Artist Rendition
Picasso paintings flash through my mind
Illustrative of the people I’ve known,
The people……… the men,
Okay, the lovers.……
Or the would-be-lovers that would have been
But could not be and should not be
But were there or almost there
Where I was and should not have been
At the time.
If that makes any sense.
Why Picasso, you might ask?
I’m glad you asked………..
It’s simple, really,
Let me explain.
(Are you sitting down?)
Ever since childhood,
Long ago and far away…….
Okay, yesterday,
Okay, look, it’s an on-going thing..……
I’ve always been convinced
That Picasso had a Humpty Dumpty fixation.
I mean, look,
(And I’m sure you’ll agree with me)
If we’re being honest…….
Don’t all of his painting subjects
Look like Humpty Dumptys
Who at one time,
Had to have been sitting on a wall somewhere?
I mean, really?
Love is like a badly cracked up egg
It can’t be unscrambled,
Can’t be un-scooped………….
You can’t remix the yellows and the whites
After you’ve separated them
Well, okay you can.………..
But then you have to bake a cake or something
(Or give yourself a facial.)
Damn! Why do I digress so much?!
The point I’m trying to make………
Is that all those Picasso people
Look like they’ve cracked up
On the sidewalk of love
And been repaired the best way he knew how
By the magic of art……..
(And unfocused strange eyes.)
Is that so hard a concept to grasp?
You seem like such intelligent people………….
I was sure you would understand
I was sure you could follow my reasoning
I was sure…………
(Who the hell am I talking to?!)
I was always a Van Gogh lover myself,
A Monet fan, a Renoir romanticist………
Van Gogh’s subjects were plain and simple folk,
Like me,
So ugly they were beautiful,
Their faces full of agony and passion,
Always searching for the beauty in the dirt
And falling for the lovers who were broken.
Every man I’ve ever loved was like a Picasso painting,
Oh, maybe not before, but afterwards….
One minute, strong and whole,
With the sidewalk beneath his feet………….
Head in the sky, smile on his face,
Reaching for me with those hopeful arms…………..
And the next thing I know,
I’m trying to fix him up
With Super Glue and Duct Tape,
Scooping his scrambled brains
Back into a skull like ancient sculpture,
Chipped and speckled like robin’s eggs
And hoping no one will notice what’s amiss.
I do the best I can…….
But there’s always something missing
When I’m done
Maybe the smile……………
Maybe the eye is over there,
The foot is dangling awkwardly………..
And I can never find the heart.
These memories hang,
In the museum which is my mind
Every wall, adorned,
Every space, filled up with art
So oddly out of place………..
Picasso pieces in a Van Gogh world.
It’s time to find a new hobby, perhaps
I’m beginning to think I’m a lousy artiste………..
An abstract Impressionist in a dark studio,
More skilled at finger painting than portraits in oil,
My end results, caricatures, chimeras and jokes……..
And all of my lovers, like bad scrambled eggs.
©By Voo
March 6, 2011
12:50 a.m.
Four Stood Watching
Two men walked up
But four there stood
At the door of gilded gold and wood.
Two ladies danced
On marble floor
But on the walls, danced two ladies more.
Two trees swayed there
Back, fro and to
But on the ground swayed another two.
Two people kissed
Warm as the sun
But in their hearts, they stood as one.
Two lives entwined
Lived just the same
One went away and one remained.
Two people kissed
Lips sweet with charms
Then passed this life in each other's arms.
Two men walked up
But four there stood
Two ladies waltzing, but four dancers would.
Four ladies twirling
Four men, entranced
Then four stood watching as their shadows danced.
by Voo
Jan 23, 16
4 p.m.
The Night Of The Double Moons
There was a day when the sun rose green
And all the dimples in the clouds cried rain
It was a day of darkness, yet of emerald
And nothing dared to look upon the sky
Not even blades of grass.
There was a night when moons shone, doubled
And danced through starry flower fields like meadows
It was a night of light and brightest mystery
And no one dared to wonder, ponder on it's shining
Not even hooded owls.
Thus was the day of new beginnings...............
And nights that had no end but ever ending
It stunned the eye and burned the heart
It trapped the soul in chiseled chasms, always falling
Always falling, but finally feeling free.
I was born that day and grew to fullness
In that starry sky that shone like candles
A billion lanterns in the night, lit by hands no man could see
And there I danced with cloud and owl on moonlight slippers
Alone and yet, so un-alone, the heavens' laughter rang.
I could not know upon my birth, what lay before
I could not see with new born eyes, what lay behind
I could not tell with mind so filled and fresh just what I knew
But I could love because my heart
Was born of love.
And you, my dearest, deep desire
What of your birth and journeys long?
I did not know nor yet remember
Where you would go or whence you'd come
I only knew you were my home.
And so I travelled, through sea and sky
In a world that called my name in thunder
Whispered to me in the wind
And touched my face with falling leaves
Never showing yourself to me.
And I grew old, though hardly showing
The age that withered my yearning heart
My steps, then slowed while moving onward
I looked for you 'round every bend, 'round every man
'Round every star and cloud and dream.
And then the sun rose green again
And then the dimpled clouds rained tears
And then the double moons appeared
And I cried out my sad heart's fears
And I turned 'round to find you there.
Across the spaces in the skies
Your hands were reaching for my own
Your face, illumined by your smile
I ran with feet and flew with wings
To your open arms, your heart, my home.
No more to travel this world alone
No more to travel this world alone.
©by Voo
Dec 6, 2015
7:05 p.m.
Still No Rain
"Still no rain." she said
Looking out the back door
At brown barren fields
And acres full of bitter dust.
The crops lay like skeletons
Of their former selves
Brittle, petrified, unedible straws
Dead of exhaustion in their sad quest for growth.
It was a long hot summer
Hotter than most........
Longer than most......
That summer from hell.
We didn't know then
What we shouldn't know now
We were young and innocent
And too full of youth.
Life is more noticable on a farm
It winds itself around you like kudzu on a hillside
Winds and chokes you half too death
Before you even see it's hand.
My mama, Anne, worked while Daddy napped
His angry fingers 'round a glass of tea
There in the shade of a shadeless tree
And all us children digging rows for the corn.
The sun was not our friend
It hated us and tried to kill us
It took away our swimming hole
It took away our wishing well.
And the skies refused to rain
And the soul felt only pain
Days on end and nights so thin
That they only seemed like shadows.
And he left us there in search of greener pastures
Packing up his Chevrolet with every dime he had
He couldn't meet my mama's eyes but I stared a hole clean through him
And Mama said, "Don't hate him, girl, cause he is still your dad."
And still the rains didn't come
Though we prayed with all of our hearts
Living on polk, water cresses and hope
While the days buzzed around us like bees.
My baby brother passed away
And there were only six
Five of us and one of her
And we soon learned she was sick.
She hid it very well
Until the day she fell
In the hot noon sun with a handful of seeds
That she'd bought with her last dollar.
I was a little girl, I didn't know
But I soon learned real fast
That little girls to women grow
When their futures turn to pasts.
And I raised them up and I did my job
And the summer turned to summer
With no fall or spring or anything
To mark the change of seasons.
One by one, the children went off
To find their way without me
And left me on that dead dirt farm
Where no seedless thing can grow.
I loved someone and he loved me
For the space of a dream and an eclipse of the sun
He planted things in me that he never would harvest
Then he ran down the road with the moon at his back.
One day my daddy showed up on the porch
Old and gray and full of mean
Pointing to a patch of earth,
He asked me how I kept it green.
"That's where Mama sleeps." I said to him
"And every morning, I find things to eat.
Potatoes and squash and beans and there's roses
Blooming at her head and Queen Anne's Lace at her feet."
He didn't say another word
Just turned and left without looking back
I picked up a rock to throw at his head
But was still standing there frozen when he faded from sight.
"Mama?" she said in her little girl voice
And I turned to the door at the sound of her smile
"It's alright, just a stranger out looking for water
But there's still no rain except on your grandmama's grave."
©By Voo
September 29, 2012
7:21 p.m.
