Duality of a Color

I don't remember the poem this was somewhat modeled off of for this assignment. It began "Red, red, red, red!" and we had to write our own poem about a color, any color, but mimic part-of-speech for part-of-speech the original. It was an interesting exercise since it was like a diction puzzle, having to rearrange your phrasing to fit the words in the right places. Anyway... on to the poem.


Duality of Color

White, white, white, white!
It is not a snowflake.
It is energy!
It is a beam through a prism,
the projection of rainbows, a flash
in the dark, a touch, a breeze,
many laughs, a lurid whisper
pushed into the ear--
Brilliant white!
It is a glimpse of a happy future
before the past and a troop of
dark memories lingering, birds
flying swiftly or a bullet soaring, the earth
rolling its green hills
as it shakes - -
It is baby’s-breathe, roses
on a grave, music in
the tower of a cathedral, the
wrinkled skin on old hands, a
vast lake - -
It is refusal to be
one dying man or a newborn, it is
a bunch of happy people
at a glorious party all night long,
seven mourning pale people
over coffin opened
away from grim faces - -
Tops of beautiful flowers fill the
small garden and dot the cemetery.