"tempera" poems
rhapsodic pastoralism
as beguilingly bucolic as tempera gardens,
where nature’s wild beauty
is domesticated and made
into a safe space for dream and play,
reverie and revelry.
with the bright dawn
chatter of birdsong
it seems to reach your ear across distance,
like a girl singing happily to herself
while walking down the road
on the other side of your garden wall.
Jan 24, 2023
Jan 24, 2023 at 4:33 PM UTC
Loneliness is a sketchwork of pen and ink of iron gall,
Brushed over in brown wash of wood soot from oak,
Disguised then under tempera of golden-ratio of yolk,
Flared over with fiery oils to the smoke-blurred brink, sfumato,
Or pigment of the fresco, a shade of off-life, languid as watercolor,
Or from the too-fondly-felt impasto knife.
But bares its bones in the light-dark cleft of Caravaggio,
With diminutions of death and the storm’s dark imbroglio,
And sunlight as flesh made into soul,
The skin stretched whole around the world.
Each sky is just a sketch
Of loneliness, left unsigned,
By every hand.
Jul 4, 2019
Jul 4, 2019 at 10:11 PM UTC
Salty mess is laminated
in hard rime
whilst the moth ribbons
like a broken lasso
over the bathroom tiles.
In your letters
the handwriting conveys
your shaking vulnerability
in the fog.
The rime and
The grapefruit soap
and lye solder your calico dress in blisters
With cascading Tempera over your chest
Along the globe
of your eye, camel eyelashes
powdered skinny
with make up shower with sadness then close in drug dry desperation.
Your legs
are dolphins enthroned
in scarlet
with grazes and gazes grace them with concern.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 3:07 PM UTC
I told her to be my canvas
As I can become the painter
I want to show her how we can work together
Like two people who build forever
I told her to become my muse so I can paint my future onto her rich melanin
Until the tempera soaks into her veins
But she told me it was bad timing
So I figured I would paint her into the right time
Creating a portrait that will be the depiction of her perfection
But then I wondered,
Why does a beautiful work of art continue to live alone
Just trying to understand why she hasn’t been taken
Why hasn't someone invested their life savings into her
It’s as though she was placed in the finest museum
But her radiance is overlooked because of its tainted history
Her canvas is ripped and torn with bruises and scars
Telling me how rough of a past she's had
She cotton and linen is ripped
And her soul is broken
Her paint is smeared upon her face like tear dops
Yet I still find myself staring at her colors
Only wishing she knew how much I did not overlook her
Instead I looked past the rejection and visualized a painting whose core has been damaged one too times
Now I realize it'll take a lot more than weak compliments and mediocre conversation to dig into her deep chromatic tint
What she needs
Is a man who is bold enough to recreate the glow she thinks she no longer has
To repaint the damaged acrylic that was smeared across her heart
I would drown myself into each delicate stroke if it meant I could recreate her
Staring for hours just trying to understand what was originally used to paint her
If only she could see the red paint that bleed from the bristles of my hands attempting to paint a portrait of us together
If only she knew how florescent her smile lightens up my canvas
Even on the days where the lack of creativity suffocates me
She flourishes each painting
She gives it life, she gives me life
She is my muse
My highest source of creativity
And if only I could someday sit her down
And explain to her
That I only want to use this tempera to create you into my cover girl
Because no girl contains the beautiful pigments that have been stained upon your skin
It’s like angels used the clouds as a canvas
Attempting to paint an image that contains the both of us in one setting
And maybe that will be convincing enough to prove to her
That her eyes hypnotize me with a cosmetic chromatic kaleidoscope from each flip of my paintbrush
But I only wish she knew
That there's just something about the art I think we could create
May 3, 2015
May 3, 2015 at 12:50 AM UTC
~
Sleep, sweet darling
Sleep
Remember drowsy
blue waters
heal and swoon
the ennui haze
In softly pillowed oblivion
where even your
little toes and feet
touch bottom
Beloved dreamer
in tempera obscurity
there will be no memory
of the procession
ferrying our kipped-down family
They will dance
widdershins around us
with fluttered eyelids
and reclining hearts
But whether an
allegory of the cave or
an analogy of the sun toward
some dividing line between
~either way~
Sleep, sweet darling
Sleep
~
Dec 3, 2020
Dec 3, 2020 at 7:37 PM UTC
Painted in tempera on illustration board
Don't know things by heart
They will only break you
Use your mind instead
How as a teen I wanted to die
But could not remember why
And the junkieing of america
Crack baby penquins walking on thin ice
A child being beaten on a bus
The driver runs then, drives away, does nothing
How do you spell deedy
Painted in brown acrylic
over pencil on wood paneling
She's the queen of visa
Knows all the tricks with cards
She said " I like to swim in the rain"
Alligators laughing, like on that Sendak drawing
"Yea" I say "I like the art in" and it was still hot
Dogfights for doughnuts just to shake a stick
The most out of place person I ever met
Was that surfer dude in Michegan
And when I stopped the chair cough
Then maybe I did do the world a favor
And the judge said "Can you prove that
this woman ***** you when you were
a two year old?" And that is when
The tears began to fall down every cheek
of the jury.
Apr 10, 2017
Apr 10, 2017 at 11:16 AM UTC
Just 'neath the frosty garb of a shimmering hoary dew, a
picturesque meadow lies swaying in the waning starlight
before the eyes of a sweet and fair maiden, a dervish
whirling and singing her diaphanous solo to the budding
flowers that sprout upon the verdant landscape, unripened
and impatient to soft petals thrusting outward and becoming
saturated in deep purple, blue, and yellow-gold at the suns
ascent. Up above, a tempera image now slowly appears from
behind the curtain of twilights intermission-it is the
reddening energized sky of a new day dawning -and the
morning rays of light glare, bathing her, the admirer
enclosed by the horizon, in the warmth and fineness of the
season.
Dec 3, 2014
Dec 3, 2014 at 12:13 AM UTC
heat lets you drip into the backdrop
without notice
and melt into thick liquid air
alone
coldness knows its importance
a nurturing slap in the face
a playful bite whispers,
"wake up"
layers can always be added
but you cannot take off your skin
Jul 12, 2015
Jul 12, 2015 at 10:50 PM UTC
If I were painted a long time ago
in say Renaissance times, two dimensions,
I might be a saint-
or a revolutionary-
I was stroked
of harsh defiant bold colors
when portraits were cast in canvas
bronze overtones of gesso and black only
washes of contrast
the tone built up
with layers of translucence
and bone colored washes
and hung on a wall and try though I might
the egg tempera
earth tones deeper than
olive oil on a live model
wore off
and the canvas warped
the wood grew skewed
and the museum had me
cremated
along side
a dog and scattered in the
woods
just as I had hoped
Jul 20, 2017
Jul 20, 2017 at 10:58 PM UTC
The subject of a painting
whether oil or watercolor or tempera
does not know she is in a painting.
She knows her past, whatever of it
her artist gave her when he brought her to life,
though (unbeknownst to her) she did not experience
any of it herself.
She was conceived a fully-grown woman,
so when the painting is one of hurt,
the subject sits in it from first brushstroke into infancy
(or until the work is burned in a **** fire--
though who knows if flames can destroy
consciousness given to an idea as
ephemeral as a painted girl?)
So forever she will lie in her sick bed,
languor in her grief,
swoon from the heat of the sun,
or cry at a grave site under the cover of darkness,
stand beside her husband stoically surveying her fields,
or weep at the feet of her son
as he dies nailed upon a tree, or
cry in pain as her womb expels an unborn babe.
But I-- one day I wake in another bed
or the same bed, on a different day
My injury, my pain that felt interminable,
is gone (or at least, eased) and I have
no gaps in my teeth.
I have left the painting
I have less pain,
a new life. A new day.
For me, the wheel keeps turning, for
I am not
the subject of a painting.
So, this too
I know, shall pass.
And for me the sun will rise again tomorrow.
Nov 7, 2021
Nov 7, 2021 at 5:41 PM UTC
In a world where dreams pour out on pages,
A house was built, through countless ages.
Walls of parchment, ceilings of prose,
A storybook shelter, where the mind overflows.
Each room a chapter, each window a verse,
Filled with the whispers of scholars immersed.
Ink-stained floors tell tales untold,
Mysterious adventures in every fold.
A fireplace lit with sketched desires,
Paper flames, yet warm as real fires.
Soft rustles of leaves in a paper breeze,
Crafting a haven for hearts at ease.
From its towering spire of tempera ink,
One can see the stars align and think.
A paper house is fragile, yet strong,
A sanctuary where you truly belong.
Whispers of wisdom in every nook,
Bound together by a bookbinder’s hook.
With open doors to the land of dreams,
In a paper house, nothing’s as it seems.
Sep 10, 2024
Sep 10, 2024 at 1:38 PM UTC