sweltering August afternoon
Rene Lazare
bare foot, bare chested
in a leather smock
tied over ragged jeans
feverishly manipulates pigments
bent over an old barn’s floor
mixing tube squeezed oils
pressing and stabbing his thick coarse brush
against a hand held palette fat with bleeding hues
umber, onyx, azure, crimson, teal…
darkly determined to capture on canvas
reality’s steaming vapors
twitching horse flanks
flaring nostrils wet with sweat
bulbous eyes
buzzing greenheads
stall hay, urine soaked
bleating goats
clucking chickens
starling droppings
deep gouged beams
blackened bridles
worn brown saddles lost to dust
the rough perfume of fresh manure…
when a shaft of light
cuts through the crossbar of an upper window
brushes a haunting shadow stroke
across his back
so precise
a spooked bay rears
two brood mares stagger
the chickens run amok
***
By NEIL BROSNAN
