Best Museum Poems
ALONE AT THE HOLOCAUST MUSEUM
rose early in the morning,
indulged in a lovely quiche lorraine,
ventured out
alone.
silence has a sound of its own.
yes, there was the film, my first exposure -
Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass
S
H
A
T
T
E
R
S
the sterile space…
alone, i enter the “gas chamber” -
no one’s there, no screaming naked bodies.
the only fear is in my mind – i
must get out, feeling claustrophobic.
exiting and to my right, a setup -
a dummy behind a machine gun
my pulse quickens, throat is dry.
then to my left: hair cuttings, glasses, teeth, clothing -
my eyes hurt as i read – many children were thrown
into the ovens A L I V E.
the horror constricts my brain. horrible to imagine
one crazed serial murderer and this was an entire country.
cruelty has sharp claws, hidden behind breath and flesh
gifted by God. monsters have lovely hair, straight teeth,
families preparing dinner, friends cheering with
CLINKING CRYSTAL.
going home, they smile, swing loved ones around,
kiss their merry cheeks,
and they R E E K with death.
10/14/2016
In the cold draft of an empty morning,
I sit widowed, engrossed in scattered thoughts,
confused by tawny tunes of ticking time,
knitting vague colors of changing seasons.
In silence, my name remains forgotten,
mere memory in an old museum.
But when I feel the golden rays of sun-
that drapes my winter heart in honeyed glints,
I trace truth between these wrinkled life lines.
For mind spirals in a web of chaos,
tangled amidst sharpened needles in grey.
I sing special songs to my healing plants;
reflective remedy to blurred flashbacks.
I water them with bleeding tears of angst,
and watch them thrive in my glass window.
Whilst I struggle to remember my past,
where my soul danced to daffodil daydreams,
when my kin ran in circles around me.
Fern greens, only familiarity,
Alzheimer's, now my sad reality.
Magnetic attraction, enchanting dream of a lifetime -
majestic pyramid attracts my eye,
mystique draws me in
O, your architecture! Pavilions, colonnades; art enclosing art,
every square inch deliberately designed,
ceilings pour forth scintillating splendor
Antiquities from Rome, Egypt, the Orient:
trying to wrap my head around art
created in Mesopotamia 6,000 years ago
Dazed and captivated in your Greek sculpture hall:
Bronze beauty, marble magnificence,
Venus de Milo seduces still
What history you have archived on your walls and pedestals!
Charlemagne holding his scepter,
Louis XIV in regal resplendence
Oil on canvas communicates genuine genius
Rembrandt, Rubens, Raphael,
Vermeer, Van Dyck, Vigée-Lebrun
Mythology awakened to life in marble:
Hera, Hermaphrodite, Neptune, Nymph,
Psyche and Cupid
Even commoners respectfully regarded:
Messina's military man, Brueghel's beggars,
Michelangelo's dying slave
Centuries of religious faith expressed with grace and grandeur:
Moses in the bulrushes, Islamic ivory,
the penitent Magdalene, Virgin and child
Artistic vision reflects and redirects history:
Renaissance masters forecasting the future,
Monet's Impressionism a daring new style
Fifteen minutes till closing, where have the hours flown?
What of tapestries, textiles, drawings, decorative arts?
Alas, another day.
Highlight of the day, world's most famous painting:
mysterious Mona Lisa smile
thanks me for coming to visit
Louvre:
timeless testimony to artistic aesthetic
cathedral of contemplation
history of humanity
Written 15 Sep 2020
Is it the light
that long high fluorescence?
Or is it the half-light?
Why am I so dizzy?
Or was it the Sleeping Gypsy
mounted just above descending stairs?
I'd seen the work in magazines
robbed of size and color flair
but now in its magnificence
Oh why am I so dizzy?
It must have been my first full view lifesize view of Guernica
in its breadth
its height
all that black and white
stretched along the basement wall
Why am I so dizzy
mind in ghostly disarray?
I finally think it is this feeling opaque
Brush
Paint
Plaster
Wire
Marble
Canvas
Transcendental SPLIT!
"WE are HERE!"
In Iceland there’s a Willy museum
It’s not huge like an old Colosseum
Filled with all types of willies
It would give me the sillies
But people pay lots of Kroner to see um!
Inspired by a comment Tom Cunnigham made on my Aurora Borealis poem
The museum has many exhibits of the genitals of animals!
1/8/20
Sometimes he feels like a museum on
a Monday - empty, desolate, withdrawn
from the celestial library where not
yet written prose and poetry are stored.
A sleep-deprived, he walks around the rooms,
he curses rhymes and rhythms, he assumes
a pledge to give it up, to live a life
a mere human lives - to have a wife,
to find a paying job, to meet with friends,
to be a fan of “Liverpool”* that tends
to take last place this season, to get old,
to pay off mortgages, to die from cold
but not insomnia…
As someone said,
nothing is fuller than an empty head.
*England's football club
11/14/2019
Favourite Poem From November 2019 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Julia Ward
The museum closed for ever,
and I was there
when they turned off the lights
They were turned off one by one...
At first the boardroom's
where Jacqui cried, I think
then the conference room
where they dismantled
all the plugs
then the rooms on all the floors,
and I could not stand it -
the long drawn-out goodbye
12/25/2015
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Inside silent museum halls
behind glass they rest.
Fogged by our own breath, they reside--
the things we never said.
The curator preserves the almost-was,
each artifact dusted with the breath
of words we swallowed whole.
Exhibit A: The unsigned love letter,
its ink dissolved to ghostly stains~
the envelope still warm, the words still fresh.
Exhibit B: A child’s unfinished question,
lodged like a fossil in his throat.
Beside it, the father’s reply~
a shadow stretched too late across the floor.
Exhibit C A woman’s rage, polished
to a fine, decorative sheen.
The plaque reads Patience,
though the cracks suggest otherwise.
Exhibit D: The Mirror
Visitors pause, then quickly walk past.
It reflects nothing but the weight
of all the words swallowed whole.
Last, the centerpiece—a hollow bell,
cast from every I’m fine that ever rang
true enough to draw blood.
We pay our fees, we nod, we leave,
carrying relics we’ll never display.
The museum grows, and no one retrieves
what they came there to say.
OH Dragon! OH Dragon! You flewn the coup! Where have, you gone?
He watched ‘Night at the Museum’. Was that actually, so very wrong?
King Tut Exhibit’s in town; He should be in bed, not going there next.
He’s on a crazy genealogy kick. Thinks he’s descended, from a T Rex!
My guess is, he’s part Doo Doo Bird, and a silly lizard of some kind!
The guard won’t be surprised to see him; it was just a matter of time.
He’s off to commune with dinosaur bones, brought to life. Good bet!
Off he snuck to our Museum, to be apart of it, after dark! He was set!
He’ll try to sneak in the delivery room, along with some of the freight.
He’ll try to hide in the dinosaur room, waiting for it to get, really late.
He’ll be disappointed, if no one comes alive, as he thought they should.
I hurried fast, as he can’t hide! Honestly! You know he can’t! For sure!
As I got there everyone yelled, ‘Surprise’! King Tuts’ crew, were alive!
Cavemen kept chasing Dragon, cause he had yummy meat on his hide.
King Tut wanted to ride Dragon, like he did into battle, in olden times.
I asked why it wasn’t in his hieroglyphics, he said, ‘Didn’t want to brag’.
Off they flew around the room both having a ball, that is until Dragons…
Flying prowess missed a turn, hitting the Easter Island Statue, head on.
It said ‘Dumb Dumb Dragon can’t fly’, and laughed all the night long.
King Tut and Grandpa Troll shared a brew, as if they were old friends.
Grandpa Troll was the first beer-brewing inventor! Who would of knew?
His recipe was always favored by good old King Tut, and his happy crew.
King Tut said, Grandpa Troll had, like wise, given him a Dragon egg, too.
To honor Grandpa Troll and Dragon, he’d have their bobble heads’ debut.
The Easter Island Statue found this funny and cool since he had one, too!
The night concluded, as all sang ‘Memories’, and ‘I Shall Survive’! Cool!
Remember, magic’s found in the air, at some of the least expected times.
And if you wish upon a star, for a Dragon egg. Pure Magic, you will find!
Carol Eastman
Jones, Jones, where are your bones?
I'd like to hear again your moans, your groans,
underneath loathed graveyard stones,
all with weird sepulchral tones,
me and all my friends, the crones,
wailing o'er the bones of Jones.
I sank my fragile being in delights of dew
Waltz on cheeks of people, through mosaic of eyes
I also whispered HIM, when He tried to rain
My secret bits of wishes... returning to the fields
I dove into abyss so to revive with grace
and let my deer absorb me surviving drought of soul
But Keeper of The Cage allows me only be
A maze of salty traces on lifeless eyes of beads...
for HGarvey Daniel Esquire's Contest "Personify A Tear "
written as a teenager and translated now ....
by: iolanda scripca
Lazy afternoons on easels
Maples giggle loud with sweetness
Blue and yellow mixed in grasses
Withered wrinkles sink in lilies
Joggers run in fear of dying
Secret trails end in abyss
As the sun stabs days in prisms
Bloody madness grabs the paintbrush
People old vanish from benches
Emptiness sits down by me
Artists mutilate self-portraits
Tempera in tubes succumbs
Painters shoot apocalypse in veins
Signatures escape through keyholes
Night becomes obsessive pitch black
Ghosts invade museum closed
...and I walk by with my suitcase
as reduced to it I am...
No one knows I carry homeless
The Portfolio of my Fate...
copyright@iolandascripca2012
A pair of shoes, all scuffed and worn,
A watch whose time is frozen,
A red bandana, all among
The objects that were chosen
And then encased so we could read
Their stories and remember
Exactly how things were
That awful morning that September.
Today, a dedication held,
With speeches and reflections,
Ensuring that we’d all look back
At our own recollections.
For most of us, the memory’s raw
And tinged with such emotion,
Each image conjures tears enough,
Combined, to fill an ocean.
The doors will open up next week;
The crowds will visit, flocking
To feel a bit of what will never
Cease to be so shocking.
The Greeter at a Museum
I am prepared to perform my mindless task
when they open the doors at ten am
and when the visitors enter I recall
my preamble and it goes like this
Good morning, folks where are you from
sorry no cokes or food beyond this point
well hello grandmother, I love your dress
don’t you look hot I mean that in a flattering way
unless your not hot that is
Wow, I remember Kent, MA
I used to live at Loggins Way
did you know Marth and Faye, oh Marth is dead
and Faye ran away with a younger man,
a poet you say it doesn’t surprise me
she always had a yen for younger men
enjoy the art and if you need anything my name is Barte
with an e at the end it was my mothers maiden name you see
oh your name is Wolfe with an e at the end
nice meeting you until then
Hi there, what a handsome child you have
he favors you I'd like to add
his creviced chin and ruddy cheeks
add character to this winsome lad
Hi folks, you need a lift ,oh your’e from England
its an elevator here in the USA
let me direct you to that spot cheerio and all that rot
Hi can I help you can I help you sir no I can’t
youv’e been here before well oh well
I bet you don’t know where the President fell
you were right behind him when he took that spill
but you didn’t see me on that day
I was right behind the exhibit display
to keep an eye on creeps like you
who don’t know the importance of my job
so leave me now artistic snob
oh I love to greet and I love to meet
knowing where the his and her bathrooms are
I can even tell you where to park your car
I think I found my niche in life
as to the who what where and why but
if perchance you know this place when you see me walk on by
*Dedicated to all the art interns at museums
In the museum, you will find amazing history regarding
the relics of our past. Gruesome and grim in their telling,
a dark prelude to everything seen by the moon.
But hold it delightful that these days are behind. That the
awful atrocities of times gone by, are not a monolith towering
and looming over our future.
Know then, that we need not be frightened by the opening of
the book and the turning of the page. Take pride in the light
we shine on our darker moments, a reminding of who we should
never be, the vicious and vindictive tyrants of yesteryear.
Let history bare truth in its will to patronise us over prior mistakes.
We are fortunate to have the opaque plaques of reference to the
crimes of time, and what is lost to the wind.
May we never travel the same road twice. Finding ourselves victorious
only by being continuously retold in annoying fashion that this is where
we've come from. Looking on with oval, hope-filled eyes, believing we
now have the light to overcome the dark.
~Make a poem *2 Contest~ Hosted by: Shadow Hamilton
make a poem about light vs dark using the following words:
Awful, amazing, annoying.
grim, gruesome, delightful.
frightened, fortunate, finding.
monolith, moon, museum.
oval, opaque, opening.
patronise, pride, prelude.
vicious, vindictive, victorious.