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Botero (With Elephant) — Courbet (In Verse)

January 14, 2012

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dVerse Poets Pub has a poetics prompt based on Fernando Botero this week (hosted by Victoria C. Slotto.)

I like Botero’s images (one of which I’ve adapted above), but every time I thought of writing a poem about one, I pictured a person being swallowed by their own flesh.  Instead I’m opting for an older poem about other (more traditional) flesh-favoring artists:

Courbet

All I can say is that
it’s a good thing we have museums
hanging Courbets,
Rubens,
Rembrandts,
the occasional Italian,
with their depictions of swelling bellies,
dimples gathered around spines, flesh rippling
like Aphrodite’s birth foam,
the creep of pubic hair juxtaposed by coy hands
whose curved digits
pudge, slightly sunken cheeks (above, below),
spidery blood vessels
rooting beneath the patina. 
All I can say, as I catch
my face in the glass,
glance down at my folio
of torso, is that
it’s a good thing. 

(This is from my collection of poems, Going on Somewhere.  Check it out!   Also check out my new comic novel–Nose Dive,  a fun look at truth, beauty and the pursuit of harmony–available in paperback and on Kindle for just 99 cents!)

Categories: iPad art, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 12 Comments

“What You See” – On January 12th-13th, 2012

January 13, 2012

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As followers of this blog know, my beloved father died a little over a week ago, and I’ve been going through various post-death machinations down in Florida where he lived, some difficult, some wonderful, some tedious, some eye-opening.

Here’s a poem written this a.m. (still perhaps a draft):

What You See

When you shut your eyes after the sight
of death, even
contained, the lidded
darkness tells you
to change your life–
”you there.”

You’d think
it would urge self-fulfillment–
all that grandiosity–but no–

“be kind,”
the darkness whispers.

“Kinder,” urges
that depth behind the eyes.

“Try,” it insists.  “Every
single day, every
next day.”

Though you stand in a grey box
of a room, looking out, variously, at a refrigerator
tank and an incinerator’s
portal, you still feel it–kindness–
it’s all you can breathe actually–
as it waits patiently for you to inhale,
inhale again.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 5 Comments

Ode Not To Autumn -Eau’d Not to Autumn (“Swimming in Summer”)

January 12, 2012
The wonderful dVerse Poets Pub has a “form for all” challenge tonight to write an ode.  The prompt hosted by Gay Reiser Cannon cites Keats’ “Ode to Autumn.”  I’m not in great circumstances to write a new poem today, but the Keats brought up the closest thing I have to an Ode. Or should I say,”eau’d.”   (Sorry! And sorry too that some of you may have seen this villanelle before.  It is from my poetry book Going on Somewhere.  Check it out, and with it, my new comic novel NOSE DIVE.)

Swimming in Summer

Our palms grew pale as paws in northern climes
as water soaked right through our outer skin.
In summers past, how brightly water shines,

its surface sparked by countless solar mimes,
an aurora only fragmented by limb.
Our palms grew pale as paws in northern climes

as we played hide and seek with sunken dimes,
diving beneath the waves of echoed din;
in summers past, how brightly water shines.

My mother sat at poolside with the Times’
Sunday magazine; I swam by her shin,
my palms as pale as paws in northern climes,

sculpting her ivory leg, the only signs
of life the hair strands barely there, so prim
in summers past.  How brightly water shines

in that lost pool; and all that filled our minds
frozen now, the glimmer petrified within
palms, grown pale as paws in northern climes.
In summers past, how brightly water shines.

Categories: poetry, villanelle
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Comments: 12 Comments

One More Last Thing

January 11, 2012

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Getting up very early in the morning tomorrow to go to my father’s cremation. This sounds so strange even as I write it. Perhaps I should say that we (my brother and I) are getting up very early to go to the cremation of my father’s body, corpse, remains. (Though it is hard not to think of what is left as my father, since it is the only physical bit still present.)

Going to an event like this may sound ghoulish or unnecessary. (We have already had a very lovely funeral.) And yet it feels important to me to do it; one last chance to do one more/last thing for and with my father, even if it’s only seeing a longish sort of box, maybe putting a hand on a corner of it, or a corrugated side.

Categories: Uncategorized, Vicissitudes of Life
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Comments: 6 Comments

Pantoum – Slow Waltz “Last Anniversary Party (During the Chemo)”

January 10, 2012

Silver Slipper

Due to the death of my beloved father last week, I’ve spent the last few days somewhat focused on loss.  Here is an older poem, a pantoum, that deals with the loss of a friend.  (I posted a very early draft of this poem some time ago.  I think this version is much improved.  I am linking it to dVerse Poets Pub open link night.)

I’m not sure the poem quite works, even improved.  However, the pantoum form, which is by its nature a bit of an unwieldy dance (with all the repeating lines) seems to suit the subject.   (As with all my poetry, pauses in reading should be taken based on punctuation, not line breaks.)

Last Anniversary Party (During the Chemo)

She walked that night on the side
edges of silver slippers,
her smile stretched movie-star wide
above feet the meds had blistered.

The edges of silver slippers,
gathering (elasticized)
around feet the meds had blistered,
wedged in a slow waltz that defined

our gathering.  Elasticized
sweetness stretched around the bitter
wedge that their slow waltz defined.
With her husband, her too, we fitted

into that sweetness (stretched around the bitter
to make it last), pain astride.
With her husband, her too, we fitted
loss with all that sparkled fine

to make it last.  Pain astride
a smile stretched movie-star wide
lost none of that sparkle fine.
She walked that night still on this side.

Categories: poetry
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Comments: 19 Comments

Art Therapy (With Elephants)

January 9, 2012

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As followers of this blog know, I lost my dear father last week.  He had been declining for some time, but his death has still been very sad, especially for my mother, his spouse for over sixty years.  The above is a collaborative drawing of my mother, myself, my husband and my iPad2 done during the preparation of the first dinner we’ve actually been able to cook since my dad’s death.  (Doing normal everyday things like cooking is difficult after a death.  In my case, this difficulty is compounded by the fact that my mom has an electric stove, and I’m an absolute devotee of cooking with gas.)

One activity that is quite wonderful after a death, however, or perhaps after any trauma, is the making of visual art–even not-such-great art like the painting above. There is something absolutely engaging about making images, one’s own world, a new world–a world that, if you don’t have complete control over your medium, is full of surprises, and yet still self-contained.   It is probably more fun to do the art with paper and brushes, but those may be more dicey to whip out in the midst of food preparation.

As always, I recommend the Brushes App for those working on iPads.

Categories: iPad art, Uncategorized, Vicissitudes of Life
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Comments: 5 Comments

Magpie Tale – Odd Poem on Baldness (“Arched/Domed”)

January 8, 2012

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This is an odd poem written for Tess Kincaid’s Magpie TalesMagpie Tales. Tess posts a photographic prompt. I prefer to use my own art in my blog, so do my own version of Tess’s photo. And here’s the poem:

Arched/Domed

There is arched baldness and there is domed baldness,
Polished baldness and (simply) overly-shiny baldness,
Smooth baldness and whiskery baldness,
Waxed baldness (hair shaved) and waned baldness (hair receding),
Diabolic baldness and sweet baldness,
Destroyer-of-worlds baldness and lab-scientist-with-oddly-ruffled-
sides baldness.

The sweet (domed) baldness sits above a chest on which
one feels safe to rest one’s head,
While the arched baldness overlooks an
appraising brow.

You may wonder how I know
so much about no-hair.
Wonder on.

Categories: iPad art, poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 9 Comments

Onomatopoeia on the MTA (Subway Song)

January 7, 2012

Opening of "Somewhere", Music by Leonard Bernstein, Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Sheila Moore working with dVerse Poets Pub has a wonderful poetics prompt on onomotopoeia today.  Boom!  A great excuse to escape from the heaviness that has characterized my recent posts.  (I am also linking this to Victoria C. Slotto’s poetry blog, liv2write2day, which has a prompt about music and words.)

The following is an old sonnet, posted before (sorry!), but somewhat revised.  I’m not sure that it quite qualifies as onomotopoeic poetry, but it does focus on sound, in this case an eerie music made by track and train car at certain subway stations on the IRT Lexington Avenue line.

“Somewhere” on the MTA

The subway sings its broken refrain:
the opening bars of “Theeeere’s aaa Plaaaace
For Us” from West Side Story.  The train
croons the first three notes as it leaves the dais
of the platform, the tune subsiding
then to squeak and wind and roar as we race
to a-harmonic levels, soon riding
at a speed without space for Bernstein’s trace
of tragic lovers defiant of fate
and family.  Yet…at every station…
there’s a plaace—again.  Who of those who wait
hear the song of that longed-for destination,
harmonic haven–beyond how, beyond where–
amazed that the Six Train nearly takes them there?

 

I am also linking this post to Gooseberry Garden’s Poetry Picnic.  (The prompt relates to NYTimes headlines–the subway? Hmmm…)

Categories: poetry
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Comments: 13 Comments

Food, Mattresses, Eulogy?

January 7, 2012

Too-quick drawing of my sweet dad

It is hard to explain how much there is to do after a death.  It is a crazy time, so rushed historically because of the fragile nature of the body, and now because of the difficult interplay of multiple schedules.

So what are some of the tasks?

Picking out clothes to take to the funeral home.  Something nice, but perhaps not too nice.  (You won’t get them back.)  In accordance with family regulations, you must make any family member near the same size try on selected outfits first  to make sure that any clothes chosen are not things that might have remained with the living.

Buying food.  More food.  Sandwiches?  Shrimp?  Is Champagne weird?  If not, should we get the one whose name is like that of an old friend?  (Yes.)

Calling people.  Writing people.  Sitting with those who come to visit.  Accepting hugs.

Cleaning.  Going into the decedent’s room and discretely taking out the more unpleasant reminders: rubber gloves–compressed oxygen.

Getting beds organized.   Airplane tickets.  Car pick-ups.  Mattresses.  Sheets.  More food.

Cleaning out the fridge–Ensures don’t need to be refrigerated and space is needed for all that food.

Negotiating funeral program.  Reading Bible verses.  Considering non-Bible Verses.   Hurriedly drawing sketch that can be printed on a small-town church printing system.

Music?

Of course, music.

Oh dear, music!

Photographs.

Helping to pick out clothes for the widow.  Promoting the benefits of hearing aids.  Assuaging grief.

Grieving.

Organizing more food.

And more clean up.

A eulogy.

Mattresses.

Categories: iPad art, Vicissitudes of Life
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Comments: 8 Comments

Long Day

January 6, 2012

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Long day’s night.  As followers of this blog know, it is the day after the death of my dear dad.

A lot to be done, a lot done. Not really done, but “arranged, ” i.e. set up to be done.

I find it very hard to use the term “passed away.”  I don’t like euphemisms to begin with, but also the word “pass” just seems too casual for such a sober event–how can I use the same word for the death of a loved one as I might use for requesting a bottle of ketchup, a throw of a football or a whole bunch of more awkward things?

It seems to me that “past, away” would work better, the person being both suddenly past and away.

Those remaining behind become extremely tired.

The good part is that some of the normal nervousness and fretting about doing things, i.e. preparing events kind of disappears for a while.

You just do your best, can’t worry.

Besides, there is plenty enough else to worry about–that which has passed, and is away.

Categories: Uncategorized, Vicissitudes of Life
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Comments: 3 Comments

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