Where to place the rippling paint uponthe whitish canvas, setting on a beast of burden,with a palette of bright watery pastels loadedLike a multicolored flower, a masterpiece of its own,lifting the paint and pulling, the first strokeI am bristling with excitement of where,this crosshatching idea of a painting should goSqueezing the crinkled tube to addanother color to cover my Venetian lagoonDry brushing a marmalade sunset sinking,into a greenish seaNakedly dipping into shades, that only I can only imagine,casting a little shade here and there cannot hurtMistakes are easily hidden with a few strokesThe undertone is on purpose, for the commissioncomes from Lady Contesta, a lacey discreet loveTo bring this, stippling but quaint portrait, to an endI sign with my secret pen near the gondola,on the bricola, Burano 6/17/2017
Categories:
crosshatching, art, betrayal, imagery, lust,
Form: Free verse
Painting Voices
by Odin Roark
How indelible
These frequencies abounding
Filling our senses with color
Defending our spirit with aura
Voices speak
Sing
Chirp
Bellow
Crosshatching endless layers
How personal their colors
Sounds of red
Yellow
Green
And blue
Diminuendos to crescendos
Weaving and blending
Curling and attaching
Mixing hues of sonance
Into the kaleidoscopic surrounding we absorb
To make into our own palettes
How lightning gray
The subway shriek
The yellow/blue
Of a lone sparrow
The crimson red
Of a Pavarotti high C
Would that the world might create
A global canvas harmonized
By colors of passion
Love
And peace
Even as they sort out
The dissonant vibrations
Of a Pollock guise
To allow our blue/gray tempest rage beneath
To surface and become one
With the purity of white
To know that the reflection of all color
Cannot be known
Without the awareness of black
Painting voices
Pulsation needing only whisper’s hue
To truly hear and see
Categories:
crosshatching, passion,
Form: Free verse
salt spray lingers in on shore wind
shivers threaten in late summer sun
wet sand sinks to cool hot soles
as toes tingle in filling holes
sea grass swirls in tidal current
brushstrokes crosshatching
in three dimensional canvas
a half shell flickers in refracted sunlight
rainbow flashes tease a hungry scup
To dart away in discontent
The jetty glistens in green slime
while the rocks in their white dryness
spatter with drops from passing wakes
gulls wheel and dance intricate loops
effortlessly filling the misty air
flying in every direction without touching each other
One stands on the highest spot
Looking bored and above all this activity
an occasional cloud forms to drift whitely
before dissipating in summer heat
All of this and none of this happened
in the lazy mind of one ethereal poet
to entertain another for the joy
Categories:
crosshatching, friendshipsummer, summer,
Form: I do not know?
Face in the hole of the pillow
Belly down laying in pain
Soft music of wind in the willow
Here comes a treat once again
First a soft layer of coconut cream
fingered and buttered and spread
Then thumb ends and fingers
Down back bony thread
Feeling the way into chords
Then the heels of the palms
causing tingles in arms
alternate rhythm is kneading
Up from the hip bones
lifting the ribs
Heels of hands pushing at shoulder blade parting
Through layers of crosshatching muscle
Greasing and oiling the gristle
Of tendons that needed to stretch
Then back down with wider spread fingers
Digging and lifting in patterns of chords
Played on the too tightened stresses
Then a thumb dance back up
To the lower neck frame
Carefully squeezing to loosen
Then a grasp of each shoulder
To squeeze and to lift
For a quick chopping hand edge tattoo
Up and down on a spine now supine
One more slowed rhythmic massage
Let your eyelids now droop
And sink into comfort
From pain
Categories:
crosshatching, faith, health, nature, peace,
Form: Verse