Camera Obscura
Sep 7th, 2010 | By Tony Renner | Category: Poetry | 437 viewsCamera Obscura
You make a pin-hole camera
from an old cardboard box
with film stuck inside at one end
and a hole pricked in the other
You uncover the hole and
light streams in exposing
the film and then magic
and science work it out
and a picture is made
Exposure of the film to light
can be minutes
not even seconds or
fractions of seconds
time enough
The still is captured sharply
but the moving
blurs and becomes
indistinct
After you make your camera
someone says
hey, let’s make a picture of us
fucking
And so you do and the picture
shows skin on skin, yes
but neither bulging veins
nor butterfly labia
nor, clearly, is any
penetration revealed
On the periphery but not out of sight
captured in their quotidian glory are
a broom and a dustpan full
it is true
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About Tony Renner: Tony Renner is a late-bloomer. He earned his M.A. in American Culture Studies from Washington University in St. Louis some 29 years after graduating from high school. Almost immediately after completing his Master's thesis, Renner started painting. One of his first works received an award of excellence from Art St. Louis. Renner started a web log to post a batch of poems that he wrote as a high school student, and started writing new poems to post during National Poetry Month. Renner gave his first poetry reading in August of 2009. |
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This one just tickled me; I remember having done the “pinhole camera” thing early on in college (yup, guess that dates ME) and it’s incredible but limited; the use here made me smile. Great imagery.