after ‘The American Dream’, by Brett Whiteley

The brain is a machine
susceptible to corruption
working away on incomplete
data sets

The bird builds a nest
fills it with eggs, potential life
feeds the young on instinct
and hope

Green and yellow earth
flow down to meet the sea
intuition and reason fight
for primacy

The blue ocean continues
insensitive to the logic, the imagination
of the painter who tries
to capture it

The red light of alarm, a dream
we wake from sweating
trying to make sense of the message
sent from the void

The coming storm, the enticing nude
the death of intellect as we
exchange emotion for distraction
and stop thinking.