Crushed Beneath the Color Wheel

How did we come to live in color toxic hell
where flamingo pink and key lime green are
slapped together
at headache inducing will?

at times I long for the days when
burnt wood offerings, earth, and marble dust
filled our palette

soon pestle and mortar ground
minerals defined our pigments
lead, mercury, arsenic
poisonous colors of
white, vermillion, emerald

master painters
sought to immortalize their art
in permanent pigments
which resist the scourge of sunlight
yet in so doing
suffered the chemical insanity
of the mad hatter

Do we glorify their sufferings
ascribe it to the muse
or simple poisoning?

tusks of elephants burned
in iron pots
produced a permanent
ivory black

India's sacred cow was fed
a diet of mango leaves
with no water to
yield pure yellow urine
mixed with dirt
for a warm glazing yellow

beasts of burden have given way
to technology
printing presses churn
filling our mail boxes
lakes and oceans with
ink sludge from
Barium-based Red Lake
Copper-phthalocyanine blue
and Copper-phthalocyanine green
pigment polluting toxic wastes

fluorescent green, yellow, and orange
are hard on the eyes
contain chromium
or be dazzled with metallics
of zinc and aluminum
all hard on life

Perhaps we can stem the paper tide
with TV screens and computer monitors?
faster, bigger, cheaper
new and improved
technological evolution leads to extinction
buried in the leaching landfill graveyard
each CRT has 4 to 8 pounds of lead

the cost of color is rising
more than a reflection of light
insulated from our colored refuse
we are morally and color blind

©polarpaul 2006