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When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing.

quote by Jackson Pollock
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Painting The Walls

painting the walls,
rolling over handprints,
cobwebs, and smoke stains....

over splashes of color,
over peels of time.
painting over the sounds

of voices whispering, laughing....
painting over tears hidden
from the world, from each other.

painting over running, and working,
working all day and half the night.
painting over children, and dreams,

folded like old clothes, and put away.
painting over notes from God,
that were often barely noticed...

painting over the nail that held
up the clock, hands moving slowly,
turning the seasons of living....

painting over the final words,
the last breath held in the hands,
of lives written in the grain....

the testimony of each feeling....
painting the walls,
and brushing the corners,

as if we never lived!

poem by Eric Cockrell
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Gioconda And Si-Ya-U

to the memory of my friend SI-YA-U,
whose head was cut off in Shanghai

A CLAIM

Renowned Leonardo's
world-famous
"La Gioconda"
has disappeared.
And in the space
vacated by the fugitive
a copy has been placed.

The poet inscribing
the present treatise
knows more than a little
about the fate
of the real Gioconda.
She fell in love
with a seductive
graceful youth:
a honey-tongued
almond-eyed Chinese
named SI-YA-U.
Gioconda ran off
after her lover;
Gioconda was burned
in a Chinese city.

I, Nazim Hikmet,
authority
on this matter,
thumbing my nose at friend and foe
five times a day,
undaunted,
claim
I can prove it;
if I can't,
I'll be ruined and banished
forever from the realm of poesy.

1928

Part One
Excerpts from Gioconda's Diary

15 March 1924: Paris, Louvre Museum

At last I am bored with the Louvre Museum.

[...] Read more

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Calculated With 'Come-Hither' Stares

Aligning and finding the mind is attached,
To that Great One who knows...
All that we sow and reap to adapt,
More than we should carry on our backs.
But...
We do because it is what 'we' choose.
Believing our shoulders are for this to be used.
The Great One has nothing to do with that!

Learn to remove those unconscious traps.
Calculated with 'come-hither' stares,
Alluring to seduce with temptations to induce...
Senses of despair to bear,
More than we should carry on our backs.
But do because it is what 'we' choose.
The Great One has nothing to do with that!

Be aware,
Of those calculated with 'come-hither' stares.
Be aware of them.
Be aware of them.
Be aware.

Be aware,
Of those calculated with 'come-hither' stares.
Be aware of them.
Be aware of them.
Be aware!

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Let Yourself Be Aware Of Depth

Recognize minimize limits,
From inside and decide...
To reach beyond,
That which divides.
Close your eyes in boundless darkness.
Know all wants and wishes,
Come from this.

Let yourself be aware of depth.
And...
Let your imagination,
Be swept away.

Let yourself be aware of depth.
And...
Let your imagination,
Be swept away.

Recognize minimize limits,
From inside and decide...
To reach beyond,
That which divides.

Let yourself be aware of depth.
And...
Let your imagination,
Be swept away.

Close your eyes in boundless darkness.
Know all wants and wishes,
Come from this.

Let yourself be aware of depth.
And...
Let your imagination,
Be swept away.

Let yourself be aware of depth.
And...
Let your imagination,
Be swept away.

The Earth...
Is part of the Universe.

Let yourself be aware of depth.

From birth...
We come to Earth to nourish.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Why Is Repin Painting Monet?

why is repin
painting monet
why is not repin
painting repin
or why is not monet
painting monet
or they're just
making a team
in this day
very sunny day
in the south
south of beauty
oh beauty
beauty named france
france of that field
the sunflower field
oh making
making for a painting
a painting for price
a price for bread
bread for respect
respect for van gogh
van gogh for a day
a day for painting
painting for words
words for us
and us for them
and them are only
only and just
just se7en words
'we all are brothers
brothers
in love'

poem by Ahmed Khaled
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Through the eyes of a Field Coronet (Epic)

Introduction

In the kaki coloured tent in Umbilo he writes
his life’s story while women, children and babies are dying,
slowly but surely are obliterated, he see how his nation is suffering
while the events are notched into his mind.

Lying even heavier on him is the treason
of some other Afrikaners who for own gain
have delivered him, to imprisonment in this place of hatred
and thoughts go through him to write a book.

Prologue

The Afrikaner nation sprouted
from Dutchmen,
who fought decades without defeat
against the super power Spain

mixed with French Huguenots
who left their homes and belongings,
with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Associate this then with the fact

that these people fought formidable
for seven generations
against every onslaught that they got
from savages en wild animals

becoming marksmen, riding
and taming wild horses
with one bullet per day
to hunt a wild antelope,

who migrated right across the country
over hills in mass protest
and then you have
the most formidable adversary
and then let them fight

in a natural wilderness
where the hunter,
the sniper and horseman excels
and any enemy is at a lost.

Let them then also be patriotic
into their souls,
believe in and read
out of the word of God

[...] Read more

poem by Gert Strydom
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Fra Lippo Lippi

I am poor brother Lippo, by your leave!
You need not clap your torches to my face.
Zooks, what's to blame? you think you see a monk!
What, 'tis past midnight, and you go the rounds,
And here you catch me at an alley's end
Where sportive ladies leave their doors ajar?
The Carmine's my cloister: hunt it up,
Do—harry out, if you must show your zeal,
Whatever rat, there, haps on his wrong hole,
And nip each softling of a wee white mouse,
Weke, weke, that's crept to keep him company!
Aha, you know your betters! Then, you'll take
Your hand away that's fiddling on my throat,
And please to know me likewise. Who am I?
Why, one, sir, who is lodging with a friend
Three streets off—he's a certain...how d'ye call?
Master—a...Cosimo of the Medici,
I' the house that caps the corner. Boh! you were best!
Remember and tell me, the day you're hanged,
How you affected such a gullet's gripe!
But you, sir, it concerns you that your knaves
Pick up a manner nor discredit you:
Zooks, are we pilchards, that they sweep the streets
And count fair prize what comes into this net?
He's Judas to a tittle, that man is!
Just such a face! Why, sir, you make amends.
Lord, I'm not angry! Bid your hangdogs go
Drink out this quarter-florin to the health
Of the munificent House that harbors me
(And many more beside, lads! more beside!)
And all's come square again. I'd like his face—
His, elbowing on his comrade in the door
With the pike and lantern—for the slave that holds
John Baptist's head a-dangle by the hair
With one hand ("Look you, now," as who should say)
And his weapon in the other, yet unwiped!
It's not your chance to have a bit of chalk,
A wood-coal or the like? or you should see!
Yes, I'm the painter, since you style me so.
What, brother Lippo's doings, up and down,
You know them and they take you? like enough!
I saw the proper twinkle in your eye—
'Tell you, I liked your looks at very first.
Let's sit and set things straight now, hip to haunch.
Here's spring come, and the nights one makes up bands
To roam the town and sing out carnival,
And I've been three weeks shut within my mew,
A-painting for the great man, saints and saints
And saints again. I could not paint all night—
Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air.

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from Men and Women (1855)
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I'm Not One Of Those Peephole Old People

I'm not a portrait painting on a canvas.
Waiting for a visit to exhibit.
I'm not one of those peephole old people...
Peeking out of keyholes all day,
Hey...
I,
Am much...
Alive.

I'm not a portrait painting on a canvas.
Waiting for a visit to exhibit.

I,
Am much...
Alive.

I,
Am much...
Alive.

I'm not one of those peephole old people,
Peeking out of keyholes all day!
I'm not a portrait painting on a canvas.
Waiting for a visit to exhibit.

I,
Am much...
Alive.

I,
Am much...
Alive.

I'm not a portrait painting on a canvas.
Waiting for a visit to exhibit.
I'm not one of those peephole old people...
Peeking out of keyholes all day,
Hey...
I'm not a portrait painting on a canvas.
Waiting for a visit to exhibit.
I'm not one of those peephole old people...
Peeking out of keyholes all day,
Hey...
I,
Am much...
Alive.

I'm not one of those peephole old people.

I,

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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untitled abstract painting of Custer's Last Stand

Untitled abstract painting of Custer’s last stand

an abstract painting of custer’s last stand
Hangs in the Montana Museum of Modern Art
A fish with a halo and many Indians mating
And no name tag makes this painting, stand apart

Montanans know the title of this portrait
Although no name tag is shown
Yet, as the gaze falls upon it
the title is intuitively known,

the last words that were spoken
from this famous man’s mouth
As the battle of the Big horn
Began to go south

Oddly enough, as in the painting
his last words were not prayer
Though the words; “copulation and Indians, “
“Fish And Holy, “ were there.

The title of the painting and Custer’s last words
Weren’t from Romans or Corinthians.
They were simply “Holy Mackerel
Look at all the F#@*in’ Indians

poem by David Whalen
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Ballade Of Modest Confession

My reading is extremely deep and wide;
And as our modern education goes—
Unique I think, and skilfully applied
To Art and Industry and Autres Choses
Through many years of scholarly repose.
But there is one thing where I disappoint
My numerous admirers (and my foes).
Painting on Vellum is my weakest point.

I ride superbly. When I say I 'ride'
The word's too feeble. I am one of those
That dominate a horse. It is my pride
To tame the fiercest with tremendous blows
Of heel and knee. The while my handling shows
Such lightness as a lady's. But Aroint
Thee! Human frailty with thy secret woes!
Painting on Vellum is my weakest point.

Painting on Vellum: not on silk or hide
Or ordinary Canvas: I suppose
No painter of the present day has tried
So many mediums with success, or knows
As well as I do how the subject grows
Beneath the hands of genius, that anoint
With balm. But I have something to disclose—
Painting on Vellum is my weakest point.

Envoi
Prince! do not let your Nose, your royal Nose,
Your large imperial Nose get out of Joint.
For though you cannot touch my golden Prose,
Painting on Vellum is my weakest point.

poem by Hilaire Belloc
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In The Eye Of The Hurricane Rose

In the eye of the hurricane rose
all is as calm as a bee
as my world is shed around me
like eyelids.
The racket of Canada geese
holding a political rally
high over everybody's heads
a thousand feet straight up
as the economy returns like spring.
I know what it is
to be a phoenix of a tree
and lose your leaves
like a fire that goes out in the night.
I used to be a snowman
and purified myself
with my own disappearance
when things warmed up.
Now I'm a scarecrow
with nothing to chase away
except the farmer.
It wasn't me
that held a grudge against the birds.
Everything's wrong
but it's all right,
the chaos is vividly illustrated
with picture music
and I'm wearing my eye in my ear
and there's a keyboard and an easel near
like a skeleton with a forced grin.
A painting a day.
Van Gogh on steroids.
But I can't afford to eat my cadmium yellow
and they're not handing out food for thought
at the back of the think-tank anymore.
I don't know what to say
about all those people
who set out to be artists
and wound up being stores.
People eat.
People pay the rent.
Baby needs new shoes.
Benign reason can smother an artist
faster than the demands of a serial killer
in the hands of the pillow she dreams upon
and the tigers of wrath
who are wiser than the horses of instruction
who took so easily to the cart
as Blake said in his sayings from hell
soon learn that heroism isn't smart
if you don't want to be hunted into extinction

[...] Read more

poem by Patrick White
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Emulation

Dependence leads to emulation,
but sadly creativity
demands thereafter separation,
with hypersensitivity
the reason often for defection
of emulator, who betrays
his master by his rude rejection.
Disengaged like divorcés,
regretting the dependence that
had once inspired them both, they lose
their symbiosis and combat
each other with conflicting views,
and claim they always had suspected
the other was far less inspired
than they, and ought to be rejected,
the sell-by date now long expired.

Inspired by an article Holland Cotter on an exhibition of the art of Titian, Tintoreeto and Verones at the Boston Museum of Fine Art (Passion of the Moment: A Triptych of Masters, NYT, March 12,2009) :

The show is about three such personalities: Tiziano Vecellio, or Titian; Jacopo Robusti, known as Tintoretto; and Paolo Caliari, called Veronese. All three shot off sparks as they reforged painting as a medium. And all three had feverishly competitive overlapping careers. These masters of 16th-century Venetian painting were no Holy Trinity. They were a discordant ménage-a-trois bound together by envy, talent, circumstances and some strange version of love. This is the story the exhibition tells through 56 grand to celestial paintings — no filler here, not an ounce of fat — sorted into broad categories (religious images, portraits, belle donne) and arranged in compare-and-contrast couplings and triplings to indicate who was looking at whom, and why, and when. And that story is set against a larger historical narrative that goes something like this. Before the 16th century Italian art was dominated by two cities, Florence and Rome, and by two kinds of painting: fresco and egg tempera — water-based, fast-drying, smooth-surfaced — on wood. Venice lay outside this mainstream. Fresco wasn’t viable in the city’s humid atmosphere; tempera had problems too. Then, at the end of the 15th century, oil painting, still little known in the rest of Italy, was introduced, and Venetian art caught fire….Finally into the arena strode a third giant, and a somewhat gentler one, Veronese (1528-88) . Named for his native city and still in his teens when he hit Venice, he was quickly acknowledged to be a prodigy, fully formed. Titian became the artist he was through long growth, Tintoretto by sifting and synthesizing influences. Veronese was Veronese from Day 1. Ingratiating in manner, he was a painter of fine texture, sweet color and courtly reserve. Patrons who found Tintoretto too outlandish gave Veronese their business; the elderly Titian took him under his wing. And from the 1540s to the 1580s Venetian painting became a three-way dance among these three men, a tricky choreography of emulation and rejection, dependence and separation. You can follow the moves in a cluster of steamy paintings of nudes at the center of the show, installed in a gallery with crimson walls and tasseled curtains. The Titians — the “Danae” from the Capodimonte Museum in Naples, “Venus with an Organist and Dog” from the Prado, “Venus With a Mirror” from the National Gallery of Art in Washington — are stop-and-stare fantastic.

3/13/09

poem by Gershon Hepner
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Artist Only

I'm painting, I'm painting again.
I'm painting, I'm painting again.
I'm cleaning, I'm cleaning again.
I'm cleaning, I'm cleaning my brain.
Pretty soon now, I will be bitter.
Pretty soon now, will be a quitter.
Pretty soon now, I will be bitter.
You can't see it 'til it's finished
I don't have to prove...that I am creative!
I dont' have to prove...that I am creative!
All my pictures are confused
And now I'm going to take me to you

song performed by Talking Heads
Added by Lucian Velea
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Artists Only

Im painting, Im painting again.
Im painting, Im painting again.
Im cleaning, Im cleaning again.
Im cleaning, Im cleaning my brain.
Pretty soon now, I will be bitter.
Pretty soon now, will be a quitter.
Pretty soon now, I will be bitter.
You cant see it til its finished
I dont have to prove...that I am creative!
I dont have to prove...that I am creative!
All my pictures are confused
And now Im going to take me to you.

song performed by Talking Heads
Added by Lucian Velea
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Wave Wet Sand

You are as reliable as a painting
In wave wet sand.
Look in your eyes and I cant see a thing,
That usually means attratction to me
Ive read all the books about love I could find,
And Ive found not one, no,
Not one word about mine -
cause you are reliable as a painting
In wave wet sand
Youre coming and youre going:
Like the water you never end.
cause you are reliable as a painting
In wave wet sand
And I am just another piece of an island
In reach for your hands
...feel my doubts when you are in my arms.
Darling: if you know that its love
And not charm
You must tell me so or go elsewhere to hunt.
cause you are...
Your love...
I am just another piece of an island
I cant close my ears when I hear that you call.
I dont want to fear every tear that could fall:
Ill go on my own, and pass people with doubts.
My goal is to find just a piece of your love.
Your love is - your love is like the water
You are like the water.
You are like the water.
You, you are my shore, and you know
You are my shore.
cause you are reliable like a painting...
I am just another piece of an island...

song performed by Ace Of Base
Added by Lucian Velea
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You're My Evergreen

The words we say, old flowers fade away
Remember yesterday, wish it would bloom again
Apathy and pain, here comes the autumn rain
Old apologies scattered in the wings of fate
Cause today it all looks black and white, wish it would change
We can't keep painting colours when its
Don't hesitate, cause you will bleed
A thousand tears won't wash it clean
Don't hesitate cause you can free yourself
Evergreen, evergreen
Down on my knees, crawling though the streets again
Surrendered to my needs, so i can breathe the air
You're my evergreen, regents park in spring
It takes me to a place, where i can dream again
Cause today it all looks black and white, wish it would change
We can't keep painting colours when it rains
I just want some place where i can breathe without this bitter taste
Cause today it all looks black and white, wish it would change
We can't keep painting colours when it's grey
It all looks black and white today
You're my evergreen, regents park in spring
It takes me to a place, where i can dream again
Cause today it all looks black and white, wish it would change
We can't keep painting colours when it rains
Evergreen, evergreen, evergreen

song performed by Feeder
Added by Lucian Velea
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Mr. Blue

Our guardian star lost all its glow
The day that i lost you
It lost all its glitter the day you said no
And its grey skies turned to blue.
Like him i am doubtful
That your love is true
So if you decide to call on me
Ask for mr. blue.
I'm mr. blue
When you say you love me
The prove it by goin' out on the sly
Provin' your love is untrue
Call me mr. blue.
I sleep alone each night
Wait by the phone each night
But you don't call
And i won't hurt my pride
Call me mister,
I won't tell you
When you paint the town
A bright red to turn it upside down
I'm painting it too
But i'm painting it blue.
I sleep alone each night
Wait by the phone each night
But you don't call
And i won't hurt my pride
Call me mister.
I won't tell you
When you paint the town
A bright red to turn it upside down
I'm painting it too
But i'm painting it blue.
Call me mr. blue.
Call me mister.

song performed by Garth Brooks
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Genius of Painting

ADDRESSED TO D——M——

The Genius of Painting one summer eve stray'd,
In a moment of leisure, to Flora's bright bower,
Where, scatter'd around, by the hand of the maid,
In the richest profusion, bloom'd many a flower.

“Oh, see,” Flora cried, as the Genius drew nigh,
“What an Eden of beauty is blossoming here!
But yet”—and a tear-drop stood bright in her eye,—
“How soon will its loveliness all disappear!

“Oh Genius! bid them still live in your art,
And my gratitude well shall your kindness repay;
To some favour'd mortal your spirit impart,
And teach him to rescue my flowers from decay.”

Behold I have rear'd, in my favourite bower,
A shrine, and an altar, dear Painting, for you;
And there will I offer each loveliest flower,
As often as morning their sweets shall renew.”

“Many thanks, dearest Flora!” the Genius cried,
“Though many an altar and temple is mine,
That with richer and costlier gifts are supplied,
Yet none of them all shall be dearer than thine.

“I will gift with my spirit whoever you will,
Yet choose not, dear Flora, the renegade man;
For the ingrate from you will be wandering still,
O'er fields more extended and varied to scan.”

At this instant, a maiden drew near to the bower,
And Flora's own fondness beam'd soft from her eye,
As with rapture she hung o'er each beautiful flower,
Or heaved o'er the dying a tremulous sigh.

Flora turn'd on the Genius a smile of delight—
“There, Painting,” she cried, “is my favourite maid!
Infuse in her bosom your genius bright,
And soon shall your altar be richly array'd.”

“On that maid, then,” said he, “shall my spirit descend,
A bright, and unfading, and beautiful gem;
The young favourite of Flora my shrine shall attend,
And the priestess of painting shall still be D. M.”

poem by Elizabeth Margaret Chandler from Poetical Works (1836)
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Why I Am Not A Painter

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
Why? I think I would rather be
a painter, but I am not. Well,

for instance, Mike Goldberg
is starting a painting. I drop in.
"Sit down and have a drink" he
says. I drink; we drink. I look
up. "You have SARDINES in it."
"Yes, it needed something there."
"Oh." I go and the days go by
and I drop in again. The painting
is going on, and I go, and the days
go by. I drop in. The painting is
finished. "Where's SARDINES?"
All that's left is just
letters, "It was too much," Mike says.

But me? One day I am thinking of
a color: orange. I write a line
about orange. Pretty soon it is a
whole page of words, not lines.
Then another page. There should be
so much more, not of orange, of
words, of how terrible orange is
and life. Days go by. It is even in
prose, I am a real poet. My poem
is finished and I haven't mentioned
orange yet. It's twelve poems, I call
it ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
I see Mike's painting, called SARDINES.

poem by Frank O'Hara
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An Abstract painting

My eyes fall on an abstract painting
of which my girlfriend,
wants to paint a series
that may hang in board halls
and offices.

There’s something hot and alive
in the background
that changes from golden yellow,
to flame orange
and flows into black red
and a green line
runs from the foreground
into the horizon.

With strong straight lines wood,
and sink plate shacks appear
with horizontal and vertical lines
and it looks like a squatter camp,
or the houses of a headman
in the country.

To me it looks like drums and large tin cans
that lies around in the front
and a big old TV set
with sitting places round it
and at the back,
there are two wooden pens
to keep in sheep and goats.

Maybe there’s red sand
on the one side
and yellow and green grass
for grazing on the other side,
but honestly I do not want to stay
in such a place.

[Reference: Abstract painting by Mandi. Look at the painting on my mabooki webpage: http: //www.mabooki.com/poems/display/1416_An_Abstract_ painting.htm]

poem by Gert Strydom
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