since April, National Poetry Month, and a flurry of commemorative throughout poems, one at least a day sent out by a dutiful and diligent moderator, I’ve carried in my pocket at her inspired, I think, suggestion not one but two poems, one per side per page, to scatter indiscriminately as raindrops, it was recommended, anywhere

I cannot help but think that these inadvertent seeds will somehow somewhere flower
 
they needed to be accessible, I thought, not trite, distinct enough as well to be quickly unforgettable, by definition nearly therefore profound
 
one described a poet finding intimations of perfection in the song of a nearby thrush, thereby inspiration and an instant recuperative salve
 
the other takes you into the heart of any poem
 
both to my mind are brilliant

 
I’ve been leaving them in restaurants beside my less august of course tip 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       Richard
 
 
 
                 __________________________

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          The Poet with His Face in His Hands
 
 
You want to cry aloud for your
mistakes. But to tell the truth the world
doesn’t need any more of that sound.
 
So if you’re going to do it and can’t
stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t
hold it in, at least go by yourself across
 
the forty fields and the forty dark inclines
of rocks and water to the place where
the falls are flinging out their white sheets
 
like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that
jubilation and water fun and you can
stand there, under it, and roar all you
 
want and nothing will be disturbed; you can
drip with despair all afternoon and still,
on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched
 
by the passing foil of the water, the thrush,
puffing out its spotted breast, will sing
of the perfect, stone-hard beauty of everything.
 

Mary Oliver
 
 
          _______________________________
 

How to Read a Poem: Beginner’s Manual

 
First, forget everything you have learned,
that poetry is difficult,
that it cannot be appreciated by the likes of you,
with your high school equivalency diploma,
your steel-tipped boots,
or your white-collar misunderstandings.

Do not assume meanings hidden from you:
the best poems mean what they say and say it.

To read poetry requires only courage
enough to leap from the edge
and trust.

Treat a poem like dirt,
humus rich and heavy from the garden.
Later it will become the fat tomatoes
and golden squash piled high upon your kitchen table.

Poetry demands surrender,
language saying what is true,
doing holy things to the ordinary.

Read just one poem a day.
Someday a book of poems may open in your hands
like a daffodil offering its cup
to the sun.

When you can name five poets
without including Bob Dylan,
when you exceed your quota
      and don’t even notice,
      close this manual.
 

Pamela Spiro Wagner
 

       _____________________________

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     though I’d been reading a not unaccomplished version of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses“, thrilling already at much of it, for the sake of comparison I happened upon this other utter masterpiece
 
the pedigree is impeccable, an array of the most illustrious English poets of the eighteenth century in concert around a mighty translation of one of poetry’s crowning works, Sir Samuel Garth, John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph Addison, William Congreve, “and other eminent hands”, according to the web page, do the work, and it is masterly
 
read on, from the very first book of fifteen, its beginning, its genesis
 
 
Richard
 
                   ____________________________   
 
 
The Creation of the World

Of bodies chang’d to various forms, I sing:
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
‘Till I my long laborious work compleat:
And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,
Deduc’d from Nature’s birth, to Caesar’s times.
 
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And Heav’n’s high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion’d, and unfram’d,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam’d.
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky,
Nor pois’d, did on her own foundations lye:
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water’s dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confus’d, and each disturb’d the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.

But God, or Nature, while they thus contend,
To these intestine discords put an end:
Then earth from air, and seas from earth were driv’n,
And grosser air sunk from aetherial Heav’n.
Thus disembroil’d, they take their proper place;
The next of kin, contiguously embrace;
And foes are sunder’d, by a larger space.
The force of fire ascended first on high,
And took its dwelling in the vaulted sky:
Then air succeeds, in lightness next to fire;
Whose atoms from unactive earth retire.
Earth sinks beneath, and draws a num’rous throng
Of pondrous, thick, unwieldy seeds along.
About her coasts, unruly waters roar;
And rising, on a ridge, insult the shore.
Thus when the God, whatever God was he,
Had form’d the whole, and made the parts agree,
That no unequal portions might be found,
He moulded Earth into a spacious round:
Then with a breath, he gave the winds to blow;
And bad the congregated waters flow.
He adds the running springs, and standing lakes;
And bounding banks for winding rivers makes.
Some part, in Earth are swallow’d up, the most
In ample oceans, disembogu’d, are lost.
He shades the woods, the vallies he restrains
With rocky mountains, and extends the plains.

And as five zones th’ aetherial regions bind,
Five, correspondent, are to Earth assign’d:
The sun with rays, directly darting down,
Fires all beneath, and fries the middle zone:
The two beneath the distant poles, complain
Of endless winter, and perpetual rain.
Betwixt th’ extreams, two happier climates hold
The temper that partakes of hot, and cold.
The fields of liquid air, inclosing all,
Surround the compass of this earthly ball:
The lighter parts lye next the fires above;
The grosser near the watry surface move:
Thick clouds are spread, and storms engender there,
And thunder’s voice, which wretched mortals fear,
And winds that on their wings cold winter bear.
Nor were those blustring brethren left at large,
On seas, and shores, their fury to discharge:
Bound as they are, and circumscrib’d in place,
They rend the world, resistless, where they pass;
And mighty marks of mischief leave behind;
Such is the rage of their tempestuous kind.
First Eurus to the rising morn is sent
(The regions of the balmy continent);
And Eastern realms, where early Persians run,
To greet the blest appearance of the sun.
Westward, the wanton Zephyr wings his flight;
Pleas’d with the remnants of departing light:
Fierce Boreas, with his off-spring, issues forth
T’ invade the frozen waggon of the North.
While frowning Auster seeks the Southern sphere;
And rots, with endless rain, th’ unwholsom year.

High o’er the clouds, and empty realms of wind,
The God a clearer space for Heav’n design’d;
Where fields of light, and liquid aether flow;
Purg’d from the pondrous dregs of Earth below.

Scarce had the Pow’r distinguish’d these, when streight
The stars, no longer overlaid with weight,
Exert their heads, from underneath the mass;
And upward shoot, and kindle as they pass,
And with diffusive light adorn their heav’nly place.
Then, every void of Nature to supply,
With forms of Gods he fills the vacant sky:
New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share:
New colonies of birds, to people air:
And to their oozy beds, the finny fish repair.

A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was Man design’d:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form’d, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heav’nly fire
The God of Nature did his soul inspire,
Or Earth, but new divided from the sky,
And, pliant, still retain’d th’ aetherial energy:
Which wise Prometheus temper’d into paste,
And, mixt with living streams, the godlike image cast.

Thus, while the mute creation downward bend
Their sight, and to their earthly mother tend,
Man looks aloft; and with erected eyes
Beholds his own hereditary skies.
From such rude principles our form began;
And earth was metamorphos’d into Man.

            _______________________________

                        “The Birth of Venus“, c.1482-6
 
                                    Sandro Botticelli 
 
                                       (1445 -1510)
 
                                         ________

this is me at New Year’s Eve, instead of a party after a day of some incidental work, not much but enough to hobble my spirit, I thought a hot bath would be good, maybe even an alternative, at midnight itself, I carried on, it sounded irresistible

I’d light a candle of course, play soft music, Lizst was already on, his “Années de Pèlerinage” - a meditation for piano on his Swiss, Italian pilgrimage – would go on tinkling away peripatetically prestidigitating still for hours, I wouldn’t have to even change a thing

I’d be reborn of course, that was the rationale for not going out, never mind the cold, the snow, for me the late hour, who’d pass after all even for a New Year’s party, I mused, on an outright reincarnation   

later I’d make my excuses

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          meanwhile after a long, hot, indeed gestative soak, in the very womb of earth, in allegorical, I imagined, primal waters, wherein I’d redefine my inner being, redirect of course my errant soul, I could only rise transformed resplendent, I instinctively foresaw, as Venus, specifically Botticelli’s

I arose

a mane of golden hair, neck and profile by already Modigliani, fluted fingers a modest flutter above pert breasts, the others in their clutch a strand of protective locks to shield my innocent, inviolate pudenda

Venus, I thought, goddess of love

to be reflected not only for the moment in my mirror but like a resolution in my heart for the entire year, years in fact, to come

took a picture, hope you like it

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             and all the very best                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Richard

psst: only later did I realize there were zephyrs there, they’re there of course, I should’ve known, always

and one of also the Horae - Nymphe, I think, goddess of the morning hour of washing, ablutions – handing me a vernal cloak, a tribute to my season, of course, of spring

________________________________________________

                           ”Narcissus“,  (c.1597-1599)
 
                       Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
 
                      (28 September 1571 – 18 July 1610)   
 
                            ________________________
 
in the myth of the beautiful Narcissus, he sees himself reflected for the first time in a pool, sees of course what others see, the surface    

but he’s confused, can’t see the forest for the trees, the id for the ego, the true for the superficial he knows quite well is there beyond what he’s been told again and again is beautiful, but that effortlessly and inextricably has always been just himself, just unsuspecting, unassuming Narcissus

to be beautiful, he inquires 

he will drown searching

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           in truth and art       

Richard

psst: see also Salvador Dali’s “The Metamorphosis of Narcissus“ 

           ______________________________________

                                                   Stefan Lochner

                                                     (1400 -1452)

                                        “Madonna in the Rose Bower“

                                           for Christmas

                                  I wish you faith in angels    

                                               Richard    

                              ________________________ 

              

                                ”Morning star”, 1940                   

                                         Joan Miró

                                      _____________

                                                                                                                                      to prize Abstraction you need to feel its value, somehow make it relevant to your well-being, your soul, not an easy task for someone who hasn’t grown up with it, I see the same thing ’s happened for instance for many with computers, the language is entirely foreign

I remember a sigh of relief, and unexpectedly delight, at the Queen Sofia after slogging through the history of art for a couple of weeks across the street at the Prado, before a roomful of Mirós

the Prado had been dripping in art

the Spaniards of course, Murillo, Goya, Zurbaran, were there, El Greco, the transplanted Doménicos Theotokópoulos, his great elongated figures depicting anguish, torment, ecstasies, edged unforgettably in charcoal black

the cheeky Velazquez – looking you straight in the face, where his subjects, the king and queen, also stand, reflected craftily albeit in a mirror at the back where you’d be too were this a real mirror – is a celebrated self-portrait, majesties no less have acquiesced to be merely backdrop here for the artist’s rendering of himself 

and indeed who remembers these once almighty monarchs beside their now immortal subject, their lasting fame assured ironically by virtue mostly of his grace

royal children meanwhile cavort up front, while on the far left taking up most of that side there’s the canvas he’s working on, a brush in one hand, in the other a palette of assorted colours, considering their applicability

a triumph

                                                                                                                                         the Dutch were there, the ubiquitous Rubens of course, the Rembrandts, the van Dycks, the Bruegels, but supreme for me among them was the unearthly rather “Garden of Earthly Delights“, I didn’t expect it there, it was awesome, Bosch representing pictorially the panoply of Christian mythological thought, from Eden to black and ignominious hell through, in the middle triptych, our earth, controversially carnal and cavorting, in pink and azure blue, for our sober edification and delight

and still there were the innumerable, the masterful, Italians

                                                                                                                                       we left the Prado saturated, my mom and I, the Queen Sofia was an afterthought with time left on our hands, we expected nothing other there than baubles, trinkets

but Miró greeted us at the door with a roomful of light, air, fantasy, planets, comets, asterisks swirled in orbits of infinite phantasmagorical invention, fish flew where stars fell, and eyes looked out of spiderwebs, perspective gave way to dimensions

my mom breathed a sigh of relief, simultaneously enchantment, we’d entered another world

just as had in its own time, for that matter, the history itself of art

from there it was just a hop, skip and jump of course to the more abstruse maybe even abstractions of for instance even a Jackson Pollock

imagine

                                                                                                                                      yours in the discovery of art                                                                                                                                         richibi

psst: in thinking of Miró I was reminded of Chagall, he could be he for whimsy, I recalled an ekphrastic poem about a painting of his I thought I might’ve lost, all I could remember was the poem’s own mimetic whimsy, and a blue, I’d thought, violin

here it is

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Don’t let that horse

Don’t let that horse
eat that violin
cried Chagall’s mother

But he kept right on painting

And became famous

And kept on painting
The Horse with Vilolin in Mouth
And when he finally finished it
he jumped up upon the horse
and rode away
waving the violin

And then with a low bow gave it
to the first naked nude he ran across

And there were no strings attached

____________________________________

               “Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J.“, 1967
 
                                 Diane Arbus
 
                                  1923 -1971
                               
                                   _______
 
with the camera the shutter becomes the brush, the art only a click away, the artistry, the creativity, debatable
 
where is the skill, the ingenuity, indeed the art
 
the snapshot is a picture of an imagination taken on the spot, the art must be in the very brain, not in, as one would expect, the dextrous fingers, the articulation, the prestidigitation, must be already sorted out, already calibrated, technical prowess not required, just able, artful observation
 
the shutter will do the rest
 
can a point of view then, a take, one will reasonably inquire, be art

 
Diane Arbus had been a fashion photographer, gave it up for something, it would appear, more meaningful, became thereby, in my estimation, unforgettable, broke down for me reservations about photography as art 
 
witness
 
“Identical Twins, Roselle, N.J., 1967“, is not about these twins, these unexceptional twins – otherwise merely a portrait, an indifferent even portrait - but about something much more relevant
 
two little girls in black and white – though this may be itself the kind of photography – look straight into the camera, you look to tell them apart
 
their little dress adorned by each the same white ruffle at the collar, recalling incidentally the Reformation Dutch, a witty touch, give no clue, they could be matching dolls, flat cut-outs, for that matter, given the minimal use of perspective
 
a matching hair band, the same hair, the same nose, the same mouth, don’t either, the eyes do but only just 

they tell though the entire story, their different light, their different incandescence, though even ever so slight, though ever even so elusive, is what finally tells them apart 

but the focus has switched, you’re observing something now immaterial, incorporeal, insubstantial, become simultaneously something mystical, metaphysical, transcendental, some might call God  
 
Michelangelo’s did the same thing for Adam, another much wittier art history touch

 
two other girls, “Untitled (1)“, 1970-71, speak even more clearly perhaps about this 
 
note the angel come through in the girl on the left, in all its magnificent splendour

                             “Untitled (1), 1970-71“
 
                                      Diane Arbus
 
                                       1923 -1971
 
                                          _______

                                                                                                                                     Diane Arbus committed suicide on July 26, 1971, undoubtedly undone by what she’d sought to witness, perhaps the too bright light
                                                                                                                                  psst: why is it that those who are “Untitled” would never think of taking their own life, perhaps they’ve been blessed with an extra measure of courage

_________________________________________________

                                                                                                                                          in defence of my penchant towards prose

the problem with poetry ’s the rhyme,
it takes the seriousness out of the line,
it distracts from its meaning
giving bounce to the reading
forfeiting too much, I think, of the mind
 
not that I don’t like rhythm
but it shouldn’t supplant my mission
of putting the point, the more pertinent point,  
I believe, ahead of often more frivolous composition
                                                                                                                                        forgive then my impertinent prose,
I really don’t mean to oppose,
but I think it’s my lot,
to declare my thought
with less verse
than straightforward opinion

     _______________________

                  ”Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”, c.1558

                            Pieter Bruegel, the Elder

                                    (1525-1569)

                                     __________

                                                                                                                                                                      upon being asked to make a poem out of Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”                                             

                                                                                                                                      what is a poem, the question came up around my earlier errant composition, was what I’d written a poem, though one could be made out between the, dare I say, ivied even cracks
 
something that rhymes, my mom answered when I asked, which mine of course didn’t
 
though mellifluous and rhythmic maybe, and peppered here and there with inventive and artful devices - metaphors, alliteration, onomatopeia, the like, the meat and potatoes, the very stuff, I think, of poems - I still didn’t rhyme, don’t rhyme, and run a sentence on mostly much too long for a proper pentameter
 
like, I guess, a prose poem 
 
or maybe even just prose
 

but about the Bruegel

at the back a radiant sun dominates the picture, sheds not only light but life on everything, the sky is thick with grays and blue and takes on actual dimension, whereas a more silken application of paint to the sun makes that orb evanescent, a portal into heaven, a source instead of a force, an opening instead of an engine
 
in the foreground a farmer ploughs his field, another tends his sheep, life is going on despite the splendour 
 
no one notices Icarus either, the flailing figure in the waves, bottom right, drowning, despite the might of the myth, the potency, the poignancy, of the poetry
 
but who notices even poetry 
 
 
across a stretch of water to the horizon and to at its edge the resplendent sun, ships with sails, indeed medieval galleons, sit in the placid harbour of a city in the blue crook of, upper left, a range of mountains, the City of God of Augustine maybe for its iridescent pastels, for its sunlit gold maybe the gilded Greek Atlantis  
                                                                                                                                                                       above the flailing Icarus a ship is setting joyful sail out towards the promise of the blazing sun, the way seems clear

there will be other, it appears, Icaruses

                                                                                                                                                               medieval caricaturization and perspective inextricably of course obtain throughout

    __________________________________________

                                                                                                                                 ekphrasis

                                                                                                                                      poring among the possibilities the nearby university had to offer – they’re listed in a catalogue they seasonally send around – one on poetry, of course, how to make one out of a painting, stood out, how to make of something visual, a Monet, a Van Gogh, a Renoir, a poem 

ekphrasis, there’s a word for that, I thought

and ate it up

the picture I got to ekphrase, my word for that, was one of a set the teacher sent around of Kobayashis, snapshots, I’d never heard of him, her, either, Milt Kobayashi, all of them intriguing

I quickly snapped one up, letting my instinct instead of my judgment pick it out – I find it’s usually more accurate – in order to keep the ball rolling, not slow things up

a waif in especially blue, the colour also of chairs behind her - like skies in winter, I thought, when the pressure’s up and the light is pale, colours aren’t crisp but muted – making that sort of association, hoping that wouldn’t be unintelligent

rudimentary roses, wine red, spotted here and there her blue skirt, more like patches than ornamental flowers, a black top the colour of her jet black hair was cut low in a U at her neck, she leaned against a wall, itself nondescript, at the right of the picture, her left, far to that side, and in her own black shadow there splashed upon the wall, a fathomless apparently abyss, seemed to find refuge, a respite, like a womb, pushing herself and it nearly right out of the picture

her arms were crossed, but one reached for her shoulder, lightly resting there, covering inadvertently, or not, her chest, and by my inference her soul, her modesty, her bosom, whereupon, like Michelangelo’s God touched Adam, with love, light and understanding, inadvertently again or not, she touched mine

and her black, plaintive eyes were looking right back

                                                                                                                                     there’s next to nothing on the spartan walls, the table is somewhat set, but light reflected off some glasses there, and dishes, is gleaming, like in Dutch still lifes, artfully, and delightfully

“The Last Table” it’s called, though I’m not too sure what that’s about, a waitress calling it a day, a playful reference somehow to da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” maybe 

that’s what I’d have to make into a poem, ekphrase

  _____________________________________________