The outdoor art fair has displays
In canvas booths that zip.
When setting up for two days straight,
I guess it saves a trip.
I don’t know what security
Is there for overnight,
Though thieves could slice the canvas,
Even if it’s zippered tight.
The booths provide protection more
For rain-related times,
The artists likely worried
About damage more than crimes.
Today, the second of the fair,
Was raining from the start.
I walked past many zipped-up booths
And couldn’t see much art.
Predictions were for sunny weather
In the afternoon.
I'm sure for all the artists
Sunshine couldn’t come too soon.
I’m sure some picked up all their work
And didn’t stick around,
While others waited, hoping that
Their business might rebound.
—When Art Bows—
Five hundred years have gaz’d into her eyes,
while Leonardo’s hush hath conquered Time;
her lambent secret, veiled beneath the skies,
hath drawn the world to deem her smile sublime.
Within the Louvre’s husht, cathedral air,
where myriad souls have hung upon her gaze,
thy smile arose—and something stirred there,
as though the very light grew mad with blaze.
For hers is beauty steep’d in veiled desire,
a still, inscrutable enchantment’s art;
but thine—O rapturous, ambrosial fire!—
steals through my blood and ravisheth the heart.
Then did I learn what Time had hid from me:
she kept her smile five centuries—till thee.
The artist starved beneath dawn’s cold whisper,
easel tilted, drunk with yesterday's grief.
Paint clung to his fingers like blood,
a palette broken, leaking joyless rainbows.
Each breath was a war he couldn't finish,
lungs collapsing under the weight of color.
Light cracked through the blinds,
half mercy, half mockery,
and the brush trembled in his grip,
a dagger dipped in quiet despair.
Every stroke carved pieces of him away,
his veins screaming for reprieve,
screaming louder than the silence.
Coffee cups gathered dust on the windowsill;
he hadn’t noticed them for weeks.
The room smelled of sweat and turpentine,
raw and sharp as the edge of failure.
Each design stripped him bare,
flesh scraped thin by his own will.
He fought sleep like a boxer with no gloves,
shadows moving faster than his hands.
“Keep creating, keep bleeding,” hissed the echoes,
as if ghosts held the brushes too.
The canvas stared back, white as a corpse,
waiting for its pound of flesh.
He had died seventeen thousand times,
not once with enough left to bury.
siblings of passion ~ Love and Hate
argue like unruly children
in precipitous conflict
yet, never will the nest empty, because
they...are OUR conscience
~ one cannot destroy the other,
nor ignore the other, because
they are of one blood
whose greatest toxin is
indifference...
so...torn asunder, they must find
a way to make two ~ one...
On this day we often think,
Why we were taken to life’s brink,
Unable to say our final goodbye,
Our souls ache, as we question why.
Though in memories we find solace and peace,
The gaps that remain will never cease.
Though we couldn’t see you in action one last time,
Your being lingers on – ever so sublime!
The presence of your absence - it oft cuts deep,
Your quirky ways, into our lives does creep -
So very often, and in every place,
Our trend of thought - such memories displace!
Cherishing in our dreams where time dissolves,
Your presence, and spirit forever evolves.
And as we travel around and journey afar,
Every word unspoken becomes a shooting star!
In the canvas of memories colours blend –
A symphony of emotions without an end,
In the depths of the unknown we find true solace –
A bond unbreakable, etched in God’s abiding grace.
Copyright © 2022 by Crystal David John
11.12.2022
wrote this poem after losing my husband suddenly in 2019
Stringing the mast
I sail out onto the ocean vast.
Would I find solace
In a new land's canvas?
Attributing my time to the obvious
I procrastinate being curious.
Would it be more promising
to spend my time being conflicting?
Shouldn't I be giving in to fate
Smiling at the way things have turned desolate.
Travelling beyond thick and thin
Don't I finally deserve a win?
A blank canvas with a feather-tipped pen.
Bluebirds free fall from tall oaks.
Red cardinal in flyby.
lake water mirrors
the sky's vast flitting canvas~
peace rests on its shore
I Van Gough,
love my paints and canvas.
My brush is dancing with dark blue,
as it covers the white canvas.
I see yellow as a luminous moon in my work,
like the bright sun outside my window.
A little white for depth,
white is all colors as one.
Black is needed to make this night dark,
because my night sky is filled with swirling stars,
with a village and cypress trees looking mysterious.
I create with paints and canvas,
my writer friend creates with ink,
a quill pen on paper.
My work comes alive with paint,
my friend comes alive with words.
Now almost finished,
I want it to be about a heavenly night,
I see a "Starry Night,"
this should be your name.
"Starry Night,"
Painted By Vincent Van Gogh in 1889.
to become a masterpiece
it starts with c lu t te red
c
h
a
o
t
i
c sketches
paint-splattered smudges
bleeding blotted lines
failed impasto
in fractured form
but eventually,
the canvas begins to glow
through wet brushes,
drop and lift
subtle shifts
of calm chiaroscuro
bold, breathing bursts of colours
layer upon luminous layer
pigment pressed with patient precision
each stroke of calm caresses
until the vibrant hues
that softly kiss
the quiet
quivering glow
of your smile
are finally framed.
before I knew better
I sold my art in a white tent
as my babies were carried away
I felt I had given someone permission to kidnap my children
This was nine years ago
and I still want them back
they were my paintings
mine, mine, mine, mine, mine
I now have sixteen hundred paintings
but none of them have ever been able to replace
the ones I lost
I wish I had never sold a one.
every painting has a story to tell
my story
every canvas I touch is full of a memory
no one else could ever give me
Love's wide palette
starts with your heart's posture.
Our world like a working canvas
draws us among its scenes—
don't dare stand by.
The air is thick with dust and whispers,
shadows stretch like long-forgotten hands.
In the art room, the canvases wait—
some bold, some broken, all unwilling to be silent.
A sunset canvas shouts first,
its colours bleeding, desperate—
“I was fire once! I burned the sky!
Now I am nothing but fading light.”
A storm looms beside it, violent, raw,
its waves clawing at the frame.
"I rage, I roar, yet I am trapped!"
"Who will sail my waters? Who will drown in my night?"
An old woman watches from another painting,
her eyes hollow, lips pursed in secret.
"They painted my smile, but not my sorrow."
"Look deeper—do you see me now?"
And then, in the corner—unfinished, trembling—
a blank canvas breathes in the silence.
Half-formed figures whisper in the mist of paint.
“I am not yet. I am becoming.”
The room shudders, the colours pulse,
stories scream from their frames,
aching to be seen, desperate to be heard—
but will you listen?
Water is the artist the beach it's canvas
Words create my art
Etymology canvas
Syllable brushstroke
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