"degas" poems
Sometimes half asleep, scribbling words
or waiting for the morning sky to deliver birds
I fall off the edge, leave this tiny bed
float on rainy streets, there is no one that I meet
only a corner vacant house, where precious paintings hang
I am staring in the window, at flowers yellow, blue
this must be the room of Vincent Van Gogh, this starry night
with lily ponds so beautiful, fields of flowers
purple iris, Monet meadows
brown skin woman, hibiscus flowered
island scenes of Paul Gauguin, so brightly colored
there are pastel Degas dancing ballerinas
Marc Chagall, blue indigo people
without legs, they smile surreal
this museum of the mind
minutes like hours
turned sublime
Nov 14, 2014
Nov 14, 2014 at 10:30 AM UTC
"Here Made of Gone" for Isabella Stewart Gardner
Lyrics By Randy Vera
Music By: Randy Vera and Anthony J. Resta
http://bopnique.com/anthony-j-resta-and-randall-vera-finalists-john-lennon
LYRICS :
Vermeer, Rembrandt, Manet, Degas, from my three thousand year old Chinese KU, I toast you.
Mrs. Jack, I am your Bronze Eagle. I cut the painting at the frame – thieves by any other name.
Mrs. Jack with handcuffs and ***** I overcame your walls. Your collection’s complete.
Titian's Europa still hangs. The mirror to my:
Piece de la resistance. I’m your creme de la creme. I’m the John with the Procures on the wall in Vermeer’s concert.
Here, made of gone.
Mrs Jack, I’m your new William James. Through your kindness, you support me, in Dutch Room empty frames.
Like John Singer Sargent, I toil between your walls. I am Vermeer’s "corn flower blue," indescribable.
The metaphysical: Known unknown!
St Patrick’s Day 1990, I’m in Boston in the Fenway. For my penance, I’ll go to Saint John’s, drop to my knees, and like you, scrub the tiles clean.
Titian's Europa still hangs, the mirror to my: piece de La resistance. I’m your creme de la creme. I’m the John with the Procures on the wall in Vermeer’s concert. Here made of gone.
Where language fails that where art triumphs. The interloper between camps of reason and dreams. I’m an event not cognition. Like any event stored in canvas, paper, pen ,or ink.
Oh Mrs Jack I so love your "Head Band." I’m also a Redsox fan. I loved the Champagne and donuts, and thank you for the paintings.
Dec 29, 2013
Dec 29, 2013 at 6:22 AM UTC
Is this not what it's all about?
Waiting in the wings,
stretching, turning, churning,
anxious and adrenal,
living for the dream,
wishing for the dream,
being
the dream,
dancing on beams,
beneath the streams
of lights and fans,
arrayed like a bird
in tulle, crinoline, silk, satin and linen
white plumage,
acting only on command,
the music soft and flowing
their frail, slender figures
take to air,
arms and legs,
torsos tender,
slender necks,
wisps of downy hair,
melding colours,
sights and sounds,
the stage a pedestal of fate,
their beauty
captured
in gilded cages
for all to watch and see,
recaptured yet again,
by the artist on the easel'd window
of his canvas,
a maestro of sorts,
tapping his baton-brush,
coating the blankness with sweet
inspiration,
like angels heavenly
brought to earth,
serenaded by strings,
life from the blankness begins,
covers the void,
bejewels the mind's eye
and beckons the ballet
rehearsal to begin,
yet shall in oil paint now
and for all time
never cease to be...
"Art is not what you see, but what you make others see."
Edgar Degas
____________
Inspired by the painting by Impressionist artist Edgar Degas,
The Rehearsal.
--to view the painting:
http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/degas/ballet/degas.rehearsal.jpg
Sep 3, 2010
Sep 3, 2010 at 3:24 AM UTC
i was walking around
in the Tate
on the Thames Embankment
London that day
it was hot hot hot
the heat haze
shimmered
above the river
like the sweat
that rose off my back
i saw you
all mixed up
with Picasso's
misplaced eyes
in Malaga blue
long necks,
curved limbs askew
morning balconies
the sculpture of a goat
made of a basket
***** ram
with a bicycle seat
we weren't allowed to ride
i kept thinking
of painted naked flesh
Velasquez, Degas, Matisse
and flying to Malaga,
Barcelona, Granada,
Paris, Venice, New York
all the cities we could **** in
over and over and over
if we ran off
together right then
any cheap hotel room
with a bed
and a shower
would do
we could give up
on looking at art
completely
screaming
meaningless
poems
words
endless
passionate
words
consumed
by life
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 9:31 AM UTC
What exactly would you get
if writers changed the things they wrote
If painters changed their style
And singers butchered every note
Romance books by Stephen King
Horrors told by Suess
Comedic plays by E.A. Poe
And **** by Mother Goose
Dali paints like Monet
Monet paints like Degas
Van gogh would hang his brushes up
And go and detail cars
Michael Buble singing screamo
Operatic stuff by ****
Yoko Ono would seem right in tune
It's enough to make one sick
I hope it never happens
It would change things quite a lot
But you know, I think that **** by
Mother Goose could be quite hot!
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 4:02 PM UTC
I will find my way back to you on Montmartre’s cobblestone streets.
Imagine Hemingway right next to us, rambling on about his moveable feast.
Like free-spirited birds, I will race you to the top of Sacré-Cœur.
Before you can catch your breath,
I promise the view would steal it once more.
I want to see every inch of the Louvre, we would probably get lost for days;
But we are smiling like fools, I bet it would put Mona Lisa to shame.
We can stroll along the Seine, and haggle with bouquinistes near Notre Dame.
I will find an artist to paint you,
But first show me how a monsieur should love a madam.
I utter a prayer at Sainte-Chapelle, as I immortalize you in stained glass.
Maybe as we wander aimlessly along Champs-Elysées, Degas would teach us how to dance.
I will tell you all my secrets, the way kings and queens did once.
Even Rodin would call it treason not to cast these two lost souls in bronze.
We can have a picnic at the Tuileries, and you can bring me flowers from Monet's backyard.
I will make a wish before they wilt; Don’t we all hope for the best before we die?
And right here in the in-betweens, we have love to keep us alive,
As foolish and innocent as the way Picasso painted like a child.
Seasons are changing, and soon we will say goodbye.
The Tour Eiffel glistened in all its glory as darkness fell on the city of lights.
Paris, it has been an honor to love and be loved by you.
In a few years or maybe in a heartbeat—
I will come home to you soon.
Oct 19, 2018
Oct 19, 2018 at 3:28 AM UTC
Standing on the intersection of
a Monet, a van Gogh, and a Picasso
Nice piece of real estate!
Water lilies ~ Charrette de boeuf ~ Tete d'homme
Let's start with the lilies:
I'm impressionable and I gaze lovingly into the pool
I see my reflection slowly unfurl in the shimmer of the pink petals
As in a dream ... I float on
The watchmaker sends an instruction: rotate clockwise
Now an ox cart:
I seem to be walking in Poe's imagination
Crows flitting about as the ox champions
His burden on a drafty day
Another instruction from the watchmaker: continue clockwise
And now Tete d'homme ~ cubism:
My world deconstructs
Line by line, shapes and forms
Fracture into the subterranean unconsciousness of my mind
Leading to another instruction: close your eyes
Shift
Your
Perspective
Watchmaker says: open your eyes
Uncentre
Misalign
Unhitch
Watchmaker says: ens causa sui: 'a being that causes itself'
Now I've got Dali giving me niggling doubts about the nature of time
Sartre with a side of Darwin and I'm being and nothingness
Ground yourself Mullin!
Open your eyes ... this is reality
There's Rodin in a battle of good versus evil
Munch and no screams! This is good
Gaugin sharing his garden view
I'm in my happy place again ...
That's better
And here's Cezanne, Degas, Renoir, and Pissarro
Bringing me back into a recognizable reality
My eyes and my mind are in alignment here
But I can feel that watchmaker winding me back up
My iris constricts and my pineal widen
Third eye ain't blind
Hope someone is around to catch me
No worries, I'm sailing with Renoir and
I've found A Muse (Constantin Brancusi)
Ain't life a musing?
Nov 12, 2014
Nov 12, 2014 at 10:34 AM UTC
Paris pines
for us:
...whines for us.
Lurks outside
our window
like a great big
urban puppy.
We're being held
prisoner
( inside our room )
by a vicious sadistic
flu bug
who refuses to
let us go.
We are missing
David Sirosis's
new spoken
word night.
Indeed, all we have seen
of Paris, is:
the inside of
ROOM 411.
ROOM 411
overlooks that famed necropolis
CIMETIÈRE DE MONTMARTRE.
The dead stand
outside
ROOM 411
...and stare.
And...stare.
Envious of even
our flu-ridden life.
They crowd together
in their stone telephone boxes
like fans
at a Dr. Who convention
who have all come
as the Tardis.
"Come...come!"
they cajole.
"Come...join us as
the glorious dead!"
they plead.
See the great
Nijinksy
leap over a moon.
Offenbach, Berlioz et Degas
act a a celebrated Greek Chorus.
The flu grows weary
let's its...grip...slip &
we escape to
a poetry stage &
suddenly it's
PARIS LIT UP &
I'm on
stage.
A bemused amused
Parisian audience
wondering why
the staggery hairy
Irish post stumbles &
wanders in search of
his words &
carrying all of CIMETIÈRE DE MONTMARTRE
about in his ahhhhh...ahhhhh...ahhhhhhhhhh
....shoooooo....head!
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 5:03 PM UTC
if she was a yawn she'd be a Sunday morning, just been snoring (dream exploring) kind of yawning
eyes closing creeping smile stretched across six pillows
blinds opening, sleep exiled, rays etched on skin in Gogh yellows
on her arms
if she was the sky she'd be fiery
if she was a Guy she'd be Fieri
blazing sunsets on silly shirts
silly dances at concerts
If she was a word she'd be a cellar door
and if she was a movie she'd be stellar wars
a euphony a symphony
music and imagery
and if she was art she'd be a dancing Degas
with the tempest of Turner and the dynamism of Dali
art for everybody but special to me
Feb 15, 2018
Feb 15, 2018 at 9:19 PM UTC
I always carry a pen in my pocket.
I watch I Love Lucy reruns when I’m upset.
Chocolate is my obsession, my “péché migon.”
I listen to quiet chatter and music without lyrics when I’m trying to focus.
I am far from a picky eater, but I cannot stand ketchup or licorice.
Watching Gilmore Girls religiously for five years taught me that life is too short to talk slowly enough for people to understand you.
I find the world hilarious.
Making it easy for people to laugh with me is my goal.
I ogle over Ducky from Pretty in Pink with my best friend every time I need a reminder that not all boys are ****
I want to walk down the aisle holding a bouquet of stargazer lilies, as my mom did before me, and I lose myself in Degas’ “L’étoile” every so often.
Burt’s Bees honey lip balm reminds me of my childhood Winnie-the-Pooh scratch-and-sniff book.
Every cup of Constant Comment tea, pair of jeans that fits perfectly, night spent listening to rain hit the roof, and run through damp grass with bare feet reminds me that life is beautiful.
Once, I ate so much pineapple I burned the lining of my mouth.
I cried the first time I heard “Save Us” by Cartel and saw the ending of Cyrano de Bergerac in French.
I am going to marry the genius who invented cinnamon brown sugar Pop Tarts.
Everyday, when I leave the house, I blow a kiss to the picture of Walter Payton my dad hung above the doorway to our garage.
When on vacation, my family and I buy pastries and coffee and walk in front of a jewelry store, attempting to recreate the scene from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
Life should be a little crazy most of the time.
I may seem difficult to live with, but I’ve shared a room with my little sister for fifteen years, and she only hates me sixty-three percent of the time.
I hope that you are up for a few good laughs and an extraordinary year.
Mar 27, 2012
Mar 27, 2012 at 7:37 PM UTC
“Dearest Degas,” she scrawled
script tipped and tainted by blood,
a reward only the most skilled of movement makers receive,
one she gives away all too freely.
“It’s times like these that make me think
I used to be a lot closer to God
and to you,
but the lines are blurring now
between you two
and I am burning now with memories
of the arch of your back echoed by brows
crested by beads of sweet sweat
raised higher still with finger-lickin’ lies
and lowered by our goodbyes.
They say my knees got lazy,
but I pray en pointe daily
at that battered barre,
my altar
closer to God than they’ve ever been.
And it’s His name I speak,
spoke
over us as we rolled in our sin.
‘Turn to God!’ they screamed
but you were always a better comforter than He.
And without you to give me form,
I will dance no more.”
Aug 3, 2016
Aug 3, 2016 at 12:51 AM UTC
Yes, there is something
so satisfying
about carrying a Degas print
on the surface of my purse
around New York City
Toting the tote
clutching it to my side
a prize
somewhere from across the street
it catches the eye of a stranger
who has a special affinity
for impressionist painters
ballet dancers in pastel colors
And for a moment
we meet
and for a moment
he envies the purse
so close to me
we dance a special dance
our eyes dance
to and fro
back and forth
to meet or not to meet
and then he answered the question
running across the street and down the stairs
towards a subway train
his skinny frame
swallowed up by the stairs
This one
this poem
this poem on a Friday evening
wasn't much about anything at all
but it is still worth noting
Mar 29, 2013
Mar 29, 2013 at 6:39 PM UTC
creates our universe
our gods
makes armies clash
defines our world
always again and new
names everything
we then can talk about
lets politicians sound as if
they were our saviors
lends voice to protests
also well-phrased obedience
articulates all complicated laws
and sometimes even makes them clear
makes us hate people
or fall crazily in love with them
more difficult, it seems,
is to find words for our hearts and souls
how to express your love
appropriate to the occasion
or to describe a painting by Degas,
Rubens, Kokoschka, Michelangelo,
the impact of a symphony
or a performance on the drama stage
to catch the words for what we feel
is much more difficult
than to imagine those for what we see
it is the poets’ challenge to give shape
to all the hopes, loves, fears, and phantasies
in our lives
so we can make the power of the word
the power of the world
May 26, 2016
May 26, 2016 at 3:56 PM UTC
howling agitation
~~~
*But this old man's tiddlywink, land-locked words,
blunted instruments,
needy for release & salvation,
neither silvered or exacting,
stain a dulled, tarnished brass spittoon,
'cept for the brunt'd bunting of lines
across his roughened terrain'd face,
a black and a white
Degas pen and ink etched illustration
of howling agitation.*^
Apr 30, 2016
Apr 30, 2016 at 10:06 AM UTC
It all started so long ago
that even time cannot recall
where or how it all began
and I was not there
but somehow in part I was
and you as well
though we don’t remember
in the traditional way of remembering
yet we can see in the ways
that leave our eyes blind
that we all were there
in some small
yet infinitely important way
a thread pulled from the nothing
that turned into everything
a spool of love unfurling in waves
of sound and dance
and life and death
and Vincent yellow stars
and pastel ballerina Degas
and time melting into pools of Dali
and sounds trapped
in in the silent world of Beethoven
and the drum beat of Kerouac
and the flowers of Baudelaire
and the drunk truth of Bukowski
and something lost
in the shape of memory
betrayed by what would become ego
was the simplicity of joy
before we had flesh to cover our bones
and bones to move our flesh
and our hearts where stars
that dreamt against the emptiness
in the space between what was
and what could be
and in the pulse of becoming
and into the flow of being
and with the birth of want and need
we gave ego sharp tooth and claw
and drew lines across the night
and dived eternities horizon
into heaven and hell
and pulled the gods and devils
from a hat that we found
upon a corpse that was once
a man made out of snow
from a land where winter
was not cold and bitter
but had a gently warmth
and easy fire that was calm and clean
and things of all sort knew
that the need to be loved
was no more or less important
than the need to love
for time was a waste of all
when absent of the art of love
and now what are we
if we are not allowed to dream endlessly
if we are not allowed to love infinitely
if we fail to live kindly
if we ever forget
the art of love
then the beginning may as well
have been the end
Jan 25, 2018
Jan 25, 2018 at 11:29 PM UTC
No, I was torn naked and bleeding from the mouth of a death star
and woke to find mountains laid bare by the sea.
In the shallows of blood baths and craters, where the crushers of garlic and the harlots all meet
and the stiflers of dreams, dream on (right up my street)
that's where you'll find me.
In the 'Benbow' with pirates and pieces of eight and with cords tied to timepieces
(don't want to be late)
and the show starts at nine
when after drinking two bottles of cheap German wine
Salome appears with a head in her lap
we clap
because that's what we do.
(Lost innocents are few and we ain't none of all that)
But the ship sailed at four carrying whalebones to Spain
to tighten the corsets
for those Senoritas
who put me to such shame.
What's in a name that it's spat on the floor
by crimson clad virgins
who won't leave the doorways of bodegas
and Degas paints on.
A shanty
a song and the night carries me along on a wave of cheap scent
where oft' I have spent a weeks earnings on unsatisfied
yearnings.
In the end someone will send me a typewritten note or a telegram
to let me know just who and what I am
until then
in the 'Benbow' 'til ten and the crows crow at midnight when the lights all go out.
Jun 19, 2013
Jun 19, 2013 at 2:47 AM UTC
I caught the art thief -
he was a mastermind really
for he got such precious paintings
out of the Louvre easily
The amazing thing was
I caught him just minutes
from the museum;
his Econoline van
- would you believe it? – ran out of fuel
Sure I asked him how
he could make such a mistake
steal so much treasure
and run out of gas just meters away
And he sighed with a Picasso face:
*"Oh **** Monsieur!
I’d no Monet
to buy Degas to make
the Van Gogh…”*
Sep 7, 2014
Sep 7, 2014 at 1:27 AM UTC
So extraordinary
that each time you saw her
it was like the first time
as if you had been new born
to the vision of her
even that last time
when she went across your view
with her husband
to the grocery store
and looking over at you
she smiled that smile of hers
and her eyes had that same sparkle
and even though
you had not seen her
in a few years
and didn’t know
her husband from Adam
you still felt seeing her
as if you had seen
a Degas painting
for the first time
or heard Beethoven
touching your ears
at a young age
or smelling your first Chanel
on some dame
but as she went by
into the store
and disappeared from view
you wanted to turn back the clock
to that evening
walking home from choir
and she turned
and kissed you
beneath the moon
and held you close
and happily sighed
but time was fixed
in its rut
for having seen her
that last time
she died.
Mar 25, 2012
Mar 25, 2012 at 4:44 AM UTC
degas’s dancers fell through neural skies,
i heard a song more dream than anything.
shocklines tore through my lungs,
my eye, it caught the sight of a beast.
let’s gift a narrative to the naive;
the sweet hollows of a saint that sings,
the dear juvenile darlings in dusk,
the broken boards of willow bark,
let these memories sway a cynic.
when the ones you love tear your home to pieces say “thank you”, bow your head;
only rest when they are gone.
your cousin creates ripples in your life that are angry and violent but well meaning.
you will lose two matriarchs and the sound of reified royalty breaks into low noted hymns.
they've turned to the death you sang about.
the kindest ghosts are the ones you are afraid of,
they only sing when you clasp hands over ears,
they only dance when you pull the covers over your head,
they only fade when you love them.
the ghosts whisper:
you have things to learn from broken hands in coffins,
that the world isn’t pretty unless you make it so,
that a home full of love means the same thing as a mansion,
that death looks like floral aprons and old mirrors.
van gogh though that he was a vile wretch,
and you think the same because
you forget that you can bleed yellow.
Jan 18, 2016
Jan 18, 2016 at 2:45 PM UTC
with gratitude shallow
and three legged horse,
the broken is lucky and kin,
with meat more than sallow
and set offling's course,
the track's making room for some sin,
I'm stuck in the knowing,
the gravemarker's mill,
at best, a false uppity-chin,
a groove for the mudder,
and Degas for the paint,
a noose off the jump
for the win.
Feb 4, 2012
Feb 4, 2012 at 4:59 AM UTC
Michelangelo I look at your work
Davinci to and I'm in awe
Dali, Picasso saw in their own way
Blake magnificent and Turner as well
Degas, Monet, Manet to
To many to mention or view
All I ask is this half term
You go to a gallery
Help your child learn
Feb 12, 2013
Feb 12, 2013 at 12:44 PM UTC
Good night,
my beloved.
But before you go to sleep
Let me unravel this itch in my life.
I bet you’ve known about the marvelous old painter
He was a fine man living up to 300 years
He smoked his broken home every evening
with his broken bone
And put it back in place on Friday morning
Oh,
What a man.
The old painter always called me
Even tonight, when he was dead,
to pray while slitting my throat
And to truth up the lamp
Standing on my wrist
“Be satisfied of what you have”
Said the old painter who was throatless
And then he kept mumbling
With his imaginary head
He had hard times breathing
Because he planted trees on his lungs
It was only for the sake of beauty.
Summon on ancient pain
What a shame.
Where did the old painter live?
You shouldn’t ask.
He lived in my closet,
Only with a canvas, very small
As big as the book of life.
But it was gone,
He wanted me to look for it
Humbly with a grudge
Without a penny or a candy
Or even the tears of an ant
I don’t know why it was so important
It was a masterpiece, he said
A painting of nothing
A blank space
Of poetry only
All I wished for him
Was to stop making up tales
of Degas' unrequited loves
for ballerinas
using his own words
of listless lost lovers
Jul 8, 2015
Jul 8, 2015 at 12:36 PM UTC
We walked among
Manet and Degas
and Delacroix
Ran Gucci and Hermes
through our fingers
Rode bicycles
On the Champs Elysees
And wore berets
At rest beneath the Tower
And in a cafe at twilight
We drank too much wine
And we laughed
In the pink glow
Of the city
Until it was dark
And later
Along the Seine
Drops of lamplight
shone on the water
And she spoke of how
Paris was like love
Living only for the night
Its beauty
Vanishing by morning
To return only when day
Again falls into darkness
To caress only others.
Mar 19, 2017
Mar 19, 2017 at 1:29 PM UTC
He spoke of love
And dead men’s ease,
Of those Degas paintings
And young dame’s knees,
He thought of logic
And Wittgenstein,
French food and Spanish wine,
Smoked cigars
And bedded ******
He spoke with girls
And college bores,
He kissed and laughed,
And occasionally bathed
With those he loved
And thought of much
Like him and her
And such and such
And others whose names
He’s quite forgotten
Whom he treated well
Or treated rotten
Or never treated at all
But let them fall
From grace of God
To whom he seldom prayed
And rarely trod.
He spoke of hate
And dead men’s grief
And waited death
And death’s relief.
Sep 15, 2013
Sep 15, 2013 at 4:44 PM UTC