“Dream on, it costs nothing. Mind is the biggest canvas on which you can daub any shade to colour the dreams that you see while sleeping or awake.” ~ By Poet
As the earth snoozed under
a heavy shroud of darkness,
weary and work worn, I lay down,
dreaming of a peaceful sleep.
The moon hang like a silver disc,
its shimmering glow filtering
through tangled boughs of oak trees.
A gentle wind came wafting by
with smell of trellised jasmines
and sneaked through my open window.
Soon I drifted to a dream world.
Like a speeding locomotive,
that came to an abrupt halt,
I lay still, in a coffin.
amid scent of burning incense,
frozen silence, heaving hearts
and silently chanted prayers.
The chariot wheeled me along,
in my last journey through
mazy paths, stretching, stretching
to a world, beyond galaxies.
I woke up soon, my eyes still shut,
A vulture swooped down circling,
over my deceased body.
Am I dreaming within a dream?
This one’s a castle; that’s a customs-house.
They’re stolid, listless, just a little dull.
The sky supports an arbitrary gull.
The languidness of Liszt, the style of Strauss
are wholly absent. Colours are metallic.
The eye sweeps over cornice, turret, steeple,
then it dawns on us – there are no people.
Clock towers, mountains, minarets, all phallic,
are void of human life. Stark, empty chairs
adorn each arid, motionless interior.
As we apprise, eyes sneeringly superior,
we note acerbically his love of stairs –
A Will to Power, ever pushing up.
One daub there is, however, gives us pause:
it dates long before Enabling Laws,
before he dreamed of Kesselring or Krupp:
a bridge that’s quite impossible to cross,
going nowhere, has never carried traffic.
With a boy sitting on it. Startling, graphic,
without a hint of Schadenfreude or Schloss.
Self-portrait, this? What features may we trace?
What’s here vouchsafed? Incipient racist brute?
Hardly. A disarmingly awful suit,
and most revealingly of all – he has no face.
Wild streams of rushing hues
daub black ink smudge skies
fireballing ambience
stuns night peepers dazed eyes
blazing forest scorched shades
mute charcoal moon’s deep cries
I’m on your lap
in a photo I no longer have—
a toddler with a borrowed brush,
my hand caught mid-daub
on your canvas.
It was staged, of course—
your painting for a calendar
on the easel in front of us
like the month you gave me
a tool of your craft
and I mistook it
for permission—
but my brush didn’t
paint like yours.
Sometimes I wonder
if you saw it,
the difference—
or if you just liked
how I held the brush,
intent on nothing more
than becoming you.
I no longer try
to paint like you.
I paint like me—
and I think you'd smile
to see what I’ve done,
though my brush still doesn’t
paint like yours.
Dark green hills hugged up tight to black sea night,
Can see break-o-day light
Hear white gulls soaring into flight
Daub the dawn with dabs of white
A Neanderthal
with intent on graffiti
dabbed a red nose daub
on stone face of granite stone
prints for nosy sleuth fiends
Night on The Seine
1939
Silver and gold from city lights
daub the black river
like brush strokes from VanGogh.
The Seine
murmurs against La Rive Gauche
where dreams of artists linger,
then turns to glide obediently against La Rive Droite
where politicians drink cognac
and talk of war.
We are in the middle of Time
in a small boat.
“You cannot leave me!” she commands.
“Of course not,” is my assurance.
“I shall neither be called nor needed."
"We have built the great Maginot Line,
and The Ardennes is too wooded to cross.
It is all talk, anyway."
The city drifts slowly by -
Le Grand Palias and Le Concorde
Champs Elysees,Notre Dame,
Swifter now - like the time,
"It would be madness to destroy such beauty."
“Besides, the British have pledged to come.”
I …
am provenience …
the heel of my father’s foot -
the damp of his brow
and his burgeon …
I am my mother’s bloom
sown in the soil of her intentions
seeded with wonder
and promise …
but some petals unfurl only in
the dead of night -
haunted gardens tended by
half-wished ghosts
phantoms …
frozen to their duties by the
mists of recollection -
icy arbors of regret and time, passing …
if I could but daub that lintel
with my blood -
force the reaper’s honed, desultory edge to
pass over those most dear
but …
too many I’ve walked homeward, in hand
too well he’s learned my face
too deep and numbered I’ve plunged
that oily, arrogant eye
and far too many times I’ve cursed
that endlessly esurient appetite …
I’ll find no pity, those deep pockets, his
nor a nip of banal bearing
it’s too late for tears -
the winds, far too wet for weeping
but I know him too
and he shan’t catch me dawdling
no - he’ll have to swing wide for this vine
else I greet him running and
wrap him snug -
strangling, like kudzu on catalpa …
for my roots reach deep
and are family-firm,
tended …
with love.
Copyright © September 3, 2024 Gregory Richard Barden
Each brush stroke on the canvas
marks a moment in time
the artist left behind.
A fragment of thought expressed in
a line, a trace,
a spot, a dab,
a splash, a splotch,
a daub by palette knife impasto.
The brush a fleeting hand
expressing the artists
shade and light, color and flare,
texture and shape in composition.
It marks the way the artist paints,
to convey the image in a way,
where the parts are
much more than the whole,
like footprints
tracing the inception of creation.
feathered …
moony beams daub your lips -
the irregularities
shaping little cornflower thorns
but oh, how supple the
pliant press of those luscious fruits
(savored like honey) …
I touch them delicately with the
back of my finger
then move lower to your
daintily-dimpled chin, and down …
I follow the blue beams
with my fingertips
dancing across your surfaces as
little bumps form and
your flesh jumps here-and-there
telling me I’ve found the
sweetest spots,
though I’m winding my way to
an even dearer dermis
and warmer intent …
what is the enchantment of
these moments -
this magic of moonlight that
makes me want you so?
there is a mad mystery to why such
time stops and waits for us,
and were it not for
the responsibilities of morning,
we would hold this moment forever -
painted in dreamy shafts of blue
trading touches like truths
swimming the rill of each other’s soul
and haunting a wonder-world -
whimsical, immortal
and ours …
alone.
Copyright © Gregory Richard Barden
Deep blood red orange cloud’s,
ethereal dream float,
Satin wind carrier of luscious mint,
green hymnody’s deft transport,
Spring hues random loitering,
between gray peeled branches,
Chirpy echo squeak,
from red-wing blackbird,
A fragile wafer tin threshold,
Golden stream gurgle,
under marsh reeds,
Evanescent saline grain haze,
Azure ocean tide aroused,
from still wave slumber,
Clamshell pearl strewn oyster,
oddments interspersed,
on pockmark sandstone beach,
Iridescent canopy of nature trail,
Awaits the first blush pilgrim,
who revels in lavish glimpses,
And sumptuous earworm madrigal,
A tantalizing world so close,
Glad tiding raptures,
from the camper awakened,
Coffee caper bean whiff aromatic,
Quencher of dust road harsh throat,
Splatter free rapeseed oil,
daub on an iron pan,
wild howl from prehistoric wolf,
So quaint in its primal sweep,
hair-raising backdrop to stir fry meal,
Tinplate dollop sated hunger
beak
of the plague mask
lest I smell
your rotting bodies
strewn
I smell your crosses
daub your doors
I smell your corpses
pile your carts
I smell your fires
flame your dead
I smell you earth
and weep for you
cried moon
Where is the secret of the rainbow?
At the edge of one's own life?
Whence does it come, with those lovely pastel colours?
Is it a heavenly art or a mere human illusion?
Some form of an ancient creative masterpiece?
Perhaps expressionism was reassessed?
The spiritual in natural art is oft-forgotten
in musty mists, where the soul engages
in confrontations with the deadly reaper.
The appalling midst of winter intensifies in the freeze,
and the psychology of death deepens,
for we are too much attached to worldly cares.
Characteristic emotions in cowardly conflicts.
One can say so very few words about
the astute business of a measured life,
like autumn's falling bronzed leaves,
its face value is not easily perceived;
for dead leaves turn into compost,
no peaceful transition true, but a must
that leads and helps life's renewal in spring.
Forget the troubled dream of dreary life,
let the seasons daub their watercolours bold and free,
the rainbow assigns a variety of mellow hues,
chooses always the brightest.
For the secret of the rainbow
a symbol of new hope lies in its Creator.
IT STARTED WITH A BLANK CANVAS
Come lay your paint on me, it pleaded
I’m here in this garret, naked and cold
So what could I as a sensitive artist, do
Except comply, dabbing shades of blue
Reaching for indigo, as if I’d been told
Then pausing, to hear what it needed
Canvas relieved it was no longer blank
Stood there proud, and eager for more
As if formally bloodied in its first hunt
And so pleased, I almost heard it grunt
To win this creative battle, if not a war
For every new daub, the muse to thank
Coloured layers, streaks and a smudge
To which even a rainbow might defer
But now an abstract image has its day
It now had a life of its own on display
And for myself, expression is the spur
Unpainted areas still bearing a grudge
Both the brushes and I played our part
The canvas with a coat of many colours
With a final flourish, it is finally signed
And now it seems to have its own mind
It’s access for all, with raised portcullis
Now a painting, perhaps a work of art
Never in secluded pools they dwell,
I speak of ornate waterfalls,
they rise and fall majestically,
near docks, wharves and piers,
sparkle, gleam, smooth flow trickle,
eye balm whirl fantastic perk on tap,
stickybeak on podium rapids,
instigator signage when our trek seems dull,
but reflection is a gem warp cataract,
kinetic rebound ocean wave backbeat,
which in fact an upfront blissful target,
hardly ever missing opal bulls-eye,
environmental bubbles that somehow never burst,
indulge outlandish fare Promethean,
spurt on vermillion lanyards pendant sweep,
dream paint sunrise clementine tincture,
daub acrylic spree through pale moon orb,
squeeze tube lambent hue past frail mandala,
eternal sepia a light touch pristine shroud,
that loiters over urban life force ripple,
flaunt your image rich abundant fire
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