Editors note: This poem was inspired by the below artwork. 

Poor Franz. Besotted with the colour blue
he painted horses. Blue horses with vibrant flanks
and curving backs like distant hills
beyond the frame. A brave new world.

His friend Kandinsky thought blue celestial,
but Franz’s blue was earthbound, muscular,
slick with sweat, applied through his tears
from a city preparing for war.

Some say blue horses don’t exist.
Not Franz. Struck by a shell in France and long gone,
he rides in some ethereal canvas
through fields of dead only he can see.

Sometimes, when I glimpse a certain blue,
childhood memories fill my mind –
a faded print of large blue horses, once
above my father’s desk, and now above mine.

_{Artwork reproduced with respect to the Copyright Act 1968 policy for fair dealing regarding criticism and review.}