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A painting that is well composed is half finished.

quote by Pierre Bonnard
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Teachers Are Afraid Of The Pupils

Theres too many people
Planning your downfall
When your spirits on trial
These nights can be frightening
Sleep transports sadness
To some other mid-brain
And somebody here
Will not be here next year
So you stand by the board
Full of fear and intention
And, if you think that theyre listening
Well, youve got to be joking
Oh, you understand change
And you think its essential
But when your profession
Is humiliation
Say the wrong word to our children ...
Well have you, oh yes, well have you
Lay a hand on our children
And its never too late to have you
Mucus on your collar
A nail up through the staff chair
A blade in your soap
And you cry into your pillow
To be finished would be a relief
To be finished would be a relief
To be finished would be a relief
To be finished would be a relief
To be finished would be a relief
To be finished would be a relief
Say the wrong word to our children ...
Well have you, oh yes, well have you
Lay a hand on our children
And its never too late to have you
To be finished would be a relief
To be finished would be a relief
To be finished would be a relief
To be finished would be a relief
To be finished would be a relief
To be finished would be a relief
Im very glad the spring has come
The sun shines out so bright
All the birds that are on the trees
Are singing for delight

song performed by Morrissey
Added by Lucian Velea
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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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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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Finished I'm Not

I may now and then,
Step away for a minute.
To replenish my energy.
And to keep it from being diminished.

To consider myself finished,
Would be foolish to admit.
When so much I have not tapped,
To think to declare I have nothing there,
To give right back!

There's more!
And finished I'm not.
I am far from depleted...
Or diminished to stop.

I may now and then,
Step away for a minute,
To replenish my energy.
But to say its been diminished?
Diminished it's not!

There's more!
And finished I'm not.
I will not be depleted or diminished to stop!

I know,
There is more I've got!
I will not be depleted or diminished to stop!

To consider myself finished,
Would be foolish to admit.
When so much I have not tapped,
To think to declare I have nothing there,
To give right back!

There's more!
And finished I'm not.
I will not be depleted or diminished to stop!

I know,
There is more I've got!
I will not be depleted or diminished to stop!

There's more!
And finished I'm not.
I know,
There is more I've got!
There's more!
And finished I'm not.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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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)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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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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When is a Painting Finished?

I paint.
On my easel
pictures in oil and acrylic grow
like stalagmites in limestone caves.

I think that painting is a magical act
that transforms invisible thoughts
and feelings into visible colors
and forms.

But I never can tell
when is the work finished.
After all it is always possible
to change a line, a hue, or a color
or even the whole composition.

Painters have different opinions
about this.

Some say that when the artist
successfully planted
all the details onto the canvas
the image expresses itself
as a severed autonomous entity,
which frees the painter from
the task of continuing to paint.
From then on the painting gains
an independent inner life of its own.

However, abandoning a work of art
involves a moral decision
ripened by the stiffening tension
between skill, creativity and integrity.
At what point does the polished image
meet the artist’s expectations?

And then, even if it does,
no single image can express
all that an artist wants to show,
and consequently his muses
compel him to carry on with his work
and create more paintings.

Hence the oeuvre of the artist
evolves as a set of different images
of the same single thrust and grind.

Many years ago I was wandering
through the countryside
of southern France in Provence.

[...] Read more

poem by Paul Hartal
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Man Or Machine

Auto, bus, walking and sweating dermis,
somehow on time I reach my office.

work needs to be finished on time so I sit infront of computer.

breakfast time, toast, butter and tea glass,
hurriedly I eat, unaware it may appear boorish and crass.

work needs to be finished on time so I sit infront of computer.

lunch time, dosa containing rice, dal and yeast,
the way I eat can put to shame any wild beast.

work needs to be finished on time so I sit infront of computer.

till evening, I am tired, drowsy and dozy
but I skip the plan to go outside to have some tea.

work needs to be finished on time so I sit infront of computer.

My head aches, my eye burns
but I continue work amidst yawns.

work needs to be finished on time so I sit infront of computer.

Just before logout, I work with great pace,
with time I contest, compete and race.

work needs to be finished on time so a computer sits infront of computer.

Copyright reserved by the author

poem by Md. Asadullah
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Winds Blow Those Lows To Go

I want to choose my element,
As music.
And select you to be,
Within each lyric that's composed.

I feel you destined to reach clear highs.
After riding wild on those lows.
Refusing to look up,
At a cloudless sky...
Without clouding shadows.

I want to choose my element,
As music.
And select you to be,
Within each lyric that's composed.

I feel the light sparkle as you dance.
Romancing to enhance the environment.
As if you have kicked up gold dust,
To paint my dreary bouts...
In accepting rays of Sunshine.

I want to choose my element,
As music.
I do.
The chemistry would be so harmonic.
With melodies to skip in lush green meadows.

I want to choose my element,
As music.
And select you to be,
Within each lyric that's composed.

I feel you destined to reach clear highs.
After riding wild on those lows.
And those,
Sentimantal memories...
Your mind stays fixed to fill
With hopeful wishes to recapture.

I want to choose my element,
As music.
And select you to be,
Within each lyric that's composed.

I feel you destined to reach clear highs.
After riding wild on those lows.

Winds blow those lows...
To go!

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Book III - Part 02 - Nature And Composition Of The Mind

First, then, I say, the mind which oft we call
The intellect, wherein is seated life's
Counsel and regimen, is part no less
Of man than hand and foot and eyes are parts
Of one whole breathing creature. But some hold
That sense of mind is in no fixed part seated,
But is of body some one vital state,-
Named "harmony" by Greeks, because thereby
We live with sense, though intellect be not
In any part: as oft the body is said
To have good health (when health, however, 's not
One part of him who has it), so they place
The sense of mind in no fixed part of man.
Mightily, diversly, meseems they err.
Often the body palpable and seen
Sickens, while yet in some invisible part
We feel a pleasure; oft the other way,
A miserable in mind feels pleasure still
Throughout his body- quite the same as when
A foot may pain without a pain in head.
Besides, when these our limbs are given o'er
To gentle sleep and lies the burdened frame
At random void of sense, a something else
Is yet within us, which upon that time
Bestirs itself in many a wise, receiving
All motions of joy and phantom cares of heart.
Now, for to see that in man's members dwells
Also the soul, and body ne'er is wont
To feel sensation by a "harmony"
Take this in chief: the fact that life remains
Oft in our limbs, when much of body's gone;
Yet that same life, when particles of heat,
Though few, have scattered been, and through the mouth
Air has been given forth abroad, forthwith
Forever deserts the veins, and leaves the bones.
Thus mayst thou know that not all particles
Perform like parts, nor in like manner all
Are props of weal and safety: rather those-
The seeds of wind and exhalations warm-
Take care that in our members life remains.
Therefore a vital heat and wind there is
Within the very body, which at death
Deserts our frames. And so, since nature of mind
And even of soul is found to be, as 'twere,
A part of man, give over "harmony"-
Name to musicians brought from Helicon,-
Unless themselves they filched it otherwise,
To serve for what was lacking name till then.
Whate'er it be, they're welcome to it- thou,
Hearken my other maxims.

[...] Read more

poem by Lucretius
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Sigismond And Guiscardo. From Boccace

While Norman Tancred in Salerno reigned,
The title of a gracious Prince he gained;
Till turned a tyrant in his latter days,
He lost the lustre of his former praise,
And from the bright meridian where he stood
Descending dipped his hands in lovers' blood.

This Prince, of Fortune's favour long possessed,
Yet was with one fair daughter only blessed;
And blessed he might have been with her alone,
But oh! how much more happy had he none!
She was his care, his hope, and his delight,
Most in his thought, and ever in his sight:
Next, nay beyond his life, he held her dear;
She lived by him, and now he lived in her.
For this, when ripe for marriage, he delayed
Her nuptial bands, and kept her long a maid,
As envying any else should share a part
Of what was his, and claiming all her heart.
At length, as public decency required,
And all his vassals eagerly desired,
With mind averse, he rather underwent
His people's will than gave his own consent.
So was she torn, as from a lover's side,
And made, almost in his despite, a bride.

Short were her marriage joys; for in the prime
Of youth, her lord expired before his time;
And to her father's court in little space
Restored anew, she held a higher place;
More loved, and more exalted into grace.
This Princess, fresh and young, and fair and wise,
The worshipped idol of her father's eyes,
Did all her sex in every grace exceed,
And had more wit beside than women need.

Youth, health, and ease, and most an amorous mind,
To second nuptials had her thoughts inclined;
And former joys had left a secret string behind.
But, prodigal in every other grant,
Her sire left unsupplied her only want,
And she, betwixt her modesty and pride,
Her wishes, which she could not help, would hide.

Resolved at last to lose no longer time,
And yet to please her self without a crime,
She cast her eyes around the court, to find
A worthy subject suiting to her mind,
To him in holy nuptials to be tied,
A seeming widow, and a secret bride.

[...] Read more

poem by John Dryden
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Na Tian Piet's Sha'er Of The Late Sultan Abu Bakar Of Johor

In the name of God, let his word begin:
Praise be to God, let praises clear ring;
May our Lord, Jesus Christ's[8] blessings
Guide my pen through these poetizings!

This sha'er is an entirely new composition
Composed by myself, no fear of imitation.
It's Allah's name, I will keep calling out
While creating this poem to avoid confusion.

This story I'm relating at the present moment
I copy not, nor is it by other hands wrought;
Nothing whatsoever is here laid out
That hereunder is not clearly put forth.

Not that I am able to create with much ease,
To all that's to come I'm yet not accustomed;
Why, this sha'er at this time is being composed
Only to console my heart which is heavily laden.

I'm a peranakan[9], of Chinese origin,
Hardly perfect in character and mind;
I find much that I can not comprehend,
I'm not a man given to much wisdom.

Na Tian Piet[10] is what I go by name
I have in the past composed stories and poems;
Even when explained to - most stupid I remain
The more I keep talking the less I understand.

I was born in times gone by
In the country known as Bencoolen[11];
Indeed, I am more than stupid:
Ashamed am I composing this lay.

Twenty-four years have gone by
Since I moved to the island of Singapore;
My wife and children accompanied me
To Singapore, a most lovely country.

I stayed in Riau[12] for some time
Together with my wife and children;
Two full years in Riau territory,
Back to Singapore my legs carried me.

At the time when Acheh[13] was waging war
I went there with goods to trade,
I managed to sell them at exhorbitant prices:
Great indeed were the profits I made.

[...] Read more

poem by T. Wignesan
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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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