Lovers in the brain

When an image throws a switch inside the brain
it is as though the relays were hard-wired,
connections there preformed or ready-made;
as if the image had some close affinity
with something that responded from the depths
of what it really is, this human frame.

It is as though the brain had always known,
was simply waiting for the form to show.
And even if we have to work and analyse
to understand the meaning of the form for us,
we can be happy for the unions
of lovers in the brain with their beloveds,
inamoratas - arabesques and moulded clays.

Affinities come in a range of guises:
simplicity's the simplest one I know,
a lean and pared down vision of a face,
a landscape or a beer can or a shoe.
The simplest - and most potent - one I know,
the visual metaphor, appeals to me:
two images combining in the mind -
sometimes a metaphor for something else.

Simplicity alone can spell such convolution -
and even then it needs the active mind.
The artist paints beyond the picture frame:
the world outside the image is his game.

The dream state and its image spring to mind:
the unexpected snogs the everyday
and every inessential cast away -
a pattern replicated, I maintain
in every image with the power to move a man.