"impressionist" poems
Planes streak across the wide October sky–
The sun is setting–
Contrails stream behind them,
glowing scars of the evening.
The highest ones, they exhale the day’s gold,
pure and sharp
like fields of August wheat,
dusty and late-summer charred.
Redder and lower ones hug the skyline,
No cloud to catch them,
Fall like meteorites,
the slow burn of a dwarf star
Memories never print so vividly,
slow burn sees fast death,
Reds, golds and what's between,
A brain is all catch-and-release
So afterwards what should be left of this?
Not but an umbra,
Impressionist beauty,
A mere relief of its source?
Beauty’s slow fade is not the tragedy,
–rather the reverse–
That we fade to beauty,
To never hold it in full.
Oct 21, 2018
Oct 21, 2018 at 5:09 PM UTC
Sara L Russell, 23rd October 2014, 01:01
She was sunlight and cinnamon;
all wide eyes,
auburn hair, fair complexion
freckles and fleeting laughter.
She was an enigma to her friends,
a golden girl to her parents…
Dappled sunlight turned her into
fragments of an autumn impressionist panting;
all her reds, golds and peach tones
wildly blazing,
vividly flaming in a sunset's haze.
She could make people laugh
with a dry turn of phrase.
She could silence a room just by walking in
through the door.
She could silence cruel words
with a withering look.
She was going to be somebody;
the world was going to know her name,
the future was forever -
until
he caught her, used her,
left her under autumn leaves
in a ditch by the roadside;
and he became somebody
and she became the face
of the girl killed by him.
Hollywood made a thriller about him
and his crime;
and her mother made an album of photos of her;
and the local paper published
her brief obituary.
Oct 22, 2014
Oct 22, 2014 at 8:17 PM UTC
Impressionist colors rising out of chocolate brown,
stretching chartreuse necks upwards.
Intertwining vines clutching each other in a desperate rhapsody of life,
all waiting to display their Creators’ palette of pure color.
Orchid and yellow chalices hold the morning dew
as all are christened in jeweled morning light.
With blue and white snow you carpet the ground
blanketing hillsides with hope of Monet.
Orange tongues of fire licking up towards the sun
while jade blades battle as new growth crowds in.
Blossoms hang full with a living harvest of yellow,
awaiting transport to another.
Stalks of dried grasses stirred by the August wind,
dancing to the rhythm of the warm stirring breeze.
Summer now ebbing away in aged colors muted with brown,
returning to the muddied ground once again.
Aug 20, 2012
Aug 20, 2012 at 11:29 PM UTC
II
Blue base and pink hues, black lining, framing the face saw once in dreams, a face with a name that began with the letter M. The other painting – a hazy black, red lips, no eyes – is a man’s face. Flying across shadowed, spiralling stairs, I encountered exits blocked by chairs – all these impressionist paintings hanging along the corridor, where a painter was explaining to his students the woman he met in his dream… they all called to me as a dream factory, dream logic – where everything was bound and unburdened, and we were told to identify faces in these coffin paintings. All day we tried matching, mouth stuttering half-formed names, lost faces, amputated body parts, strangers’ fragmented memory. Then the old lady I was working with let out a wail. She bolted, I followed, and there we saw creatures known as man and woman – to the woman on the right, she greeted with the M-lettered name, and to the man on the left she pointed at the eyeless painting, said, stranger, this is you– and they wept together.
Apr 21, 2021
Apr 21, 2021 at 11:29 AM UTC
DEAR PENPAL PEOPLE, best alone again:>
their tongues spoke in languages of dim black
not for the people, not for the universe, just for the humane lack
their mercuries slipped into a coma of grace
is it too much of an ask to grant a questioning face?
their secrets molded, intertwined, & folded
for the eyes to formulate the truth from the lie sorted
their breathes sent beat to their hearts to syncopate that keeper
then feels out of their laces or not just them alone in the Ether
their dreams although vanished weren't a matter of none
for the hurt to be a double impressionist's helixed one
their souls craved for a carve of that humble form
so do they submit to rain & dance under the thundering storm?
cliché or not
somethings are left unsaid without a period dot
blunt or rude
better feel shame from faults than when ****
what does it mean, to be delicate's recipient ?
to be an exception to the head of a never lenient?
what does these ancient walls say?
if the colors of the face couldn't cover up before that end day?
a crime to deny them sensations
to get to know someone in six conversations
-------ravenfeels
Jan 17, 2022
Jan 17, 2022 at 4:29 PM UTC
in the summer before
everything ended,
we went to an art museum
that had entire rooms showcasing death
and you pulled me away before I could admire the human composition
stains, melted into bronze silhouettes, because
what if I thought it looked ugly
what if I figured out
I didn’t actually want to **** myself
and instead just wanted to escape you –
stains of strawberry juice around my mouth I thought of
as blood and you thought of
as lipstick
I prettied myself for
suicide , I scratched maps into my thighs – little guides of where a
knife would go
little hopes that if I saw the death display
maybe I would have known.
for years
it was all experimental. I watched pieces of us
come and go like art exhibits, you watched me as if I was nothing but
a work in progress
that soaked up so much paint I could
not help but look like you when it was through. I was
a child, was
impressionist (impressionable –
now your thoughts persist
as human composition stains – happily, I am alive
and you will never be dead enough.
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 2:47 AM UTC
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.
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017 at 1:57 PM UTC
Give me a spring morning, far from winter’s troubles.
On an earth axis-turned toward the life-giving sun.
Announce it with tulips and trumpets of yellow daffodils.
Watch as young, colorful, impressionist, bluebell,
dogwood, snowdrop, and primrose blossoms preen,
in the candid radiance of the abaxial springtime sun.
Enjoy new life dancing, playfully on tactile wafts of warm air.
Inhale that air, freshly fragranced by flowers in luscious bloom.
Catch the bright chirp of new life and hear the humble
buzz of bees hard at their work, spreading the pollen of life.
Then lengthen these hopeful, verdant days, like a blessing.
Mar 19, 2023
Mar 19, 2023 at 1:48 PM UTC
A lover like an impressionist masterpiece,
stroked with a loving hand and
painted by its master,
dressed in its finest to frame the beauty within.
You, my love, were like that master
painting me to reflect the person you saw inside,
creating a world for you to hold,
molding me into the ballet of colors that dance in your eyes.
Aug 20, 2012
Aug 20, 2012 at 9:23 PM UTC
I was going to bring my pet hamster tonight.
Anyone met my pet hamster - Picasso?
He is an impressionist.
No, honestly he does all the other rodents :-
Mice, rats, capybara, Donald Trump, Prince Andrew, all of them.
Unfortunately I couldn't bring him,
because he died this afternoon.
He fell asleep at the wheel.
Aug 25, 2023
Aug 25, 2023 at 10:24 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
The Harbour of Le Havre;
A seascape
A perception of the heart
It’s brightest point -
Is yet diminished when deprived of colour
The canvases memorized piece
Nov 20, 2012
Nov 20, 2012 at 12:00 PM UTC
creepy post-impressionist artists creep on prostitutes,
there's lamplight glowing on that street corner
and she refuses yet another costumer's ****** offering.
Jul 26, 2015
Jul 26, 2015 at 8:08 PM UTC
"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.
Jul 21, 2016
Jul 21, 2016 at 4:56 PM UTC
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
Mar 3, 2016
Mar 3, 2016 at 2:04 PM UTC
love.
The knife rests on the counter.
Her freshly chopped hair
Feels so estranged.
A healing process
That seems to cut more than give.
Black eyeliner fresh to her skin;
Only worn after –
Never before.
Light flicks to her ear.
Her father’s gift of an earring
Ripped away.
A long ribbed scar
Of the letter “A” behind her ear
From a singed lighter burn.
The color was grey,
But it burned scarlet in her heart.
Impressionist choke lines ran across her throat
From her unwanted suitor.
Biting her lips with pain,
She felt a ruby red rawness.
Salvador Dali’s black lipstick
Twisted open to bleed
memories into mirrors.
Impulsive strokes of darkness filled the glass
With a diminished, backwards word
About a diminished and backwards girl,
She finished titling someone else’s art.
The gritty glass gleamed—
evol.
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 4:56 PM UTC
She brushed out landscapes with her words
as deftly as any impressionist master
and speed-trekked us from where we sat
to scenes of transcendent beauty.
Each day I awaited her verbal canvases
with self-indulgent anticipation.
But one day all was all different.
What was this horrific account of
of unspeakable Afghan tragedy -
A wandering woman whose final defeat,
after all she loved had been butchered,
was hope beyond all recovery
dragging her feet through the dust?
I picked up my heart from out of the soil
to ask her, "were you there?"
She was - with a physician's bag
for Cindy is a doctor
who eschews a suburban clinic
to defy all danger
and be where life would fail
without her healing craft and care.
Dodging bullets, sputum and mortal threats,
Cindy fights life's most essential battles
and so uplifts the standard of our species.
The next day Cindy painted for us
a verdant mountain scene
whose whispering streams and fragrance
exceeded all I'd every witnessed.
I wonder where she is.
September, 2013
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 1:13 PM UTC
The world changes around me but not as I sit perched,collecting memories and organizing them in my thoughts that sprout up through cracks as would a **** in concrete. A dandelion. Not you, a rose, like in Tupac's poem. And i digress because thats what I do more often than not. We speak of our impressionist dreams that are just alike, but not yet realized. Not a one. Well one or two but that's it. And that's only a tip of an iceberg. Which is us in danger of melting like the rest of the revolutionaries along with all the changes occuring around us. Will our love change right along with us and everything else? how will it be to be forty and married? Would we be content? would you go search for him? If you found god would you be done with me. Would you declare me a heretic if I didn't go to church and let jesus live inside me along with the rest of my collectibles. If you found god, would I pretend to have as well so as to not lose you. Hopefully, and isn't that all we are, a sack full of fast foods, hope and regrets. Nothing will go south or sour! We can't let it! Our love will survive all the ****** gods, alcohol, ****** alleys, concrete basketball courts, blacks in the ghetto, american presidents, economic revolutions, rapists, murderers, taxes, mortgages and regime changes. My tongue, along with my eyes, along with my lips, along with my fingers, along with my hair, along with my hair,along with my grey matter, along with my heart, does truly believe we will love longer, harder, deeper, truer and out last, out live, out happy, out joy, out defeat, out wit everyone. I told the elders we don't bother to pray. But we dream very well and not in the real world, not in their world, but in our world. The one we created for ourselves to fly in and out of rain clouds and swim in black water thats flooded on the inside of parking garages. I want to tell you things in a way that can convey myself and still be understood fully. I'm not sure if it is possible to get a ride, convey,write or paint my mind, my soul, my heart properly enough. but if anyone could ever understand my sore joints, and dances with death,it'd be you right? Because we are the same. we have been drinking from the same cup. and been dealt the same ****** hand but at different games. you are the lotus on your wrist and I am the owl in my throat and it means everything yet nothing to everyone else's big scheme. and still everything to ours. you are the only one here who understands why I think rain puddles with oil in them are beautiful.
Sep 22, 2013
Sep 22, 2013 at 9:58 AM UTC
When he speaks, I hear the sound,
a president who's been around
speaking of the wife with cankle
not that she could care to rankle
Yo, BT, he fights for freedom
Rocky would be pleased to meet him
late at night when lights are lunar
on the road back home, a crooner
fools rush in, no longer Bing
the king of rock, old Pop can sing
a whispered line from any song
but suddenly I'm in the wrong
and one tough stooge I hear he bought a
tommy gun, and "why I oughta"
tell you something you don't know
it's Ahnold Schwanal ** dee doe
and then another voice will join
it's Raymond with his tenderloin
this sailor's gal has quite a name
he cooks his spinach in the same
a wealthy man on distant isle
who's wife is Lovey, makes me smile
Every single voice he's got
is good but when he's best it's not
the person he'll impersonate
but his own voice...it's getting late
but wait, there's more, but I am spent
on telling of the way it went
or so it goes and what'll come
the truth is, well, I love the ***
Oct 1, 2013
Oct 1, 2013 at 12:48 PM UTC
Oh woe were I a painter, impressionist in craft
Painting pictures in emotion, instead of photograph
Because there is no color, no brush-stroke I could sweep
That could capture her, or the wonder that she keeps.
Aug 28, 2015
Aug 28, 2015 at 1:05 AM UTC
From across the hall, I watched her double
over Coleridge, sympathizing as she looked
up to the thin curtain filtering the street-light
universe past the pane held in hot glue.
The click-heels, car barks, ceaseless L-Train
turnstiles, tipsy choirs in cracked-door taverns,
hinges, keys on carabiners, bus hydraulics,
the wall clock, and her fingers caressing the page.
She loved a soft wind carrying birdsong
through screen doors and dowel chimes.
She used to leave her shoes lace-tangled
by the key rack until she saw glass pollen
sparkling in a caged tulip blossom.
She raised the book and sullenly whispered
the last stanza of Frost at Midnight
into the spine, wondering how anyone
could live away from impressionist-dandelion
forests, children's plastic toys in the front yard,
and church bells at every hour.
I wondered the same thing.
May 11, 2015
May 11, 2015 at 4:01 PM UTC
I don't work
Yesterday I saw portraits
And impressionist paintings
From the 19th and 18th centuries
I'm at Starbucks today
It's all so strange
Maybe I'll go chip golf *****
Maybe I'll play golf
Tomorrow I'm getting
An oil change
I am 32 and single
And will most likely
Be single for a long time
What's the point
Of this place?
I give some food
Or water
To a random homeless person
When I can
I no longer live at home
But stop by to get food
And do laundry
How will the world end?
The terrorists are at it again
In the Fox interview the
Christian man said
Christians had been silent
Over recent terror attacks
The interviewer asked him
What should be done
He said something
About showing the love
Of Jesus in the world
Well that's great
But the terrorists won't stop
No matter what other
People say
Religious or not
How will the world end?
In a worldwide
Nuclear war?
Search your own heart
The body is weak
Life is fragile
I still have
The same dull frown
I will enjoy a hike perhaps
Or take notes
On "The Soviet Century"
I like to roleplay
In adult chats
As Gal Gadot
It is 6/5/2017
Jun 5, 2017
Jun 5, 2017 at 11:53 AM UTC
artists of flesh
wielding shades of exertion
splashing on canvas sheets
bright through closed eyes
I'm your thumbprint expressionist
mattress impressionist
bristles for taste buds make
broad strokes the emphasis
aptly utensil
fills focal to edges
though tipping the easel
conception seems effortless
brilliantly tincture
accentuates fervor
while crescent depressions
raise apogee further
Sep 29, 2014
Sep 29, 2014 at 2:46 AM UTC