Inspired by “Impasse des Deux Frères” by Vincent van Gogh and Kayleen Asbo’s musical response, “Moulins de Gallette.”
Some days, like today, I long for rain,
long for the muted, grey kind of day
that unfolded in the oils of van Gogh,
when he’d stroll through the flat
and quiet daytime streets of Montmartre,
those dreamy hours when the world
is not too bright, not overly exultant,
not too sure of its gaiety,
a day when the wind is the only thing
that feels it needs to move,
when I don’t need to know anything
about anything, can notice how
the world resists resolution,
how the barest scrap of color
can change the whole scene,
can let myself be content to be gray,
can let myself be a student of windmills,
notice how it’s the invisible forces
like silent love, like persistent wind,
that make the whole world spin.
Posts Tagged ‘ekphrasis’
On a Day When Life Feels Black and White
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged acceptance, ekphrasis, gray, Kayleen Asbo, paris, Van Gogh on May 25, 2022| 10 Comments »
First Steps
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, love, parenting, Van Gogh on May 20, 2022| 8 Comments »
inspired by “First Steps” (after Millet) by Vincent Van Gogh and a song by the same name by Kayleen Asbo
Precious as the first pale green of spring
those first awkward steps of a child.
How we cheer their innocent tottering.
How we celebrate the very thing
that will lead our child away
from the safety of our arms.
Memory is like a Dutch painter
who insists on portraying
a child’s first steps
in only the loveliest hues,
and the frame contains
only lyrical hope,
and each brush stroke
is dipped in tenderness,
and we don’t yet know
how hard it will be to let go,
how the sweetest songs end
long before the heart is ready.
In the “Wheat Field with Crows”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, possibility, Van Gogh on May 20, 2022| 6 Comments »
inspired by “Wheat Field with Crows” painted by Vincent van Gogh and “Blackbirds” composed by Kayleen Asbo
Oh Vincent, I long to pause with you
where the three paths converge in the wheat field.
We can stand there beneath the sullen sky
like two piano notes side by side,
which, when played at the same time,
rub against each other
in an awkward, uncomfortable music.
Sometimes what unsettles us
is so unbearably beautiful.
I want to meet you in this moment
before you return to a wheat field
with not a brush, but a gun,
want to meet you in this moment
before the choice, before the shot,
this moment when there are still three paths,
all of them leading beyond the frame.
Let’s linger here, Vincent,
beneath the dark arpeggios of crows,
linger here while everything is still possible.
The storm is coming, I see it, too,
turbulent and full of change
while in the honest wheat, look,
you’ve shared so much light, so much gold.
Looking at Van Gogh’s “Wheat Field with Cypresses”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Art, change, ekphrasis, Kayleen Asbo, Van Gogh, wind on May 16, 2022| 9 Comments »
while listening to Kayleen Asbo’s “Cypresses”
The wind, that knows itself only by what
it touches, does not whip your hair
as it churns through the wide golden wheat fields,
does not steal your hat as it tosses
the clouds into frothy white and violet whorls,
does not slap your face as you stare
at the silver-green branches of olive trees
upswept into turbulent curves. You’re just looking.
Until you realize the wind has breached the frame
and touched you the way it touches all that it loves,
and your heart knows what it perhaps wishes
it did not know—that all is changed and rearranged,
all gets stirred up and remade, even the cypress,
even the mountains, even the stubborn heart.
you can see the painting here
Seascape Near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged color, ekphrasis, grief, Kayleen Asbo, sea, Van Gogh on May 14, 2022| 4 Comments »
inspired by “Seascape near Les Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer” by Vincent van Gogh and music by Kayleen Asbo, “Les Bateaux de Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer”
Dear Vincent, I wish I could speak of grief
as well as you articulate the colors of the sea,
naming all the hues as they change in the light—
noting the deep ultramarine near the shore
even as it tends toward pale russet, toward violet.
It’s always changing, you wrote to Theo.
You can’t even tell if it’s blue because
a second later the changing light
has taken on a pink or gray tinge.
The same is true of shades of loss—
the moment I identify a deep feeling of sorrow,
I notice pale hints of trust, nuances of awe.
The moment I name it tenderness,
it shifts into pain, ferocity, exhaustion.
Tonight I stared into the seascape you painted
on the shores of the Mediterranean,
and I knew myself not as the water
with its capricious tones, but as the boat
that sails upon it, something transported
by all this change. I tried to see the sea
with the same perspective you had:
It wasn’t very cheery but neither was it sad
it was beautiful.
Oh those blue depths with their emerald, their white.
I let myself be carried by that beauty.
La Berceuse
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, inner child, Kayleen Asbo, lullaby, sleep, Van Gogh, vulnerability on May 12, 2022| 10 Comments »
inspired by “La Berceuse” by Vincent van Gogh and a song by the same name by Kayleen Asbo, with a line from Paul Gaugin
There is, inside all of us,
all of us, all of us,
a child who longs
to be rocked, and rocked,
a soul child who longs
for the old sense of cradling,
a soul infant, fragile,
so green, so new,
who knows only to trust
that someone, someone,
peaceful and still,
someone with patience
and infinite calm,
with a quiet face
and sober eyes
will sit beside us
in heavy-lidded moments
when we glide defenseless
on dim shores of dreams,
yes, someone, someone,
will watch us, will watch,
will keep watch and will usher us
slowly to sleep,
to sleep, though we fight it,
oh shhhh, shhhhh.
Can you feel it, the rocking,
the rocking, the rocking,
can you feel it, the rocking,
that never stops?
Oh bless the hand,
the patient hand,
oh bless the hand
that rocks.
Two Days After I Left the Museum of Modern Art
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged death, ekphrasis, klimt, life on December 6, 2021| 8 Comments »
after Hope II by Gustav Klimt
I am still thinking of the pregnant woman
on the fifth floor in room five hundred four
in a gold and jewel-toned Byzantine gown
with her eyes closed and her head bowed
down toward her swollen belly. Has she
glimpsed the gray skull attached to her womb?
Is this why her eyes are closed? Did she
somehow guess at what I now know—
that to say yes to a birth is to also say yes
to the death of that child—how the end
is in every one of us from the beginning.
It is right the soon-to-be mother
is nearly naked. This is what birth
and death do to us—no matter how
rich our clothes, we are utterly exposed—
not a damn thing to protect us
from our impermanence. I have fallen
in love with her, this mother to be—
in love with the curl of her fingers,
in love with the flex of her wrist,
in love with her flat and ornate robe,
in love with her delicate face,
and in love with her ripening shape—
this is how the human story goes.
Death hides in all our robes.
It’s the only way to live.
Getting Messy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, embodiment, face, verbs on December 5, 2020| 2 Comments »
I like when
your eyes haze
with mystery
so I know myself
more sculpturally
and remember
how to brow,
how to jowl,
how to cheek.
I like when
we lip,
more smear
less line,
when we belief
less tidy,
more smudge
more shine.
I love when we
smile through
shadowy mess—
when we face
less certain,
more suggest.
At the National Gallery of Art
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, letting go, love, museum, picasso on October 27, 2020| 2 Comments »
on seeing The Lovers by Pablo Picasso when I was sixteen
Perhaps because I was in love
I fell in love with The Lovers—
fell in love with the way
the man held the woman from behind.
Fell in love with his red,
with her yellow and green.
Fell in love with his gaze,
with the tilt of her head.
I knew what it was like
to be that woman.
Even now, looking
at the painting in pixels,
not in oil on linen,
I feel it—the harmony
of the blue sky behind them,
a sky somehow boundless
inside of them, too.
Thirty years later,
I’m still charged with that blue.
And whatever it is
that forces the woman
to look beyond the frame,
I remember that, too.
It’s as if she can’t quite see
what’s about to happen,
so with one hand,
she holds on to her lover.
With the other, she reaches,
or is she holding herself?
And here’s what I grasp
that she doesn’t yet know—
how hard it will be, how hard
it will be to let go.
The Lovers by Pablo Picasso
Devotion
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged devotion, ekphrasis, Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keefe, love on March 2, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I didn’t know then that devotion
was jumping off the high dive into a pool
though there was no life guard,
though there was no telling
what or who else was in that water.
I didn’t know devotion would mean
tattooing another’s face to my forehead
the way Frida once did with Diego—
how the whole world would be able to see
what I thought was invisible.
I didn’t know devotion meant walking barefoot
into the wind, a wind so strong it shredded my coat.
Didn’t know my destination
would become so unknowable,
would remain so far away.
Perhaps I thought it would be more mechanical—
as if the nuts and bolts of you
would meet the nuts and bolts of me,
and through sun and rain we would fuse together,
belly to belly, nose to nose.
Instead, I meet devotion now
the way I once met Georgia O’Keefe’s clouds
in the stairwell of the Chicago Art Museum.
I stared at the giant painting, thinking to myself,
That’s not at all what it’s like.
Years later when I visited Abiquiu,
I saw the sky so true to what she’d painted,
gasped to see that herd of perfect ovals
flocked white above the red land.
Perhaps this is what devotion is like—
being willing to trust I know nothing at all
of what it looks like. That the only way it reveals itself
is when I meet it with wonder, the way I might meet
the work of a master, willing to be curious,
willing to be awed.
Exquisite Corpse?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, exquisite corpse, kiss on March 1, 2020| 2 Comments »
inspired by an exquisite corpse drawing by Man Ray, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miró and Max Morise
It all began
as just a kiss—
but there was a handgun
inside of a fist.
Our pages were folded
so we couldn’t see
where the story started
and where it would lead
(couldn’t know what would happen
below the waist—
another man crushed
by love’s unwitting weight).
It all began
as just a kiss—
who knew that it
would lead to this?
*
to see the image and read about the surrealist game of exquisite corpse, visit https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-explaining-exquisite-corpse-surrealist-drawing-game-die
Editor’s Choice for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge!
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, purpose, Rattle on January 30, 2020| 6 Comments »
Today, Rattle.com featured my poem, “Seeking Purpose,” which I wrote in response to Natalie Seabolt’s beautiful image, “Bound,” as the Editor’s Choice for their Ekphrastic Challenge! I love this practice of writing poems for images–this one explores our purpose, and how it might be nice for the world to give us just a little clue about what that might be. You can download a broadside of the poem and image right there on Rattle’s page.
Almost Wet
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anticipation, curiosity, ekphrasis, hokusai, poem, poetry on November 23, 2019| 2 Comments »
after The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai
In this sea, the great rogue wave is always
about to crash, and the fishermen
in their long thin boats
slip themselves forever in its path—
and though it hangs above them
with hundreds of frothing claws,
and though they cower atop their boats,
they’ve yet to be cast off into the sea—
and the moment is forever charged
with an anticipation larger than
the highest mountain, caught in curiosity—
how will it be to be devoured?
Tantalus
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, greek gods, hunger, poem, poetry, sacrifice on June 21, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Of course it was awful, what he did, chopping
up his son to serve him in a stew to the gods,
confused somehow about sacrifice.
After that, the gods never let Tantalus be nourished again.
He was forever made to stand in a pool of water
beneath a fruit tree, its branches low hanging.
And whenever her reached to eat the fruit, sweet and ripe,
the branches would rise. And whenever he tried to drink,
the clear water would recede.
There are many kinds of prisons. Some
have iron bars, cement walls. Some deprive
you of your senses. But the gods knew some look like paradise.
Haven’t we all been confused before?
Haven’t we all made misguided sacrifice?
I’m not trying to defend Tantalus. I’m just saying
we all understand hunger. And no matter how many times
the branch is taken away, it is survival to want the fruit,
to reach, to reach again.
to see the image, click here
The Conjurer Speaks
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, Hieronymous Bosch, poem, poetry, The Conjurer on October 6, 2018| 2 Comments »
after The Conjurer by Hieronymous Bosch, 1475
No one is so much a fool as a willful fool.
Flemish proverb
Most people don’t know where to look—
they’re easy to distract. Some simple patter
can confuse their eyes and cloud their
clarity. “You see this pearl,” I say,
“so luminous,” and hold it up to gather light.
And while they look, a hand can do what hands
can do. And if something should disappear—
a ball, a purse, a trust—I tell myself
it is a fool who’s always credulous.
And in the end, it’s just another empty pocket.
Just another empty cup. Just another
empty promise in a world
with shame enough. So call it magic.
Call it theft. They’re both just rearranging.
One ends in astonishment.
The other in a hanging.
It’s plain survival, this secret art,
this instinct to deceive.
Thank God for fools, their froggish blear,
their longing to believe.
Four Poems Inspired by Art
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged dream, ekphrasis, love, lungs, poem, poetry on August 21, 2018| 2 Comments »
One Blooming
looking outside myself
for my dream, when all along
it takes my shape
Thank You Letter to My Lungs
No matter the shame,
the fear, the loss, the pain,
you bring the outside in
and then share what’s inside
with everything else,
and rhythmically, quietly,
hidden and tireless,
you stich me,
unite me
to the cloth of all that is.
How do I sometimes
ignore the communion?
And you breathe on,
barely audible prayer,
weaving me into here, here, here.
One Reason for Clarity
playing hide and seek
with myself, I always win
I always lose
The Lesson
I said to love I am lost
and she gave me
a ladder, a leaf,
a crooked blue door,
an alley I’d never
traveled before,
a room with no ceiling
three circles, some green,
bouquet of uncertainty
scent of spring,
a small red window
a straight backed chair.
Still lost? she said.
Now share.
Can You Hear the Silence?
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged andrea bird, ekphrasis, poem, poetry, silence on July 29, 2018| Leave a Comment »
Based on an encaustic piece by the same name by Andrea Bird
She asks if I can hear the silence.
I try. I try too hard and all I hear is a low
green chant: lovable, loveless, loophole, loose.
So she gives me petals, a handful of pink,
and I gather them in my hands. How lovely
they are as I listen to them fall.
The Legacy of Gustav Klimt and His Enduring Kiss
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged ekphrasis, eternity, klimt, poem, poetry, The Kiss, transience on February 28, 2018| 2 Comments »
After over a hundred years,
the blue flowers in her hair
are still as blue and the ivy
in his hair is still as green
and her face is just as soft
and serene as when she received
the kiss, the kiss that made
the whole world fall in love
with Gustav Klimt. And who
wouldn’t want to be caught
forever and ever in a golden
embrace, infinitely tender,
eternally erotic, the way
no kiss truly is? But here
they are, defying the fall,
these lovers, hanging unframed
on the wall of the Belvedere,
still passionate, lust-drowsy,
their love spilling into the halls
as the whole world around
them dissolves into shimmer,
into shine.
http://www.cnn.com/style/article/gustav-klimt-100-years/?iid=ob_lockedrail_bottomlarge
Modigliani Remembers Anna Akhmatova as He Sketches Her Naked, Again
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anna akhmatova, ekphrasis, loss, modligliani, poem, poetry on January 28, 2018| 1 Comment »
She said my eyes had a golden gleam,
but it was her eyes, her eyes that redeemed
the world—the way she translated all she saw
into slender verse. I still hear her voice, soft as rain,
as she’d say, 0 Il faut, voyez-vous,
nous pardonner les choses—reciting Verlaine
as we sat beneath my old black umbrella
in the Jardin du Luxembourg. I knew,
even then, she would leave me. Knew
that although she threw red roses onto my floor
she would always return to Russia, her home.
Oh, but the tapered length of her. Like a candle,
a dancer, an Egyptian queen. How
her figure astonishes me. I draw her always
by memory. She, with the poise
of a Siamese cat. She with her stray dog soul.
When she left me, she took a single scroll
with her portrait sketched in pencil.
She tells me she’s taped it above her couch.
But she never returned. She never
returned. Now all my lines are ghosts.
To see some of Modigliani’s images of Anna Akhmatova, visit:
Petunia No. 2
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged beauty, ekphrasis, flower, Georgia O'Keefe, petunia, poem, poetry on January 27, 2018| Leave a Comment »
When Georgia painted the petunia,
she knew that to make busy people stop
in surprise and consider petunia,
she needed to make it large—
and she did—enormous petunias
revealed, unfolding along the wall—
and there the busy people saw
the intimate petals of women,
when all Georgia wanted to show them
was flower, the essence of flower,
the beauty of flower, the pure
purpled splendor of flower—
how soft, how sensual, how
wholly day stopping
a single flower can be.
to see the artwork, visit:
https://www.okeeffemuseum.org/store/products/posters/flowers/petunia-no-2-1924/