Artist leaving residence

The artist leaves the building.
This time he is
wrapping up
his canvases, colors, and
hairy implements.

He loads and stacks,
lines and lays his tiles, some gently
until tightly packed
for transport.

Some of them,
he jams in just seeming
to fill in
any open spaces he sees.

His neighbor, the lady
living below him,
paints furiously-impressionism,
she is no artist.

She tries to finish
her own piece
before he is gone-
before all falls muted,

from above.
Heaven forbid,
the muse is moving on
to another scene, landscape

perch, set of white walls,
half empty canvases,
or another artistic
aesthetic altogether.

Painting by Thomas Prichard Rossiter, 'A Studio Reception, Paris' c. 1841,[CC0], via Wikimedia Commons.

Where Art thou Writer?

I tried to paint black cows on a moonless night,

it never came out right, 12 times out of ten,

but then I added blue and I knew

I was not a painter,

so I quit for a bit.

I tried cleaning

Once

I tried mapping, lists, and other gists of things,

All of which turned out were wrong.

then I wrote, and wrote and wrote

without periods,

and tried and tried to stop the words whizzing

by, arrest and test, to find the best ones.

I was fooled, I failed again and again

picking pyrite on sight,

my carbon spilt into lead,

took nothing out but blood,

a flood of it and died on the page.

Now the cows can sleep peacefully,

if only I could see.

Artwork by Paulus Potter (c. 1647) in [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Medium fits all

As the novelist is tempted to try
synopsizing and to nimbly stitch
a concise buttoned-up poem,

The poet reaches for the artists brush,
hoping his blended colors
will all come out in one broad stroke
as envisioned,

So does the artist become moved
by music in strokes of the latest
color combinations,
he paints a score to settle harmony
that escapes the canvas as a song,

And all are collaborations
of hand-eye articulation
expression in action,

As the photographer
captures realism completely
out of context,

The actor is able to enunciate
eloquently since he has had the script
beforehand,

interacting with his set he mimes
his role, the actor assumes his costume
as liar and professor,
adapting for his audience

The play,
what to think.

All artists play in living color, mixing
dead words and sterile symbology
waiting to be revived,
imbibed and misinterpreted
as original(s).




Image of painting By Etienne François-Eugène Lecoindre, 1882 (Sotheby's) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

I'll Be Frank with You

Strangers we are
and always have been
on other shores, lifetimes away
archived thankfully for someday
like this opening in my schedule.

I've done some looking in
to you, and wonder where you are
really from, I mean I get where you are
coming from, of the Hara, the place?
Or is it the Shiva or Scarlett's Hara?

I was taken in by many and none
the lineage leads to nowhere
but a sweet little eden, a valley lush
trees wearing afro dos, creeks trilling
through the dell-it clearly chose me
as you can tell.

I thought of a poem I wrote before
we had lunch yesterday, about a poet
who paints with words on white,
like still life, making space
more appealing. I forgot
to mention how much I enjoyed
Guadalajara, the pictures of Ashes Buried,
your instruction manual too, Mr. O'Hara.

Of course this was all before
page 163
of Secondary Colors
just past Orange
that banana split second-mutilated
dislocated from living just like that
taken away at 3-
on a beach! And what's more?!
It was not mine...
O the Horror!
These letters are just too much for me...

Pacifically.Stationed.
(this was long too early, I needed something like you there)

This poem was inspired by the poet Frank O'Hara and his poem specifically, Why I am not a painter.

Image by Sanford Robinson Gifford (1823-1880) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons,  painting described as Fire Island Beach, NY.