Warhol–Pop Art in Words

Wikipedia Commons
Labeled for Non-commercial reuse

Warhol

Maybe Andy was on
to something.
One-after-another
screen-printed cans—
Campbell’s soup:
red and white,
silver and gray,
navy blue with a gold seal.
An icon of comfort in
the midst of so much dismay.
Tomato, Chicken Noodle,
Split Pea,
Bean with Bacon, Pepper Pot.
Mother’s Milk, Mother’s Comfort.
Bring it on.

Did you ever stop?
Really look at art?
I mean art in a grocery store?
“Wake up!”
Andy would say.
“Look.
Listen closely.”

I pick up a navel orange.
Its dimpled skin
leaves a scent-mark
on my fingers.

“If you want to know me,
look at my art,”
“I’m a deeply superficial person.”

So I stare at him,
but he doesn’t glance back.
Eyes drifting to some
far-away place where
wholeness waits,
or to a party where
touching never held room
for emptiness.
The pull of gravity so great
the Mass collapses in
on itself,
Black Hole. Black Whole.

All that sparkles is
not diamond dust.
Even that wouldn’t adhere.
Your world
became glittered in so
much plastic.

Redemption plays in
pink and yellow
electric chairs.

Curl up,
snuggle in its lap
and die alone
while the nurse who
was there for you,
wasn’t.

Oh my God,
I am heartily sorry,
hardly,
heartily.
So much pain.
I repeat, I repeat.
Marilyn in
black and gray
and brown,
blue and pink.
We are heartily sorry
who we aren’t,
what we are
and what they made us.

The woman handed
the boy
a piece of dense bread.
“It’s dry,” he said.
“Dunk it in your soup,”
she answered.

I wrote this poem way back in 2010, around the time the Nevada Museum of Art hosted a Warhol exhibit. Many, perhaps unknown details underlie this writing. Here are a few of them.

• As a child, Andy was sick a lot. His mother sustained him on Campbells soup.
• He surrounded himself with celebrities, but never found self confidence or the ability to fill that empty space within himself.
• He pursued adding diamond dust to his work, but had problems with making it stick.
• He painted a rather grim series of electric chairs.
• He died at a young age of complications from gallbladder surgery. The private nurse who was supposed to be with him had left the room.

Wikipedia Commons
Labeled for Non-commercial reuse

I would love to have you join us for dVerse MTB where I’m hosting. The theme is Pop Art.

 

A Mother Mourns

A Mother Mourns
A Sestina

I saw her in the early hours’ mist,
just before sun broke through, heralding morn.
I heard a sound—perhaps a cry, a wail—
featuring pain that could not be missed.
An empty call of someone who did mourn,
a loss as deep as human, a grieving whale.

Who would expect such distress from a whale,
echoing slowly as though held back by the mist?
She shared her sorrow with me and I, too, began to mourn
the babe she held aloft in this quiet morn.
I thought of death—the one I loved and missed.
In silence I stood and listened to her wail.

Once again, I heard her, another wail—
the splendor of this creature, of this whale—
a mother’s angst that could not be missed,
so haunting in this atmospheric mist.
I’d awaited this day, a glorious morn,
but even breaking waves sprayed tears, as if to mourn.

She writhed in billowing whitecaps, her body seemed to mourn.
Above, a seagull cawed, squawked its own wail,
its flight toward the sun, toward dawning morn.
Below, a stillness shrouded mother whale,
in blue green seas, in dispersing mist.
Again a deep cry that I could not have missed.

I, too, have lost a child whose love I’ve missed.
Oh how I keen, and still I mourn
as I watch myself disappear into the mist
leaving behind my memories in an agonizing wail.
I think we are one—my spirit and the whale
as we both weep tears in this early morn.

As day moves on and leaves behind the morn,
we can’t stay fixed on what we have missed.
I bid goodbye to my mother whale
to face the present so as not to mourn.
Then in a distance, I hear another wail
I carry it with me beyond the mist.

I’ll not forget mother whale who I met this morn.
Another day, in morning mist, I’ll think of all we both missed,
and learn how to mourn in a soundless wail.

I couldn’t resist trying another Sestina using homophones, inspired by Bjorn’s post. I’m linking it to the form challenge at dVerse Poets. This one needs some work.

Image: BBC

 

Transience–dVerse Poetry Form: Sestina

Photo: Victoria Slotto

Transience
A Sestina—Iambic Tetrameter

How nature’s wonders haunt my daytime dreams,
ensnare my thoughts in utter timelessness.
They weave a web that captivates my soul,
a harsh reminder of life’s transience.
Our days are few, earth’s beauty delicate.
Creation holds the promise of demise.

A hawk swoops in, ensuring swift demise,
awakens morning from her sultry dreams.
soon feathers fly, then cries so delicate,
the world stands still, enwrapped in timelessness.
A fledgling dies—once more its transience,
a piecing wound emerging in my soul.

I look to nature to caress my soul,
to find an answer in the bird’s demise,
to understand this brutal transience,
her need to shatter hopes born of my dreams.
A full moon whispers silent timelessness,
like breezes sifting sand-thoughts, delicate.

A meadow boasting colors, delicate;
her flowers wave their greetings to my soul.
Year after year they speak of timelessness,
return to face, once more, a quick demise.
Within earth’s womb, do seedlings dare to dream,
accept their fate, their fragile transience?

All life is brief, a cruel transience,
the thread that holds me here, so delicate
almost as though I am, myself, a dream,
a mere illusion that contains a soul.
I can’t ignore my soon-to-be demise,
would I could float in blissful timelessness.

The truth imparts ecstatic timelessness,
enduring words that trump mere transience
and thus outweigh the harshness of demise,
imparting strength to spirits delicate.
Though understanding little of the soul,
I dare to touch eternity, to dream.

My nighttime dreams give way to timelessness,
delivering my soul from transience.
This beauty, delicate, knows no demise.

I am sharing an older poem for the Sestina Challenge at dVerse Poetry Forms. I hope to write one using homophones sometime this week. I will be away for a few days and will catch up reading your sestina next week.

Winter-Spring Walk–dVerse OLN

Image by Lariko
Labeled for non-commercial reuse.
Scotch Broom Shrub

Winter-Spring Walk
a Dizain

In spring, scotch broom yields mille fois yellow blooms.
Breezes caress our trees, leaves swirl and dip.
A heady scent fills the air, sweet perfumes
tempt, beguile, offer memories: your lips
on mine. But you speak only of friendship.

The winds pick up. You shield your face from mine,
hold fast your hat and turn away—a sign
that love is fragile? Hawk flies in place, flails
against late winter storms. Clouds block sunshine.
(I long to yield my being to the gale.)

I was unable to participate in the earlier form challenges at dVerse, so tonight, for Open Link Night, I am attempting a Dizain…not an especially easy form. This is a first draft.

Blue Skies Tinged with Gray

Image: pixabay
Labeled for non-commercial reuse.
Lake Tahoe

Blue Skies Tinged with Gray
a Sestina
Iambic Tetrameter
Revised 8/19

This morning I painted my world in blue,
new days in a dream beneath clear azure skies.
I floated in mem’ries of life borne on waves—
the summer we spent making love by the lake,
when our love sang so sweetly of hours in the sun
and clear water soothed pain that I saw in your eyes.

More often was hope gleaming in those deep eyes,
clear mirrors of mys’try—not silver, not blue,
reflecting the brilliance of summer’s lush sun
this faith that I found in those cloudless, pure skies.
We washed away fear in our bay at the lake,
floating hand within hand on her cool, gentle waves.

Sometimes we are crushed by the force of life’s waves
and excitement can wane, dull the spark in your eyes.
Then return to those days of our love by the lake
to renew what we knew when we dreamt dreams of blue,
streaked with hues of Payne’s Gray as we looked to the skies,
adding depth to those moments of light in the sun.

Summer’s end soon drew near and our time in the sun
gave way to the wind, to the chill in the waves.
Autumn clouds came too soon, hiding blue of the skies,
cast long shadows on joy, dimmed the glow in your eyes.
Succumbing to dark, nature cast off her blue.
Thus we tasted the close of our days at the lake.

Arid sands took you far from our love by the lake.
In Iraq you would know desert dry, scorching sun.
Did that world of brown erase recall of blue?
Did you dream of the days we had shared in the waves?
Or did you forget, horror blinding your eyes
to all of the plans that we held ‘neath blue skies?

For my part, I still hope for the day when the skies
shall return you to me, to our love by the lake.
When you rush to my arms will the tears in your eyes
still be there as they were on that day in the sun
when you told me they called to you over the waves
and you walked from my life for the red, white and blue?

I still look to the skies, shield my eyes from the sun,
wait for days at the lake, for the calming of waves,
lose myself in your eyes, wrapped in dreams painted blue.

For dVerse Poetry Form Challenge–this month the form is the SESTINA. This is my second entry for which I did some revisions on a poem I had written a while back when De Jackson gave us a “blue” prompt. The sestina is a complex form but give it a whirl and link to dVerse where this will be open for one month.

 

Earth Sighs–dVerse Open Link Night

 

Labeled for Non-commercial reuse.

Earth Sighs
A Quadrille

In the gentle whisper of a breeze
I heard, “Be-
wilder.”

My loamy breast broke forth
in bloom,
cacophonies of colors rose,
swayed in birdsong.

Open-mouthed blue-
bells brushed silent blushing
roses. (Shush.)

Weeds abound, dance joyfully
abandoning white fluffy seeds
to the wind.

A poet-friend and I meet monthly to share forms and poetry. I introduced her to the Quadrille and she chose the word “Bewilder.” This is my effort, inspired by my garden that was largely neglected due to my wrist injuries and thrived without me. Linked to dVerse Open Link Night.

Circus Song–dVerse Pantoum

Photo: David Slotto

Circus Song

If life’s a circus, love, then we’re the clowns,
tossed in this hurly-burly neon light.
Rollercoaster madness keeps us bound,
never free of new-moon darkest night.

Rip me from hurly-burly neon light.
Dance me into the sweetest sounds,
free now of new-moon darkest night.
Steal me to meadows, daisy-crowned.

Dance me beauty of life’s sweetest sounds;
leave behind this darkness and its fright.
Green meadows, gift me, daisy-crowned;
dream me a future that is bright.

Let’s leave behind the darkness and its fright,
this rollercoaster madness holds us bound.
Let’s dream another future, shining bright.
This life’s a circus, dear, and we’re the clowns.

Written and posted for Gina’s prompt for dVerse Form Challenge: Pantoum.

Poetry Lives

Photo: David Slotto

Poetry Lives

She sips poetry,
gulps color, texture,
darkness, light.

She covers cold-
ness, emanates warmth
strokes coarse, jagged bark.

She shields innocence,
shelters the poor,
embraces the wonton.

She revels in birdsong,
delights in tender moments,
blesses beauty’s gifts.

She sips life.
She sips death.

Written for dVerse Quadrille, including the wonderful word “Sip.” This is the first poem I’ve written this year. It’s good to be here with you after a long drought.

Of Fire–dVerse Poetics

Prometheus: Wikipedia Commons

Of Fire

i.

flame-fingers crest the summit

plunge into mountain crevices

cleanse, destroy

ii.

unruly flames

searing dancing restless

passion unleashed—

young love

iii.

a steady glow

warm, comforting

unhampered by winds of uncertainty—

old love

iv.

relentless burn within

waiting for words to emerge

from ashes

v.

his flaming forge

bore weapons of war

Prometheus unleashed

life and death

vi.

it takes but a spark

to ignite dry kindling

it takes but a word

to set the poet ablaze

vii.

below surfaces unseen

roiling seething anger

rouses Madame Pele—

eruption

viii.

dying flames flicker

vestiges of ember crumble

we sit before the hearth—

my love and I

silence suffices

 

To be Continued…

I’m happy to be hosting today at dVerse Poetics where I’m asking for poetry on the theme of fire. Please stop by, share a poem and sip some poems.

 

 

 

dVerse Haibun Monday–‘Tis the Season?

Labeled for non-commercial reuse.

‘Tis the Season?

Quickmas is almost here.
It’s in the stores and catalogues.
Why time, why have you fled
and left me trailing far behind?

Slow down and savor now.
Don’t hurry so, my kindly friends,
lest life should hurry by
and quickly hurtle to its end.

For De’s prompt this Quadrille Monday at dVerse, using the word QUICK.