Best Gauguin Poems
Days pass into the weak, loveless nights. The moon blinks.
The stars swirl beneath Van Gogh’s brush, as he links.
Comet light passes twisting cypresses, a schizophrenic’s concussion.
On and on, the wind twirls the trees, and does not complain,
nor, does the cosmos cringe awaiting reciprocation.
Lightning bugs mimic the stars. Atoms sneer.
Those who spout love and friendship abandon him, sneering.
Their images dance beneath his lids, when he blinks.
Though denied a compass, his soul does not reciprocate.
Through pain, physical and mental, he still connects, links
with the life which absorbs and excludes him, not complaining.
Nights pass without his mistress, Sien. His mind is concussive.
His face trembles torn in the brass sounds of the storm’s concussions.
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, all of them, sneer.
How unmerciful, this cycle, this God to whom he does not complain.
If lack of mercy is just, may he not know why? Time blinks.
Thinking causes pain. Only painting connects him, he links.
He accepts art and the pain, as gifts, choosing not to reciprocate.
Voices, the paint, the moon, the voices say, reciprocate.
He chases mice. The cheese plate falls with a loud concussion.
He rubs his gnarled hands across his lids. He maintains the link.
How? Why? But, the mice eating his cheese only sneer.
The sunflowers shimmer and wiggle in their vase, as he blinks.
Stumbling, he falls attempting to sit, the chair does not complain.
He had thought God clear as sunlight; yet, the paint complained.
He was not God; he could not capture the light. He must reciprocate.
After all, who was he, but a mere man, ashes to dust; life blinks.
Ah death, le grand mal, no minor concussion,
He must escape, join the celestial spin, and avoid their sneers.
Sick, yes, sick to death of not being understood, not linking.
The brushes call. He prostitutes himself. Oil spills, connecting, linking.
Theo, brother, never would he forgive. Many others would complain.
Ah, Gauguin, His dear friend, he would understand and not sneer.
If God was truly a loving God, surely, he thought; God will not reciprocate.
The mockers who did not live in Dante’s nine levels of hellish concussion,
they will call his actions cowardly. Merciless, they did not live between the blinks.
Days pass into the weak, loveless nights. The moon blinks.
The stars swirl beneath Van Gogh’s brush, as he links.
Comet light passes twisting cypresses, a schizophrenic’s concussion.
On and on, the wind twirls the trees, and does not complain,
nor, does the cosmos cringe awaiting reciprocation.
Lightning bugs mimic the stars. Atoms sneer.
Those who spout love and friendship abandon him, sneering.
Their images dance beneath his lids, when he blinks.
Though denied a compass, his soul does not reciprocate.
Through pain, physical and mental, he still connects, links
with the life which absorbs and excludes him, not complaining.
Nights pass without his mistress, Sien. His mind is concussive.
His face trembles torn in the brass sounds of the storm’s concussions.
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick-maker, all of them, sneer.
How unmerciful, this cycle, this God to whom he does not complain.
If lack of mercy is just, may he not know why? Time blinks.
Thinking causes pain. Only painting connects him, he links.
He accepts art and the pain, as gifts, choosing not to reciprocate.
Voices, the paint, the moon, the voices say, reciprocate.
He chases mice. The cheese plate falls with a loud concussion.
He rubs his gnarled hands across his lids. He maintains the link.
How? Why? But, the mice eating his cheese only sneer.
The sunflowers shimmer and wiggle in their vase, as he blinks.
Stumbling, he falls attempting to sit, the chair does not complain.
He had thought God clear as sunlight; yet, the paint complained.
He was not God; he could not capture the light. He must reciprocate.
After all, who was he, but a mere man, ashes to dust; life blinks.
Ah death, le grand mal, no minor concussion,
He must escape, join the celestial spin, and avoid their sneers.
Sick, yes, sick to death of not being understood, not linking.
The brushes call. He prostitutes himself. Oil spills, connecting, linking.
Theo, brother, never would he forgive. Many others would complain.
Ah, Gauguin, His dear friend, he would understand and not sneer.
If God was truly a loving God, surely, he thought; God will not reciprocate.
The mockers who did not live in Dante’s nine levels of hellish concussion,
they will call his actions cowardly. Merciless, they did not live between the blinks.
I sauntered in an evening mist
A midnight's heaven, magic-kissed
Lamp-lit raindrops pattered, awesome
Shining city turned violet blossom
Enchantments I could ne'er resist.
Adrift upon the Paris, proper
Wandered I, a Yankee pauper
Until a Latin damsel's ride
Paused, as she pulled me inside
(Not that I had mind to stop her).
Away, into another world
She and I were thusly hurled
A night of excess, spinning fast
Absinthe sweetened our repast
As did lips, and tresses, curled.
Club-to-club we smartly hopped
More green nectar if we flopped
Pushing tenders to their rations
Just to fuel our backseat passions
On-and-onward, 'til we dropped.
All seems dream now, in my mind
Still, I'd swear that when we dined
Famous folks from ages hence
Were with us for our merriments
And all the mischief we could find.
The best of writers in their day
Zelda, F. Scott and Hemingway
Gertrude Stein and Porter, Cole
Pined, polemic, from their soul
Life and love, the friendly fray.
No discourse was too far-fetched
Others, too, who talked and sketched
Pablo Picasso and Gauguin, Paul
Dali and Man Ray, surrealists all
On, the wilding hours stretched.
Ever poured the emerald potion
Crazy cogs in constant motion
Clouding, thick, the mental fog
Far beyond the hair-of-dog
Glasses raised for every notion.
Thus it passed 'til all went black
Awaking days hence in my sack
Believing now that all these things
Were just a night's meanderings
Or the ramblings of a maniac.
I set my mind to purge it all
Grabbed my phone to make a call
Then spotted on my bed, a note
Within the pocket of my coat
So I crumpled it into a ball.
You see, I recognized the write
I'd seen it on that misty night
When, with absinthe, we'd our fill
And Hemingway had signed the bill.
So I sauntered off into the night ...
Too scared to find out ... if I was right.
* FOURTH PLACE in the "Dreams" Poetry Contest, Nayda Ivette Negron, Sponsor. *
Decades of a formula that only he knew about it and drew,
Cascades of his artwork came to a head in his last years,
Glissades of a swan in a lake that only a handful had seen,
Tirades made its mark on him, distant from fellow peers.
~~[Van Gogh]~~
Impressed of his art garnered some interest in his style,
Oppressed, a constant companion only he can befriend,
Obsessed by what he drew insanely violent he withdrew,
Distressed he found salvation in asylums to not descend.
~~[Wheatfield With Crows]~~
Crows, black gawking, feed in a meadow ache for harvest,
Know that art needs to be made, scheme food for thought,
Those sinister birds, a murder of crows festering the grain,
Throes a fit mocking 'em, flys, pained him more than aught.
~~[Starry Night]~~
Bleak sky of blues, stars gave rise to a miracle been made,
Streak of a sprawl unfurls his heavens tethered madness,
Speak not lest he loses his concentration, maintains focus,
Meek town his groundwork, lofty jewel amidst the sadness.
~~[Bedroom At Arles]~~
Red, that laid on a bed, table, chairs, paintings on the wall,
Said was where he severed his ear, water bowl mirror hung,
Head bandaged where he bled, he does a self-portrait of it,
Deadman walking, Gauguin part ways, no song to be sung.
~~[Self-Portrait Bandage Ear And Pipe]~~
Drew closer, when they were both young, be such friends,
Few friends Van Gogh had, Gauguin was at that moment,
Grew apart after Vince shaving Paul, Vince wanted to hurt,
Knew time together was getting just a bit grave and potent.
~~[House At Auvers]~~
Return to Arles made Van Gogh happy for good times there,
Upturn spirits was a rarity, too few and far in the middle,
Discern with him was questionable because he's unstable,
Concern for his good, art kept him busy, else is second fiddle.
~~[Doctor Gachet]~~
Fields back of the house, a pistol, he plans to shoot himself,
Wields his pistol, shoots, nobody hears, years gun lays hidden,
Yields his brother Theo to his side as doctor aides him little,
Shields truth futile, his art was world-renown, dies bedridden.
Candle lit quarters..
bearing colorful carpet...
and his wooden chair.
·
With a curved backrest,
of somber reddish-brown wood;
upholstered green straw.
·
and in his absence...
a lit candle takes his place:
...two modern novels.
·
Vincent paint’s his muse,
in consistent loneliness...
...waiting for Gauguin.
_________________________________
For Abe's Van Goh's of Van Gogh contest
the Painting is "Gauguin’s Chair"
The King's Wife - Te Arri Vahine
Gauguin’s painting of “The King’s Wife,”
immortalized a goddess of Tahiti, Pacific paradise.
Mesmerizing mahogany muse memorializing his canvas,
she’s a tropical Venus on a bed of forest green grass.
Nature’s umbrella, a thick canopy of mango trees,
shades and shelters her stirring up a light cool breeze.
Adorned with a single white flower near her right ear,
she holds behind her thick raven-dark hair,
a large red round fan like a haloed crown,
accentuating her silky soft skin of golden brown.
Supreme is her majesty dominating this idyllic scene,
basking in her own exotic glory she’s royally serene.
Modestly draped to protect her from roving eyes,
a white shawl covers her groin and bold womanly thighs.
Displaying her nymph-like body, supple and proud,
her pert breasts are full, firm, and well-endowed;
and like the succulent orange-red mangoes beside her,
she’s sweet, luscious, fully ripe, and mature.
Wearing a pensive smile, she’s intriguing the king’s bride…
does her Madonna-like belly nurture a secret growing inside?
05-22-2017
Contest: Celebration of Art Contest
Sponsor: Kim Rodrigues
Placement: 1st
* Paul Gauguin (French, 1848–1903) painted "The King’s Wife" in 1896. Post-Impressionist artist, he abandoned his native France for most of the 1890s to live on the Pacific island of Tahiti, which was a French colony since 1881. Gauguin was attracted to the island and what he saw as the primitive culture of its people. He shared the fantasy of many Europeans of the time that Tahiti was a sort of tropical paradise. Through his paintings he actually reflected his passionate love for the visual and sensuous beauty of the world.
https://www.1000museums.com/art_works/paul-gauguin-te-arii-vahine-the-king-s-wife or https://learner.org/courses/globalart/work/134/index.html
Mid-life street woman from red town
she was...I grew up with her under
mango trees now softly drooping
their shoulders much like hers.. but she,
still contoured like a Paul Gauguin urn, is wrapped
in arms lovely in flesh and heat: fanned banana
leaves swaying to samba notes while cooking
fried bamboo roots; her fragrance buzzing along
summer's exotic beat. How she then pinched
my cheeks with her tapered fingers still
pink on veins floating through her quivering
body…
Somehow, she gave me this epiphany of touch;
the slow wave of body rhythm lightly fondling
the rosiness of my adolescent skin. If i knew how
to pivot in the wakening garlands of Latin
steps, it was her ample hips winding and bellying
in nights and morns of her own wanton sashays...
Oh how I long to climb her mango tree,
her waxing then waning shape still blazing among
bursting seeds of female treachery or finery.
I tell myself, there is no age when her fire sways
in places where tropical eyes dazzle with her
near flowing, soaking limbs…so tenderly
wild because she, Livia, nymph of the forest raw,
has nothing else to lose.
©
for Debbie's Women, and SKAT's Poem #2
by nette onclaud
The plague knew my infinite hulk
in 1769, crept through the Polynesian crystal
onto my outstretched archipelago
black sands and white sands and volcanoes
speaking the purple language,
the queen’s English to the farmer’s French,
and drank from the palm tree
to drain the lagoon its persistent innocence.
I called that man under white skin elbows
unhinged to finger length arms
planked ‘cross the wishful shore to the sun,
drunk with ambition for Elizabeth’s glory,
tracing the black dot of Venus
across the infinite grapefruit horizon
from juvenile tree-house forts
to play science on God’s paradise, James Cook.
By definition Cook is defined by mine.
A century more defined another
defined by my natural beauty
and native Polynesian simplicity alive in artistic
assembly, though darker skinned
than acceptable at that period before the end
of a dry English sentence,
a man with a watering eye called Paul Gauguin.
Had Gauguin’s father surpassed his flesh,
he might have said his son taught van Gogh
the artful act of goat-fed attrition
through blurred lines of lacked definition
which persist to define impressionism.
And had his father been a poet, not a journalist,
he might have taught his son that an island,
at its core, is a man, defined by his own accord.
Date: 12/21/2018
Van Gogh's Yellow House
On the corner of a cobblestone street, a yellow house is located,
and nearby, there is a bistro to eat at and a café where friends meet,
which are illuminated by a sulphur sun under a cobalt sky.
A train barrels past the sunlit house of unfulfilled dreams
as I enter the building and grin as life passes me by,
because I can’t see the future for the tears in my eyes.
Through cracked-open green shutters, as reclusive as I can be,
I see gawkers with their arms outstretched and fingers pointing,
saying to each other, “Look up there, the painter’s crazy.”
My heart has grown cold and dry. Destiny has been mean to me.
And now, the police come to my door to force me to leave,
by decree of law, with a petition signed by the community.
Still, the scenery inspires me, and I can’t relinquish my painting.
With palette in hand, I mix red, green, blue, and yellow paints
and brush their hues, tints, tones, and shades on the canvas to create
“The Street” (with audience) on 2 Place Lamartine, Arles, France.
***
Note:
On May 1, 1888, Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) rented four rooms in the Yellow House at 2 Place Lamartine, Arles, France, and lived there from September 1, 1888, to March 1889. Fellow artist Paul Gauguin (1848–1903) shared the house with Van Gogh from late October 1888 to December 1888. It was here that Vincent van Gogh painted many of his masterpieces.
Van Gogh was forced to leave the house in March 1889 when the police, acting on a petition signed by thirty townspeople claiming that Van Gogh was mad and a threat to the community, closed the house.
The house was severely damaged during an Allied bombing raid in World War II and later demolished.
IF YOU PULL A LONG FACE : Part XXVII
IF you pull a long poet's face
All things you write go awry
E'en fans who cuddle up offer no solace
Remember Kipling's " IF " the price to pay
If you pull a long deserted face
E'en friends plot with club members to assail
You lose will e'en to tie loose line shoe-lace
Damn could e'en petty sins cause such travail
If you go on pulling that long worsted face
Lines you lilt and rhyme sound airy-fairy
You push pen you powder verse till tears race
Creative college rhetoric plunder words weary
Yet if you pull this long-lined sick face
Grinding teeth biting lips till red ink spray
Ask who cut off Van Gogh's ear to spite his coal-mine face
Will a Gauguin mock a Brando's South-Seas belles-ballet
If you pull a long Art-for-Artifice sake face
Ask whose Kafkayesque trials plagued a Welles's Moro-Jacobean play
Holy-Wood chef-d'œuvres dictate classic post-modern pace
Kaleidoscopic formulae : rape batter murder on Tolstoyian vertebrae
© T. Wignesan - Paris, January 31, 2019
I tell you
it is rough being the poet
of petty bourgeois
middle class complaint.
Sensibilities based in
the ordinary.
Fetishes and obsessions
clinging to the prosaic
with no great success nor
abject failure.
Some practical good sense
always seemed to save me
and render life and poetry
to a solid B grade.
I need to drink and carouse,
do drugs and gamble my last dime,
and hang out meantime with the
wildest of wild women, but
I can't, so
I sit here waiting for
Gauguin
Thick swirls of paint coat the blue night sky,
Luminescent stars ablaze: yellow white orbs, large in size.
Whirling white clouds under the crescent moon,
Above the asylum’s window the night sky blooms.
Below the rolling hills rests a sleepy little town,
A peaceful essence flows, cool dark colors unwound.
Reigning over the small buildings is the steeple of the church,
Beauty’s released from the bristles as he’s sitting at his perch.
With memories of Theo and thoughts of Paul Gauguin,
He attacks the canvas with broad strokes from his hand.
A single silhouette of a cypress on the left side,
Hides an early mistake as his broken heart cries.
1889, a typical night in Saint-Remy, Vincent’s puffing his pipe,
A committed genius from the asylum’s window painted the starry night.
_____________________________________
For Brian’s Contest PICTURE POEMS
The Starry Night
Vincent van Gogh,
1889 Oil on canvas
73 cm × 92 cm (28¾ in × 36¼ in)
Museum of Modern Art, New York City
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Starry_Night
VINCENT DIED JULY 29-- PART 2
For years you searched, just to belong
Your madness proved, your choices wrong
So for Gauguin, your friend and peer
For his desertion, a severed ear
Then, long drunken hours, at “The Night Cafe”
A “Man In Sorrow” on display
Like a “Windbeaten Tree” your emotions bared
Your faith now lost, but no one cared
Your world then flares, into sweeping swirls
As “The Starry Night” its hues unfurls
Beneath the sky “Sunflowers” so bright
But yet again, the dark sides blight
Those years of struggle, to regain your sanity
Brought your biggest loss, trust in humanity
So with colors dark, the image jaded
Your love and dreams, then finally faded
And now you weep “At Eternity’s Gate”
Your field of dreams, await their fate
AND SO
The moral of his life
Now becomes, four fold
And lessons not then learned
Shall now by me, be told
When you lose in love
Your hand, you should not burn
Just because, it’s fried and crispy
It’s not, “KENTUCKY FRIED CHICKEN” Vern
Always, to your friends
Try to lend an ear
Just, don’t chop it off
And gift it, as a souvenir
If life just drives you crazy
And painting, keeps you sane
Just pretend, you’re painting life
And drink lots of champagne
When you’re young and life’s gone bad
Don’t put your life on hold
You do not need, to kill yourself
Unless, you’re really old
But no moral, can be learned
By committing suicide
Cause you can’t dream, nor paint your dream
Now, that you have died
BOEMS BY JA 299
Arty stuff No 4
Gauguin was eating a peach,
While painting a scene on the beach,
A girl who was nude
Thought he looked rather lewd,
So she kept herself way out of reach!!
Meadows are painted
By Van Gogh, Monet, Gauguin
Unsurpassed beauty!
© Demetrios Trifiatis
22 March 2017