Reflection on an exhibition

On Tuesday 5th July with some fellow ministers I visited the Rene Magritte exhibition at the Liverpool Tate.  This is the resulting reflection I wrote on my return.

Reflection on an exhibition 

Today I wandered through another’s thoughts…

looked with a stranger’s eyes

into a landscape of dreams . . .

 a world where shrouded lovers kiss, locked in a blind embrace. . .

where day is in the night and night within the day

– together –

playing with the light,

the time,

the space . . .

where birds fly in the clouds and clouds float in the birds –

perception all awry . . .

What is reality?

Suspend disbelief. . .

Realise the impossible . . .

Here thought is made visible.

In the paint anything can exist and

it really is raining men and

a woman offers up a pubic kiss.

Looking up the umbrella contains the clouds

inside, outside, in . . .

The artist thinks it into existence 
and the art is poetry in the making

portraying the imagined,

unimagined glimpses of reality,

hidden in surreal landscapes of the mind . . ,  

creative thought. . .

Mystery lies under the visible reality of the world. . .

Real life is always something else,

something that does not exist.

What is unreal now. . .

 is . . .

“For the first time my eyes saw thought.”

“. . . I make use of painting to render thoughts visible.” 
The artist said.

“The image is just a picture

and had I written 
“this is a pipe”

I would have been lying.”

I looked through someone else’s eyes today

and all I really know is . . .

This is not a pipe.
 .......................................................................................................................................................



some images that inspired this poem: