Persistence of Vision (a cento)

The future was a beautiful place, 
once. I held you that June morning 
when you opened your eyes; 
we were seeing one another 
after seasons of darkness.
Like some watcher of the skies.
I consider how my light is spent,
look into my glass and view my wasting skin;
vision may be just a part 
of the eyesight’s dazzling start 
when a new planet swims into his ken.
I close my eyes to see its world,
some theatre of being a little less bright,
faked by sleeping’s second sight.

Kim M. Russell, 30th April 2022
Detail from Francesco del Cossa Santa Lucia ca. 1473/74

April has just flown by and now it’s the final day of NaPoWriMo 2022! Today’s prompt is a time-consuming one, but it has taken me to my poetry shelf and some of my old favourites, as well as to The Poetry Foundation. We are writing centos, poems made up of lines taken from other poems.  

I have taken the title from ‘Persistence of Vision with Gwendoline Brooks’ by Solmaz Sharif and lines from: ‘Vision’ by Simon Armitage; ‘Sight’ by Faith Shearin; ‘Closet Vision’ by Pimone Triplett; ‘Eye’s Mind’ by Peter Halstead; ‘On His Blindness’ by John Milton; ‘I Look at the World’ by Langston Hughes; ‘I Look Into My Glass’ by Thomas Hardy; ‘On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer’ by John Keats. I have curtailed some lines and added line breaks.

15 thoughts on “Persistence of Vision (a cento)”

    1. Thank you, Lill! I miss you and the others too. I’ve been struggling since I had my first cataract operation as I currently have one long and one short-sighted eye, so I can’t spend too much time on the laptop. The other eye should be done in the next few weeks – I’m waiting for an appointment. I will be back at the pub in September. 🤓

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    1. Thank you, Kerfe! As usual, I enjoyed the prompts and it was lovely to read all the poems, although it was a bit tiring. Second eye will be done in a few weeks and then I will be tested for reading glasses. A new me!

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