Ekphrastic Poem #4: COME AWAY WITH ME, IF ONLY IN OUR DREAMS

This next installment in the Van Gogh-inspired poems is, I must admit, not entirely of the ekphrastic genre.  That is, the general idea for the poem and a few of the lines (including the one that forms the title) came to me prior to jumping into in my ekphrastic project.  On the other hand, the poem came to fruition based on Van Gogh's "Garden with courting couples:  Square Saint Pierre." So, I'm calling it ekphrastic.

(If you happen to be a syllable counter like me, especially with poems of this sort, you'll note that I am not consistent. Most of the lines have nine syllables, but the first has eleven, others eight, and one line has nine or ten, depending on how you pronounce "hours." Love is not bound by form and structure, why should the poem? I think there is a certain rhythm, though.)


COME AWAY WITH ME, IF ONLY IN OUR DREAMS


Come away with me, if only in our dreams,
to a place where reason has no sway,
where love and passion reign supreme,
and pleasure rules throughout the day.

Come walk with me in the summer sun,
through verdant meadows bright with flowers
to a place where we can be as one,
and lose ourselves in rapturous hours,
our bodies wrapped in love’s embrace,
and in each other find sweet grace.

THE GARDEN OF ST. PAUL'S HOSPITAL

Next installment in my poems based on Van Gogh's paintings. This one, for the moment, is just a study of "The Garden of St. Paul's Hospital." When I was in the Van Gogh Museum, I wrote the following note: "Garden of St. Paul’s Hospital: ... Van Gogh admitted himself for psychiatric treatment. The dominant use of red and black was seen by Van Gogh as an indicator of his torment. The heavy paints, thicker and larger than his pointillist stylings, creates a heaviness to the painting. The trees seem twisted, evoking his soul. Heavy, wavy lines give a sense of wind blowing, but also the upturned strokes make them look as if on fire. Two people walk along a blue stone path, away from the artist and the viewer, leaving us isolated and alone."

Van Gogh's painting can be found here.


THE GARDEN OF ST. PAUL'S HOSPITAL

All I see is red,
the ground covered with embers,
the brick wall that embraces.

The trees are on fire,
they wave in the heat
that fans upward from the ground.

I am happy in the warmth.

Why can no one else see this?

Fortunes 2013-- two new lines added

I added two new lines to Fortunes 2013.  I'm cynical enough to question whether the first new line is true, or has any chance in being true-- although I suppose it depends on how one defines "wealthy."  The second new line is definitely true, and would be even truer if modesty was added to the list of traits.  Yeah, right.

THE POTATO EATERS

Note (July 27, 2013):  A revised version of this poem was published in the Free State Review, Summer 2013 issue.

When I visited the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 2010, I thought I might write a series of poems based on his paintings.  Although I made notes of my thoughts and impressions, I never made an earnest attempt to start the project (with the exception of my poem based around "The Fishing Boats at Saintes Maries de la Mer").  Recent blog posts by Author Amok on ekphrastic poems provided the encouragement to start up the project.  The first poem in this project is inspired by Van Gogh's "The Potato Eaters."  You can find the painting on the Van Gogh Museum's site.


THE POTATO EATERS


In the dim light of our lamp
we gather for our evening meal,
the steaming plate before us.
Apples from the Earth, they are called.
Adam and Eve's gift, I say--
we did not dig in Paradise.

Father serves out our portions.
Mother pours the strong, dark tea.
We eat our simple meal,
the day's labors lifted from our backs.

COYOTE SKY

by G.B. Romo


Coyote sky
sun sets red
moon howls
on sagebrush plains
Coyote moves
in peyote light
we are the stars
the dust of ages
streaming
across the blackened sky
a universe of madness
matter
anti-matter
mad as a hatter.

Coyote howls
at peyote moon.
I am dust of the universe.



Geetz Beauregard Romo was the creation of a few young, imaginative minds at Laurel High School in Laurel, Maryland, sometime in 1979-1980.  Geetz now lives and writes in the West Texas desert, somewhere near Terlingua.

SUTRAS TO THE DHARMA MOON: Poems Published in Three Line Poetry

Scattered through previous blog posts are various poems I've published in Three Line Poetry over the past two years.  I also don't think I've been diligent about posting all of them on this site.  So, I decided to compile all of my poems that have appeared in Three Line Poetry, under my name, as well as those published under the names G.B. Romo and Petra Michael.  G.B. Romo is Geetz Beauregard Romo, the imaginary character a few friends of mine and I created in high school.  Geetz was the ultimate ladies man, bon vivant, socially adept, preppie, granola-eating, Perrier-drinking, Ivy League-destined-- you name it, Geetz was it... and basically everything we weren't (okay, I admit to eating granola bars, drinking Perrier, and turning up the collars of my polo shirts).  I revived Geetz a couple years ago, created a facebook page for him, and gave him a new outlook on life.  He made his fortune, dropped off the grid, and returned to his father's West Texas ranch, just as he said he would in his yearbook entry.  He's written a few poems, mostly Zen-Surrealist-Beat sorts of things, inspired by the desert around Terlingua, Texas.  (Perhaps I was in a Fernando Pessoa sort of mood.)  I'll post Geetz's other poems.

Petra Michael is the pen name that I attached to the one three line poem that Petra Noble and I wrote.  It started as lines in e-mails one morning (afternoon for her since she is in Munich).  They just happened to flow into a nice three line poem, which was accepted.

The title of the collection is taken from a line in one of the poems written as G.B. Romo. 


Sutras to the Dharma Moon: Poems Published in Three Line Poetry.


So long had it been
since I held a spring blossom—
I had forgotten.

I sit on the pier;
the river flows slowly past.
So much like my life.

Mourning dove, do you notice me
as you alight upon the patio?
I wonder, who is in whose space?

Ten thousand blossoms
have bloomed and fallen again.
Will we ever walk among the cherry trees?

She turned and kissed me softly.
I could not force my mind
to remain within the dream.

It is enough to sit
and watch yesterday’s rain
drop from the leaves of trees.

Dead roses lie on the table,
still bundled as they came from the store.
For want of water, they withered.

Winter walk in woods—
cold wind rattling through beech leaves
brings warmth to my mind.

The dentist drills and roots,
and all I can think of
are Amsterdam and Venice.

Sunburnt and salt-scrubbed;
wonderful days in the sun;
memories left in the sand.

The river flows past, as it does each day.
Listen, though, as waves lap on shore—
each one is unique.


Published as G.B. Romo:

Thorns surround my agave heart;
spirit and knowledge rest within;
one hundred years to flower.

Life is a horned toad resting in the shadow
of a rock, away from the blistering sun,
and the owl waiting at night.

In the desert night,
the moon stalks the dark side
of my mind.

Forty nights in the desert
howling sutras to the dharma moon.
Her fullness brings me life.


Published as Petra Michael (written with Petra Noble):

Fight on the U-Bahn.
A quiet ride home derailed.
My heart is beating.

Poems, Postcards, and Paintings. Or, ekphrastic adventures in the mailstream.

I am so pleased to be a guest blogger on Laura Shovan's blog, Author Amok. Laura is a Maryland poet, educator, and editor of the Little Patuxent Review. She's part way through a postcard poem project in which she is writing poems based on the image and words on 44 postcards. It's a great project, one in which I (and I'm sure other readers) can tell that she's having a lot of fun.

One reader commented last week that she should mail her postcards to various locations. I responded that the journal Do Not Look At The Sun had done just that with its Spring 2011 issue, "Postcards from Paris," and I provided the url. Laura found my poem "Thoughts While Viewing Van Gogh's 'Fishing Boats on the Beach at Les Saintes Maries de la Mer,'" liked it, and asked if I would be a guest blogger on her site.

The poem ties in with her project in a couple ways. The "Postcards from Paris" theme of the journal issue fits nicely with her postcard project. My poem, though, was not written with postcards in mind. Rather, it describes my engagement with Van Gogh's painting, which is one of my friend Petra's favorites. The engagement takes the speaker in the poem from viewing the painting in the gallery to imagining himself and the person to whom he's speaking in the painting. That's the ekphrastic tie-in, which Laura has written about on her blog.

My day in the Van Gogh Museum was the beginning of what I had planned to be a project in which I wrote poems based on his paintings. I still have my notes from the hours spent in the gallery. Time to dust them off and set sail on an ekphrastic adventure.

Many thanks to Laura for the opportunity to guest blog, for sharing her postcard project with all of us, and for the inspiration to re-engage with Van Gogh's paintings.