International Award Winning Poems about Jackson Pollock, Francis Bacon, Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, John Cage, Paul Cezanne.

Spider's Web (tribute to Jackson Pollock)

the winter tree branches

paint themselves across the sky like

a Jackson Pollock

an insect got trapped in a

spider's web it struggles endlessly

only to find itself more entangled.

(written Fall 2000)

___________________

Everything (tribute to Francis Bacon)

penetrating

disturbing

raw emotions

bruised

violent

suicide

nightmarish

love

kiss me George

before my palette dries

flush the toilet

everything tender

everything butchered

everything bent

everything eaten

everything beaten

everything Bacon

(written May 2002)

_________________________

Ski Mask (tribute poem to Pablo Picasso)

I am a liar and a thief

a picasso with a ski mask

with a sawed off shot gun

on an american killing spree

I am a bank robber, a mistress, your forgotten whore

all your ideas, colors, images are wasted... on me

I am no good, no good, my river is wet and sloppy,

a surplus of fools gold that rests in the closet under the stairs.

(written Fall 2000)

______________________________

Silence (a tribute to John Cage)

a truck drives down

the street

a beating heart

the excitement running

in your veins

the phone rings

a butterfly floats in

space and opens

your eyes like a child

someone down the hall

is brushing their teeth, eating a

meal - possibly soaring

for a moment you heard

music so pure and real

the light turns red, the

truck stops

he fell - his body collapsed

to the floor

the audience panicked

all breathing stopped

no more time to ask questions

Silence.

(written 1998)

________________

Dear Theo (tribute poem to Vincent van Gogh)

Vincent face the sun

  hold on to your gun

Can you hear me?

  see me?

I am a chair

I am a flower

blowin' in the open fields

Sunflower seeds harvesting

inside of me

Raw sienna

Cadmium yellow

and cobalt blue

   are the colors I choose

   What else can I do?

Vibrating grass

empty canvas

Now there is nothing left

but these cold paintings

      these vibrating portraits

and couples walking hand in hand

Dear Brother

  Do you understand?

  Do you have a light

  in this starry night?

(written 1996)

The Vincent van Gogh Gallery
http://www.vangoghgallery.com

Ode to Cezanne

the cylinder, the sphere
and the cone

balanced with sensitive
intuition

humans or un human
models ordered to freeze

cramped muscles, he snaps
"Does an apple move?"

apples, pears, and plates
never move or talk back

slow, long, arduous work
balance form with form

color with harmonious color
portraits absent of emotion and personality

nothing is more than a
conventional geometric starting point

obsessed with unfulfilled
passions

bedeviled by self-doubt
inner confusion

clearly defined systems
everything is theory

everything is clarified and
concentrated with meticulous care

If I touch you, he warns
I might hurt you.

Written April - Jan 2006