Best Belvedere Poems

The Kiss of Klimt

I hurried through the halls of Belvedere
To reach the floor where I could see “The Kiss”
The place I’d find his artwork was so near
I finally came upon it, joyous bliss!

It hung there straight before me, glorious sight
I pushed among the people standing there
I felt my spirit rise to wondrous height
With bated breath, transfixed, I stood to stare

How could I trust what eyes told me was true?
There was that gentle kiss, that sweet embrace
I’d seen it often before, but fondness grew
For tenderness Klimt painted on her face

The flowers in her hair, romance in bloom
Protective arms of lover, haven sure
Kaleidoscope of colors banished gloom
A moment captured then that will endure

I gifted to my daughter artist’s book
She loved his “Judith” and his “Tree of Life”
Klimt’s passion women mirrored in each look
He loved them all but none he took for wife

Gustav has left a legacy of love
In paintings that enthrall the heart and mind
Of stature small, but like the gods above
He left eternal mark on all mankind

For Anthony Slausen’s Klimt Contest
November 18, 2017

Nonsense

Problems in the mirror may be further than they appear
Don’t fear when they’re near, they’ll soon disappear
help is here, let me give your mind a steer
I’ma just keep writin’ until it all appears clear
coming to you live from the heart, no veneer here
closing in on 10,000 hours quick, nothing will interfere
I’ll turn these words to a career, this is only the first tier
found what I love, don’t care about 0’s at the cashier
You're wasting your time if you wouldn’t do it as a volunteer
Please don’t call me a poet, call me a word engineer
Haha, I can joke too, not all my poems are severe jeers
Stop while you’re ahead though, bout to shift into next gear
Pay attention, learn more in a poem than an academic year
Spare the sneer, wont quit til I sear all that you adhere
Persevere, attackin’ ya from the front both sides and the rear
Steer clear, don’t need no one’s cheer, you cohere?
Probably bust a drum if I spoke this, cauliflower ear
You don’t have to like me, but I bet you will revere
Change my name to Paul, inform you bout the brigadiers
See what I did there? Re-read those past 2 if it’s unclear
My minds my weapon, unlimited ammo, bandolier
Fully automatic, spraying bullets at everything insincere
Blowing up everything you thought you knew, bombardier
You got tunnel vision, widen your view, belvedere
This flow is delicate, elegant, like a chandelier
This flow leave ya weak in the legs like a baby deer
This flow has many sides and it’s well rounded like a sphere
A pioneer on the frontier, might stop and shed 1 tear
They say a writer never dies, guess this is a souvenir
Catch me down under drinkin' a Bundaberg ginger beer
This poems a joke, obscene, call me Edward Lear

The Kiss Footle

his kiss
                   fair bliss

             mosaic
             deltaic

            bronze prints
            warm tints


                   love flowed
                        in gold




15 March 2023

Notes: The Kiss (Lovers) by Gustav Klimt is the most famous Austrian painting and the highlight of the permanent collection at the Upper Belvedere.The painting dates from 1907/08 at the height of Klimt’s “Golden Period” when the artist developed a new technique of combining gold leaf with oils and bronze paint.(photo and info credits to belvedere.com)

When They Met. Part I.

When Socretes, Plato and Aristotle teamed,
the line between the will to learn married the will to teach.
When Raphael, Leonardo, and Michael lived at Belvedere,
Art would see her form take shape and pave the way for years.
When Beethoven met Mozart on one Vienna spring,
the voice of God was heard through horizontally laid strings.
When Newton, Halley and Hooke looked through the glass and sky,
the universe shed her secrets to be more then meets the eye.
When Thomas, John and Ben picked up the pen to write,
an eagle spread its wings and from an olive branch took flight.
When Samuel Langhorne Clemens met Harriet Beecher Stowe,
the times of change were laid in names from characters' footholds.
When Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill assumed command,
fear and hatred would not be sated on another land.
When Lindbergh and Goddard pushed to see their common goal,
man was ready here and now to soar towards heaven's soul.

Adorn

I planted this garden to enjoy.
Photosynthesis comes from the sun.
The white orchids set to the east.
The daffodils are astray.
The roses are a spread on a rack.
The tulips and morning glory are in a flowerbed.
I am relishing nature this year.

I planted these gardens to enjoy.
I sit in my cupola thinking about, therapeutically writing poetry, and reading aloud.
Behind this belvedere are a plot of mustard greens, tomatoes, carrots, and cucumbers.
The radiant energy celestially augments the vegetation.
The foliage is an architectural beautification.

These gardens were planted to enjoy.
No qualms I have, thus far.
I am truly adorned.
____________________|
Penned on May 02, 2014!
What's in your GARDEN? Contest

A Demented Soul

The doctor injected something in me when I was just a embryo!  
I figured my mother was the enemy standing at the end of the rainbow.
       As a babe I use to take off my diaper and throw it at my baby sitter Sandy!  
When I was a kid I bullied other children out of their candy.
       In elementary my teacher asked what I would grow up to be?  I stood in front of the 
class 
told her to kiss my azz and screamed like a banshee!
       I remember the first time I played "house" with the girl next door.  
She told me I was her pimp  and she was my whore!
       Before school I would get drunk on Belvedere.  
I use to sit in class behind this nerd and thump him in the ear!
       As a teenager I thought I was being haunted.  
I would tell girls what they desired just to get what I wanted.
       I use to get into fights a lot.
At 16 my Grandmomma caught me smoking pot!
       My first job was a McDonald's drive-thru.
Customers would get an attitude, put me in a bad mood,
       So I put a  booger in their "big-mac," smiled, and said "Sorry I was rude to you!"
       The year I turned 17, that Halloween I inhaled some gasoline.
That night my sister caught me masturbating to a magazine!
       At 19 yrs old I became a world renowned gigolo.
Not long after I was abducted by a UFO!
       I travelled constellations for over a decade.
"Marvin The Martian" returned me to earth after our last Venus Crusade.
       It took me a couple years to readjust.
Even today I still smell like moondust!
       And so I became a man with no self-control.
I'll forever stand a demented soul!!!


*Wrote for Olusequn Adelna contest "Make my head fall off (lol)"
This poem is purely fictional, my morbid humor;) Visit me on facebook

Drunken Loneliness

The Black Mirror

Glossy and translucent face, as a cold night
Into your desert of darkness there is no star
Only a black moon and a deep scar by diamond
Feelings traveling by trails on high cliffs,
Looking for in the vastness night, the silvered light,
Forgotten eyes lost in time, and on the plains..
Lightning are ethereal lives, vanished in the sky
A sea suspended in clouds laden with memories.


Platform station has a hard surface and grim,
Time departure on trails, by footprints of a pilgrim
That takes into wagons loaded into cocoons desires
Under tunnels of wind, dreams fossilized in hills.
Ancient caves are the temple of reflected mystery. 
Walls of vertically pits are mirrors of the Narcissus.
From you nothing will escape, enclosed in your world.
Bird so close by the dark light; distance from passions

Your body was touched by the fresh morning light,
Where the drops of dew kissed all darkness night..
Biting in your empty infinite spaces, one heart,
As Mayan’s sacrifice, wrapped in Balm of Gilead.
Spectra of black knights are presents in your castle,
Framed by ditches in your black and smooth universe..
Spectra absorb your colored feeble from the twilight.
Sleep over threshold, the dream in belvedere of light.

Mr. Belvedere Doesn'T Live Here............

Parents are so busy and pre-occupied with their 
own lives,
They never flinch when the doorbell rings twice,
They yell for the children to open the door,
Chastising them forevermore.......
Yet, parents get upset when the children disappear,
When they vanish into thin air,
They blame everyone except themselves
for not doing their due diligence,
If parents really cared they wouldn't
throw their children to the wolves,
Who knows what lurks behind the doors,
Sometimes vagrants, up to no good!
If parents aren't able to handle their tasks
and have responsibilty for the kids,
They should seek a Mr. Belvedere
whose only task would be to bow and scrape,
and opening the doors so the children won't vanish
or escape.

Adieu

My rose unfurled, withered in my eyes,
And thorns endured where dainty petals aught;
On scented breath exhaled beguiling lies,
And morning weeps, unblushed, for love is naught.
Farewell to lusty shadows creaking bed, 
And crackling hearth before which lovers laid,
And belvedere where innocence was bled,
While moonlight specters pranced in flowered glade.
Adieu my rose, forgive my early spring; 
Between my youthful urges lay thee pressed,
And not a single sympathetic string;
Do angels chord within my sorrowed breast.
My garden dampens neath a summer’s rain,
Yet never will I bloom a rose again.

Mannequin Dreams

Falling from forty clouds,
ticking clocks melting time.
Penguins that waddle backwards,
church bells that never chime.

Costume heros reading books,
birds parting their horizon sea.
Rabbit hole adventures haunted,
this evening spent sipping tea. 

Ghosts passing into limestone,
children snickering in silence.
Belvedere on high with royalty,
that command games of violence.

Skyscrapers that penetrate heaven,
wings of angels messengering hope.
Widespread fields are left untilled,
criminals hanging from common rope.

Knives enchanted by prosperity, 
fortresses unbroken in brutal war.
Bronze bodies remain countless,
adding mortar to Poseidon's shore.

Tunnels of thought approaches,
blood seeping through the cracks.
Flesh and bone now disappearing,
from the lifeless city made of wax.

A Flashback of Schiele

There is a
Strange quality to my memory of Albertina and 
Leopold's corner at 
mulled wine scented streets I walked
covered with a veil of calmness but 
A few things were somehow not 
the way I wanted them to be there was 
A different kind of energy to 
This lonely endaveour 
I came mostly for Schiele but enchanted by Kokoschka in Belvedere encouraged despite the magic's lack of presence 
To carry on through the coldness of the countless
passages
Only later I discovered 
That the magic never left me

Uecker

Many people are sad because he's no longer here.
Forty years ago, I watched him on Mr. Belvedere.
He played baseball and was a sportscaster as well.
Uecker became a success, he certainly did not fail.

If you're wondering if Bob was talented, the answer is yes.
It shouldn't come as a surprise to you that he was a success.
Uecker proved to the entire world that he could act.
He helped to make Mr. Belvedere a hit and that's a fact.


[Dedicated to Bob Uecker (1934-2025) who died on January 16, 2025]

Belvedere

The warm summer had the hood of my car hot to the touch,
the cool night had us tucked in tight,
I don't remember the movie, we had missed too much.

During winter the snow fell down, each other we had clutched,
our smooth skin, even the situation we were in,
we had tried and tried and we had cried so much.

The future remained unclear and though it drew near,
the consequences that we had never given a thought.

The brazen fear, insecurities i swear,
the baggage into the relationship we'd brought.

They had caused us doom, and our love to bloom,
it's not regret or bad memories i'd fought.

It's the perfume in the air, the belvedere,
that reminds me, it was only love that we had sought.