In hush-washed strokes, light barely brushes form,
In pale, passing glimmers, colors sigh into being,
In softened shimmer, boundaries loosen into air,
In quiet currents of pigment, the moment breathes,
In muted murmurs of blue and gold, time thins,
In air-light touches, the world blurs toward wonder,
In each trembling instant, artist’s eye softens into seeing.
She rises into the sky’s bright breath,
her dress a sail the wind has claimed.
Sunlight drifts over her in petal-light shimmers,
each of Monet’s brushstroke a whisper of movement.
The parasol tilts, green and glowing
a small moon held against the trembling blue.
Below her, the grasses lean in admiration,
their soft applause lost in the shimmer of day.
degas' impressions
of a ballerina
~ light as a faerie
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
Pissarro's landcapes
in impressionistic mode
lightworks in color
AP: Honorable Mention 2025
IMPRESSIONISM
first glance
per chance
fusion
of freedoms
in the visual
IMPRESSIONISM
chance moments
perceived
in a glance
Paintings
- Impression: Sunrise by Claude Monet (1840-1926)
- Deer in Stream by Philip Goodwin (1881-1935)
Red sun climbs an impressionist sea
climb
Boats and waves dance a gymnopédie
time stands still
Doe and her fawn in a dawn reverie
they drink from a stream in their tranquility
They taunt me
whispers and shadows and vague silhouettes
still haunt me
Vainly grasping for words to explain
why?
Empty questions shed tears in the rain -
I don't know
Was there a season of darkness we missed?
A wave of emotion we somehow dismissed?
Au revoir, dawn
wondering how we will make it through
with our fawn gone?
//Dedicated to my Uncle Don and Aunt Betty whose son Andy took his own life at age 19
Lyrics may be sung to Gymnopédie #1 by Erik Satie
Gymnopédie - a dance of ancient Sparta
Impressionism - a movement of the late 19th century in both art and music with which Claude Monet (art) and Erik Satie (music) are most often affiliated//
Written 5 Aug 2022
churning
fluid skies
wash
surreal
scenes
from the horizon,
clouds
rise
light from sunsets
abides,hides
swirl
rides
above
the sea
highly wrought
strange
&daring
translated
transcribed
views
naturalistic
inner visions
interpreted
the
intense
revealed
derived
from reality
My mind’s eye preoccupation,
I am captive to my guiding light,
the source of all my equivocal influences.
Erik Satie under the moon,
Shadowy contours
against a nocturnal silver sky,
my subliminal ambient impressionism.
I am walking a shrouded path,
trudging through murky ponds
where I find the silhouette
of cattails swaying against the moon.
Here, I inhale
the night wind bouquet
from which the violet violins
play through all my dreams.
Published: PS: It's Still Poetry January 2022
I Turned My Back
A spirit casually approached, shat its parched load,
producing a small cloth it worked its hands furiously,
fashioning of clay and soot something to assuage a
deep yearning in its soul, something that looked,
as it looked to itself.
I turned my back to the left, my sight took in these images,
touched to my core this phenomenon pierced hot like a steel blade,
searing a scaring wound punctually within, permanently set.
I let out a scream, which carried back into the canyons and the recesses where smoke resides apart from fire, where water breaks into its separate molecules.
A world-like landscape emerges from a thinning air, dusty and rough in texture, sprouting forth smallish shrooms in iridescent hues, resembling footprints in snow they shimmer and vibrate.
The spirit and itself have moved in and around this landscape before,
leaving their footprints, their mark.
The immediacy of my experience continues to pierce impressionably,
I am now a marked man, my goal; adapt consciously.
Flashing colors applied with many stokes,
Creating movement like musical notes.
Brilliant Blues prevalent throughout,
Within the shadows and reflecting light.
Creates a mood of morning mist,
And a feeling of absolute bliss.
How could one create such beauty?
In a world that seems so ugly,
For he sees what others dream,
Creates a gift, like a flowing stream
To a starving village without water,
Turns black and white into brilliant color.
Up close, colors applied chaotically release
An image from afar: a masterpiece.
By: Greg Stanley
Remember the games we used to play?
On rainy days under the gray?
In the trees and through the stars,
around the bends and up to Mars.
Over rainbows and in witches' den
oh, the things we could see then.
On paths that only we could take
we flew and galloped in grass we'd make.
With annoying companions in our hand
snuck into places hid'n in the land.
In a world none but we can unlock
full of magic we'd weave with talk,
colors, solutions; the things we'd devise
predicaments and love seen through our eyes.
To see again what most cannot dream
is simple for those who once have seen.
And such as we've done can be woven again
much samely through words can beasts be slain,
and grottoes built up from the ground.
Here our golden grove IS found.
For what once was can be again
in the world of words and key and pen.
Looking for the formal definition, structure, and history of this poetry form? Visit the Poetry Dictionary entry below. Then return to explore how PoetrySoup members bring the form to life through their own poems.