It is not some dusty frame,
            hanging rusty nails;
                        chaotic mess.

            No es amor solo amar, to you,
                      just some language you,
                                can't comprehend.

Distraught, despaired, disheveled,
                a dystopian novel notion,
                                     romanticized.
        
                     There's no need;
you don't need to patronize.

Cold hand upon cold hand;
       lifeless smiles colluding.

                                 And as if you were a Monet sunrise,
my impression of you is that of drunken brush strokes,
                                                        ­                   dull blues,
                                               and angry orange hues,
Left on display within a rotting, wooden frame.

i.

the grey ghosts
water to the sky,
pond to the
breaking air,

the blues are
cloudy
islands and
stars, lily pad
gold-green
dream of monet-
light.

ii.

love drifts,
scurries over
the water like
a dragonfly,
her wings the light
flowing, melting
in its breathful
streams

falling
falling
in the delicate
colours of
spring with
its tide-like
ebb and flow.

iii.

i held you
close and you
were the
aching spring,
the bright
opals of the moon,

i held you close
and all i could see
where the blues of
the pond, the
snake-silver
stream of starlight
and flower,

you were the
aching bronzes
of the rivery
pools, the still
water's paradise
of blue and white.

iv.

capture me
in the cloudy
isles of
the bright
lilies,

i am the melting
light, the frail
bloom with its
zen-like peace,
church of quiet
air, hopeful stream
of ache and light.

v.

ghost-enamels
of impression,

silently, the sun
sinks and the golds
of spring blossom
like a spell.

I gaze at his famous painting,
A lily pond for reflecting,
His focus for serenity,
His gift of tranquillity,
So, thank you, Monet, for your legacy........

i.

under a flaming bridge
blue islands,
sky-stream of
light, as the tranquil
waters unfold,
dream of
visionary seers
and haunted rooms.

gold sun running
like a tide,
pads of echoing cloud,
reflections like
mirrors on
the hollowy
water.

ii.

oil on canvas
pond of daydream,
water wrapped in love
and flower.

sunken, bird of grey
wire, fallen stone,
rippling ghost.

iii.

flower of ghost,
ink lady of sapphire
melting and sinking
like lanterns
in a chine,
where the night
wanders and the stars
lean against the sky.

iv.

watery isle,
rivery summer golds,
trembling pond,
flower of the dragonfly
flower of white sun.

v.

shadows in the leaves
monet fire of gold,
strange indigos,
violet sky,
water-dragon of the pond
water-dragon of the flowers.

i.

impressionist,
where the grey
clouds and the blue
ice of winter
gather their ghosts,

winter, too cold,
too white, the
woodland hollows
dent,
summer love

discarded in
the frost,

the sky oaken,
the moon’s forget-me-knots
silvery dream.

ii.

clouds like wintery steel,
sunken, in a night pool,
the golds of my heart,

the lodestar gathers
moss and rook,
glimmers in a sky
of woven cloth,
her leaves, the trees
of winter,
her leaves, the dark
breath of the storm.


iii.

winter and quiet stars
brooding emperor
sleeping in the twilight
hour,
winter dreams of
strange ice caverns
where ice ghosts
dance with twisting
hair.

iv.

pond of ice,
snow bear,
snow dream,

sleep unwraps

wide avenues of
trees,

sleep, the dark girl,
the falling tide.

v.

twig breaks under foot,
earth’s thrones
settle in the lizardy light

the moon rises in the sky,
soft centuries of sky.

"Where is my Monet?", I say
As I look through the blurred vision of an impressionist day.
A double paned view of reality
Swaying beauty through eyes once knew.

Where is my Monet  or be it Van Gough?
All beauty's vision framed newly printed Picasso.
Shadow me done, and once never knew
What others should have seen as they counted me too.

So now, I say no
Not of Van Gough nor Monet,
I see beauty no Rembrandt nor Picasso to sway.
I see a simple little girl with all she will need
To see the world lovely and in the midst of all, succeed.

Paintings delight my eye and ignite my imagination: Devotional icons, the omni cubist view, the brazen eyes of Whistler and Manet; and Monet's lilies.

The perspectives of the renaissance and the violence of Caravaggio; the lush glowing skin of Rubens' nudes; and more!

I celebrate the intellects that created these.

She stands outside my blooming heart
and draws my soul with messy hands
paint mixed with my blood and sweat
blurring all the lines
bending all the rules

And she's not Monet
but she doesn't remember my face anyway
I'm just a shadow in a crowd
and just a paint when we're alone
'cause the sunny afternoon
doesn't last forever
whenever
wherever
the wind will take us away

So potent was the resemblance,
so rich the imitation,
of meadows of wandering green,
with some red (tulips)
breaking through.

But careful not to chip the paint.
You drunkenly mistook the vivid
for the real. It was not real.
Here is the origin
of your sadness.

A small skiff drifted in the harbor
guided by the eazy oars of a fisherman
standing in the hull to better view
the shimmering reflection
of the orange circle hovering overhead-
dancing with the gentle waves
in the morning mist.

Monet had to name it something
so he called it what it was:

          "Impression, soleil levant."

A critic, wanting poison for his pen,
seized Monet's title to squeeze
a lethal dose into the radical veins
of the artist and his fellows of the gallery

          (Renoir, Pissarro, Cezanne).

With scathing indignation
he dubbed the lot of them,

           "Mere Impressionists."

The label endures (minus one word)
but how many recall or care to know
the righteous critic's name?

*November, 2011