatly into place,
he comes to realise
that he will be forced to relive
a week of misery.

He wonders, however,
if, in the negatives,
a new perspective
will show its face.


The Blessing of Silver Bromide
-in which his sense of revision extends too far-

Forced to reverie by the stills,
he finds that it is easier to portray his own reality
in the near-black of his dark cave
than it is behind the shutter;

walking in the light,
reality is right there,
so close,
tangible but untouchable,

while in the darkroom,
it is spread flat before him
and a single drop of a chemical
can change reality forever.


As Zeus Severed Man
-in which his uncertain aesthetics settle-

He broods over the drying photo sheet,
acutely aware of the imperfections,
the inconsistencies between the printed page
and the vision screaming out to him
from deep within.

Art, he considers,
is perception.
The raging muse can inspire,
but the artist cannot portray
the true form of the flame.

Imperfection, he considers,
is art.


Nulla Dies Sine Linea or, Not a Day Without a Line
-in which his struggle to persevere seems bleak-

The young photographer,
his aspirations birds
with clipped wings,
sits cross-legged upon the floor,
his portfolio spread wide and empty before him,
the jaws of the future gaping from its depths.


Ars Gratia Nihil or, Art for the Sake of Nothing
-in which he perseveres, perhaps-

Servile,
he works to placate the violent muse;
she is not an inspiration but a force
of drudgery,
snapping whip and
flinging stone.

In these hallowed halls,
creativity comes not from within,
but from the clenched fist of
professor - expert - master of her craft -
when in reality,
creation must come from the artist-within.

Freed,
his is the life of expression,
happily absent from the
dark realm of academia.


Separation Anxiety
-in which his regret screams rapture-

Pawing endlessly through
page after page of
old photos,
he wonders what he has
made of his life.

At all the key moments,
he is there,
not in the scene,
not participating,
just preserving.

Now,
he sits with his camera,
alone.


Perscribi Non Est Esse or, To Preserve is Not to Be
-in which his tenuous aesthetic shatters-

His world of still frames
crumbles about his feet
(it's not the disparate moments which he may choose to live,
but a steady flow of time with which he can not
force-feed the half-starved, carnivorous shutter).
Each frame is silver-kissed
and in darkness given to light
(his art is womb-carried, painfully born,
but static, always immature,
powerful, a thing of life, but dead if left alone).
The camera is plenipotentiary,
the product impotent
(beauty is not a moment cast apart from the whole,
but the aggregate of life, of second-by-second struggle,
which not even memory's lens can capture).