Joe Dolce: ‘The Half-light the Low Light’ and ‘Culture’

The Half-light the Low Light

The half-light the low light
the candlelight match-lit and flickering
shadow and suggestion
the romantic light the mysterious light
the light of Rembrandt and van Eyck
the light tempered by darkness a tonal softness
the golden light the amber light the burnt-ochre light
the light for cuddle and caress
the lovers’ light.

Joe Dolce

Culture

Damnatio Memoriae.
Latin: condemnation of memory.
Official scrubbing.

Spanish tearing up the temples of Incas and Aztecs.
Leaden King George III, in 1776, melted down,
in Manhattan, to make musket balls.
Statues of Napoleon,
destroyed after Bourbon Restoration,
restored by Louis-Philippe,
destroyed again, during the Paris Commune.

Columbus toppled in Caracas,
Lincoln in London,
Washington in Portland,
Hussein in Baghdad,
Qaddafi in Tripoli,
Stalin in Budapest,
Lenin in Ethiopia,
Robert E Lee in Virginia.
General Benedict Arnold
redacted from Saratoga.

Books burned by Nazis.
Beatles bonfired in Birmingham.
6th century Buddhas of Bamyan,
blown up in Afghanistan, by Taliban.
Sex-offender Weinstein
expunged from film credits,
(leave his damn name there – ‘lest we forget),
slave-trader Colston tipped into Bristol Harbour,
Red Army high-relief monuments
over-painted, in Bulgaria,
as colourful comic book superheroes.

Closer to home,
Captain Cook
graffitied in Hyde Park,
drenched pink in St Kilda

Joe Dolce