Number 1 by Jackson Pollock (1948)

Nancy Sullivan

No name but a number.
Trickles and valleys of paint
Devise this maze
Into a game of Monopoly
Without any bank. Into
A linoleum on the floor
In a dream. Into
Murals inside of the mind.
No similes here. Nothing
But paint. Such purity
Taxes the poem that speaks
Still of something in a place
Or at a time.
How to realize his question
Let alone his answer?

Jackson Pollack, Number 1 (1948)

Oil on canvas, 68 inches x 104 inches. The Museum of Modern Art, New York City.


Return to the Poem Index