"impressionists" poems
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
Jul 7, 2015
Jul 7, 2015 at 4:40 AM UTC
Having a Coke with You
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles
and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the **** Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I am telling you about it
by,
FRANK O'HARA
Mar 13, 2013
Mar 13, 2013 at 12:27 PM UTC
*Impressionists resemble
the typing patterns of your delicate
slender fingers
leaving unforgettable emotions
arisen
by your beauty
revealed as luminous
love poetry*
Sep 12, 2015
Sep 12, 2015 at 4:59 PM UTC
*Fine rain falls and blankets the ground
blurs the images so that it resembles an impressionists scene.
Staring out the window lost in the fine lines of life.
I feel you across the line of time,
I hear you vibrating on the universe's string
I see you in my minds eye
I taste you on my skin, in a snowstorm, in a deluge, in a breath of air,
and I gasp, the only sense lost to me is touch.
You're gone.
You're only here in my memory when I cease so will you.
The scene below my window has moved on apace.
I know not these images, I know only you.
Day after day you return to me,
Day after day you fail to see me.
Day after day you sit and drink.
Day after day I watch you disappear.
This space above the daily pace of life was mine before yours.
I opened the door for you, yet you never fully entered.
Alone you came, alone you remain,
a pity though, for should you cross the string of time
your soul will see mine.*
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 9:34 AM UTC
I have in me a bit of Tuscan sun
The wildness of mistral
The calmness of a Cezanne village
I often walk around the countryside of Pissaro
And see the colors, still abundant, undefeated
I stroll around the lilies and the harbor of France where Manet painted being thrown out of his house, not able to pay the rent
I dance with the beautiful girls in high society Parisian parties of whom from Zola to Maugham spoke about
I learn art in silence, in the bright orange color of the day drawing the French young girl
Whose face is like Madonna
Her innocence, her laughter, her flawless body
Excite me, breaks me, creates me
I walk with clean head and red wine in the streets of Montmartre
Searching the gone and dusted studio of Renoir, Picasso, Monet
I stand exactly there where there is nothing old except the moon
And the Sacre Couer
In the morning I take the first train to Auvers Sur Oise
And walk into the cemetery
Where lie in the gorgeous French sun
Vincent and Theo Van Gogh
I utter to them, "Can dream ever be false?"
It is when I heard the footsteps
I turned
The girl in the yellow dress stands at the gate of the cemetery
Whom I draw every day but never captured her beauty
The French girl
We both stand there as it is
As if
framed
paused
Frozen
We, the Impressionists!
Aug 8, 2020
Aug 8, 2020 at 8:45 AM UTC
Trading in our hearts,
unemotionally here.
Turning to the sun;
We don’t find answers,
we don’t even find solace.
We dance like they do,
like impressionists.
Our art still has clear borders/
Performances end.
We take our masks off.
Pointing out our own flaws, yet…
hmm… Something like this.
Talking at myself
again and learning nothing
new of importance.
So, dance flower dance,
tear your roots and die trying
to amaze us all.
Feb 10, 2016
Feb 10, 2016 at 2:13 AM UTC
We had been
to the Impressionist gallery
in Paris
been to the Tower
seen the views
had coffees
and seen street artists
and Sonya was wanting
to see an American film
at a cinema with sub-titles
I’m not keen
I said
why not?
I can see it
once back in the UK
without having to read script
on the screen
at the same time
watch the action
anyway seeing Clint Eastwood
speaking French
is off putting
she pulled a face
and went sat down
on a seat of some café
and I sat next to her
you always have to spoil things
she said
reading the menu
it's in French
she said
we're in France
so how am I to know
what to order?
point at it
and ask what it is
she looked at me
with her icy-blue eyes
she tossed back hair
from her face
I went with you
to the art gallery
she said
to see all those boring Impressionists
but you can't go with me
to see Clint
a waiter came up to us
and she asked him
if we could
have two coffees with cream
he nodded and smiled at her
and went off
he's ****
I didn't notice
had lovely eyes
dark and deep
he's a waiter and French
I said
I can imagine him
beside me in bed
breathing on me
with his breath
oniony and garlicky
she tapped my hand
jealous is what you are
she said
I don't want him
you do
I said
I didn't say I wanted him
I said I could
imagine him in my bed
she muttered
she looked around her
at the other tables
I looked at her profile
the curve of neck
the run of her jawline
her ear visible
through her blonde hair
momentarily
I felt like a vampire
wanting to sink
my teeth
into the soft flesh
of her neck
and **** her sexily
she looked back at me
you owe me
she said
having to go
to that boring art place
ok
I said
what do you want?
I want to see the film
with Clint Eastwood
ok
I said
thinking of the bed
and her
and do what I could
if she would.
Aug 9, 2014
Aug 9, 2014 at 3:48 AM UTC
i've learnt that the greatest
prompt and subsequent
impromptu to yet another poem
is to be constantly dissatisfied
with one's output,
because there's hardly a solemn
care for so little with so much
intent: prose writers are due
respect for hammering
so many little and big words into
novels with an odd flash of
poetic genius, poets are always
left dissatisfied because of this,
their open-plan scribbles are
the compensation odes to the bulk
of bulging plotted out scenarios
of fiction - i too wish i had the
capacity to write so much, bound
by 21 volumes of a Dickens or a Balzac,
but whereas they have their endless
stream of words and compensate
very little in terms of poetic economics,
i can:
do this
do that
and revel
in the blank trimmings
of a rim
of a canvas:
with each dispute
the white, the snow
grin of defeat;
or like the chinese poets said: haiku yin-yang
the poem must be,
less mechanism of anything,
more association of mechanisms as you elsewhere;
well less art more **** make each poem
a yin-yang assimilation - x-ray the renaissance paintings
and the impressionists, and the still-life
painters and the cubists and realists and the pre-raphaelites...
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 6, 2016 at 4:47 PM UTC
.
It has been found that given enough time
failure will find this destined loser
lurking in gallery tints
and water color fault lines
semi gloss replaced by flat
Painting abstract nothings
on a canvas made of words
Broken brushes stain the existing
balance with a voice that collects the remnants
speaking tarnished silver when silence should be golden
Pop art wastelands of dotted balloons
float above the ground where his face falls,
shamed and hidden, in plain sight
with eyes holding quarters of bygone years
melting clocks keep time with his idiocy
Impressionists laugh at his existence
in muted tone chuckles and turpentine snickers
Stretched on easels of dislodged glances
with splattered smocks tied in double knots
one size fits all
This palette of mixed memories
resting on mainstream notions, waits
for the end is sure to come
finding him alone with an empty imagination
and nothing but drop cloth dreams
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 10:05 AM UTC
She dreams of the ideal man,
but the suitor idolizes death in his soulful slumber.
She takes care of herself,
though she cannot bestow her beauty to impressionists.
She falls in love,
yet her delusional passions seethe her in disarray.
She finds new friends,
but a ********** of overzealous poison tarnishes the relationship.
She cooks for more than one;
ghosts accompany the reserved empty chairs.
She re-models her home,
driven to impress; however, she is the only one impressed.
She longs for attention,
craving for a taste of wanting to be loved.
She is she,
and she is her own canvas.
Oct 20, 2020
Oct 20, 2020 at 8:07 PM UTC
You can be my ball of wax.
I'll roll you between my fingertips
until you're warmed and soft
and I can mold you.
Some are impressionists
or modernists
but I wanted to be a
realist.
So I made you in the image
of my reality.
Only I made you
taller,
kinder,
handsomer,
sweeter.
I shaped you
with so much
self-deception
and so much
failed perception.
You can be my boy of wax.
I made you in the winter
and you were strong
and solid
for a time.
But the summer came and you grew
smaller,
shorter,
quieter,
farther,
and you,
my artful manipulation
of
what I so
wanted
to create,
melted.
You can be my pool of wax,
a shapeless
well
of malformed memories
that change
with every touch.
I curl my knees to
my chest and
do my best to stop
prying and prodding you,
my pool of wax.
Because with every touch
it burns
my skin and turns
my fingers
an angry red.
I made you,
and I never
knew
that
a boy of wax
could unmake
me.
Jun 25, 2013
Jun 25, 2013 at 9:04 PM UTC
I hate abstract art,
right along with you.
I like the impressionists,
and pointillists.
You will be
my Camille
and I will be
your Oscar-Claude.
Wear that green dress
to bed tonight
and I will make you
bashful,
but confident too.
You will make me
humane and
delightfully weak
inside of 500 square feet.
Jan 2, 2012
Jan 2, 2012 at 4:39 PM UTC
She has cigarettes
in place of **** to be said.
She does not say much.
I don’t think I have
people happy to see me
and all these “artists”
are impressionists,
somehow living alone has
become a statement.
I consume myself,
and am neither satisfied
or disappointed.
Feb 5, 2016
Feb 5, 2016 at 4:33 AM UTC
Sonya stood
on the narrow balcony
of the hotel room in Paris
I lay on the bed
reading Celan poems
she was in her underwear
and bra
smoking
a French cigarette
most of the great artists
lived here
at one time or other
she said
I looked over at her
her blonde hair
touched her haunches
her tight ****
smiled at me
most yes
I guess so
I said
can we go
to an art gallery today?
she said
I love the Impressionists
this is the place
to see them
guess so
I returned to the book
where are we breakfasting?
where you like
she exhaled
that little café
on the corner is good
she suggested
you like the waiter
the guy with the Proust moustache
nonsense
it's the coffee
the cake he provides
she said
she gazed back at me
aren't you going to wash
and dress?
I nodded
after you
you're quicker
she said
she was right
ok
so I got up
and went into the bathroom
and washed
and brushed my teeth
and came out
she was on the bed
looking at the book
of poems
how do you
make sense of this?
she asked
open minded
and getting the vibe
she put the book down
and went in the bathroom
I dressed
lit a cigarette
and stood
by the window
looking down
into the Parisian street
below
I love Paris
I mused
love all this
and blew
a passing French girl
a palm blown kiss.
Oct 1, 2014
Oct 1, 2014 at 3:32 PM UTC
Six pregnant cigarettes later
a mint julep poured and tasted
fingers licked while lips drunk sting
and sweat beads and rolls on upper lip.
A lean on outdoor table with
feet raised on outdoor chair and
grass greener than the impressionists
while the sevens and eights dance
with awkward hair and chocolate stains
a look from picture window
and ribeye steak and butter in the pan.
Fish and gills in the air and salt
drops on tiny blue eyeballs
so squints make their way gracefully
into every last family portrait.
Apr 20, 2014
Apr 20, 2014 at 12:55 PM UTC
Or was it the fourth.
my thirst to be an artist was
upended there
but I still try to do pure impressionistic,
faintly descriptive sketches
and still want to do watercolor landscapes
I was, though, in my element 5 or so years ago
doing sketches of famous people
and writing a small poem next to them on the same page
on the suggestion of my sister Nancy.
Great art dumbfounds me, it's so majestic
and especially complicated next to mine.
I still want to work with clay
and always wanted to be a sculpture
The French impressionists are my favorite
followed by classical great architecture
and the renaissance art.
I do like detail when it's somebody else doing it
but not when it's me
at least lately.
With my kind of glossing over things,
I'll never be remembered.
For sure Andy Warhol will.
Charles Sturies
Mar 20, 2017
Mar 20, 2017 at 3:37 PM UTC
They say to keep on dreaming even if it breaks your heart.
I am indeed a dreamer, my friend.
A dreamer with a slightly almost shattered heart.
I dream of words, the black curves delicately placed on a once empty space.
The beginners, the ones who started it all.
British literature.
French artists.
Italian impressionists.
I want to envelop a life full of beauty, full of life.
Full of art.
A quiet, quirky English teacher perhaps? Who loves her books more than anything and feels beautiful because she's fallen in love with poetry.
The successful, powerful, **** woman who walks through the fashion industry? Maybe she's happy, but she's become a workoholic who is afraid of committing to marriage because she's hurt.
Or maybe she becomes a decent writer, who became famous off her very first novel highlighting the struggles in her childhood.
She just wants to write.
Endlessly write.
Her thoughts.
Her dreams.
What she's fallen in love with.
Maybe even him.
But really she has no idea what she wants.
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 11:13 PM UTC
Clinic Waiting Room with French Impressionists
The ball-capped men, old men, sit motionless
Arms folded in existential disapproval
They read not, no, and neither do they toil1
Over boxes that light up and make noise
French impressionist lilies soften the walls
Echoing with educational racket
A cartoon shark counting the numbers off
To a child embalmed in a plastic box
While his mee-maw looks to eternity
Through a door that opens from the other side
1Saint Matthew 6:28-29
May 26, 2017
May 26, 2017 at 5:16 PM UTC