New proposed cover for upcoming anthology of poetry and prose ~


'awake in the night room'


featuring 'The Critical Eye' published on Word Bohemia,
e-magazine.

https://www.facebook.com/WordBohemia?fref=ts

The Critical Eye by Simon Morgan

Richard wrapped a paint sodden tissue around his left hand and stood back. The brush stroke was already drying, but failing of its breath. He needed it to live – now – to see it move and
radiate the beautiful red, but the leading edge was already losing the potency of its hue, like a wave freezing over. He struck again, biting his lip in determination, concentration at his task breaking beads of sweat on his forehead. The day was moving, light slipping away, so he was desperate to finish.

Before the day could end, Richard had chores to perform. He had the photos to arrange and the coat to pick up from the cleaners. He gave himself these chores weekly, as he gave himself one week to paint a picture. His father, a priest, had given each Sunday to the culmination of hisweek’s work; Sunday, the day of rest and service to his flock. A violent man, but fair in his
discipline. Richard remembered the anger. His father felt the world was godless and in ruin. He ground the faith into Richard weekly, spittle on his lip as he forced his sermon home. Seven days. The gradual winking of the moon. When Richard couldn’t sleep, he often looked at the moon, milk white on his canvasses. It looked distorted and old and was like a father.

Richard painted naked. He often used his body for inspiration and was proud of it. His skin was smooth, despite his sixty years and often wondered if this was what a woman’s body felt like,
perhaps fifteen years younger, the contours and the softness. When he put on his wonderful coat, he felt comfortable, and as calm as marble on a summer’s day. The coat had been his mother’s, his beautiful, delicate mother. She had raised him, and tried to interpret the vocation of his father to his young ears. When he squeezed his eyes shut on bright days, he saw the inside lining of his own eyes. Red, scarlet, like blood. His father’s rage, after the beatings on those bright days. She had worn the coat finally at his funeral, staring across at Richard with bleak wide eyes. Even when she then passed, Richard saw her staring at him in mute confusion.

The painting Richard was working on was a Horse, a stallion, high on the hind legs, bursting forth over a battlefield. The sky was red, as was the brilliant chest of the beast. Red, oh, the red! He raised his hand and traced the outline of the animal delicately, so as not to touch it.

Placing his brushes to one side, Richard prepared the photographs. He spent his days taking photographic samples around London, showing people in galleries, on the tube and in the street, hoping one day to be granted an exhibition space. He had always felt his work was ahead of its time, and waited for a great resurgence, so that his work could be understood and appreciated.

Richard became aware of the falling sun casting scars against his body through the blinds. The lines ran across his body. He wanted to outlast it, to make it still in his eye. The movements of the world did not matter to Richard. He believed the workings of other men to be fruitless and inane. They were like panes of glass he looked through. Occasionally malignity would snag his attention and he would be afraid. He would retreat behind his eye, the clutched red robe and the voices beyond. He took a step back as the light failed. His work was part of the shadows now, a blank, featureless space he stared into.

Richard came around. Underneath his thigh, bone pressed against his skin and against the wood of the floor. It ached. But there! Newly born, the painting let the morning light dance upon it, like running water and he was revived. Richard prepared to leave the flat for the day. He gained strength from the sigils in his life, from the mother he had inherited his home from. He lived alone, with the heirlooms passed down from other family members, a few trinkets here and there and his mother’s coat. He had the pearls she had worn on her wedding day and at his father’s
funeral. He gripped them now, and she seemed to speak to him, floating on the air above all things, calming his nerves. He would have to get the coat from the cleaners in his own clothes which unnerved him further, he felt incomplete. He wanted to wear the coat always, so the
blazing red filled him with power. But his mother wouldn’t have let him keep it like that, dirty as it became, day in day out of its wearing. So he had it washed once a month.

He put on tracksuit bottoms and an old suit jacket, squeezing into a pair of brogues. He was a mismatch but he didn’t care. He was eager to complete his task. Heart racing and with a final glance at the Horse for courage, he descended the stairs to the street.

The short trip was an ordeal. The air of the outside world sent his senses spiralling. He felt giddy. Clouds hung overhead, threatening to fall and smother him, a downpour of heavy smoke that he would never escape from. The people passing by had no faces, but angry blurred brush strokes, moving streaks of colour jostling in front of him. He thought of the coat hanging on its rail, a sword in the stone to hurry to.

It was outside the gallery the coat warmed him the most. It covered his other clothes and
protected him. It warmed his shoulders, wrapping his body in the warmth of its redness,
emanating warmth and becoming his armour. Bag in hand, Richard strode into the gallery,
oblivious to the looks and whispers. A group of school children were running around the public areas, glad to be free of the classroom. Richard watched them, but recognised a dawning
connection with their enthusiasm. His work..? He felt as if a magnet had been turned on in his day bag and radiated through his coat.

A small girl sat near to where he stood, scribbling in front of a Picasso, trying to copy it. She was young, and Richard had a sudden urge to speak to her, to share his energy with so innocent and inquisitive a thing. His coat pressed against his heart, blooms flowing like rose petals. Smiling awkwardly, unsure of how to convey its power, he crouched down next to her, fumbling with the straps on the day bag to reveal his photographs. She looked at him, eyes rapt with interest, then trepidation. He sat down and reached a hand out to reassure. He wanted to speak but the words would not form, so he motioned to his open bag for her to glance inside. It was as if she had been caught in an oven, so he stood up, hiding the open bag. She started to cry and ran away. The teachers were looking over and guards were moving to the teachers, so Richard hurried off.

Upstairs in the enormous gallery, Richard wandered through the crowds in the East Wing. It was exhibiting modernistic pieces from the post-war period. Pollock’s and Rothko’s, mass produced it seemed to him, because of their familiarity. No real objectivity, he murmured aloud. They had
never known truth like his red. Children parted before him, like Moses, as he shambled through lost in himself. He came to a room that was newly hung. The artist had chosen to manipulate the
perception of the human body. They had caused quite a stir in their time Richard remembered,
before becoming important and influential. Richard had not seen them in the flesh, in the blood. He gazed at the longest one; a triptych of human shapes, bathed in red. Reds, standing out from dull greys, like the world he lived in. Red! Oh, the red!

He felt a tremendous synergy with the work and his heart swelled. His heart was on fire beneath the coat, and he stumbled in a stupor. He sank down to sit in front of the piece, surrounded by blazing coals with no pain, only a strength that was gaining. Carefully, he reached into his day bag and produced his photographs. Like an offering, he gazed down at each in turn; lovingly placed one behind the other. His funnel of red, leading to a red brightness…the national flag hung in a blood red sunset…his Horse, emblazoned with a fiery red chest. He wanted this piece to be his crowning glory. When he revealed it, he would throw all his cares away like leaves into the wind.

Richard basked, contented. Red was in his thoughts, almost setting his eyes on fire. In these throes, he reached a hand out to touch the canvass, his other hand caressing the lapel of his coat. He hardly dared to breathe. A kind word broke Richard’s daze and he looked into the concerned eyes of an attendant. It was a few seconds before he closed his mouth and allowed the younger man to help him up. Richard sensed that the man would understand and took the opportunity to show his photographs. He explained the motivation of his brush work, the uses of shade and the red…He explained his themes, spittle sometimes catching his lip as he raved. The attendant moved away but Richard was lost finally. He grabbed the attendants arm. He was a warrior he
explained, alone with visions and sounds, breaking a bloody war. Art is not a triumph; it is a piece of land to fight for. His blood as the paint, he said, blood as the paint. The attendant was gone from his side. A crowd gathered near the entrance. Some looked over at Richard running a hand down his coat, an old man in a ruby red woman’s coat, reaching with the other for the painting.

Others were helping a little girl who had fallen. Twin rivulets of blood splashed from her nose onto the floor. She looked over at Richard and his eyes met hers; the red, he thought, Oh, the red!

Simon Morgan is from Wales and has made his home in Norfolk. For the last fifteen years he has been an actor working primarily in theatres. He has been writing since he was twelve.