Maggie Yang

The Mouth of the Sun

The painting is a lost language of a country

Landscape buzzing with syllables buried in the grainy // dirt. Patches of weavings lost in the grass a mother // tongue flooded in a // wave of foreign // characters excavated from layers of bones underground whispering // lullabies from skulls of decay. Proverbs // crumpled beneath shiny black // boots sun reflecting off armor stabbing into // eyes croaking their last words The // river flowing into stones sunken on the side slicing into new // streams of time blue // washing into red As // the sky meets // the edge and the ground ends in // the corners // the golden frame // the spilled oils color // bleeding off the surface pinned open // to the wall // The wires hold / frail veins ornamenting limp / hands. Dirt roads paved with / marble columns dropped among steel / bars. Muted on white walls time becomes / confined in a finite canvas. Time / in the mouth of the / sun becomes sputtered fragments of glass / cages suffocating blue skies. Exhausted / color. Shining through windows a / display by conquerors for / eyes to wander. Blurred into one / impression / color / narrative / mouthed with / gold. Four chambers, directions, sealed into / one. Dominance. Artifacts / colonized like people and hollow / consumed whole by this / country.

But it was dark inside the sun.

Maggie Yang is a writer and artist from Vancouver, Canada. Her poetry has been recognized by the Poetry Society, The League of Canadian Poets, and Poetry in Voice, and appears or is forthcoming in Subnivean, Eunoia Review, F(r)iction Lit, among others. Her art appears in The Adroit Journal. An interdisciplinary artist, she is particularly intrigued by the intersections of the written word with the visual and performing arts.

 
 

previous page     contents     next page