Aerial

 

Nocturne in Black and Gold, Falling Rocket (1875) 

by James Abbott McNeill Whistler 

You stood before me 

Master of your art

I stood before you

Bewitched, gaping.

With long slender fingers

You crafted for me

Whole worlds

in a bubble.

Of bubble,

whole worlds.

Believe me, when I say they were

Worlds singing -

with tunes most tender

Luminous - 

with daubs of thick paint

Soaring -

with words sprouting wings. 

Oh, to hold them in my hands

To press them to my ears

To peer through them all!

We levitated together,

These bubbles and I,

For several light years. 

Who knew, 

(Did you?)

they would pop.

Each one,

One 

by 

one.

With a shatter so sharp

Strings cut 

I fall headlong

(Do you?)

A dawdle of a fall

With echoes of sweet bird and far-off song. 

The clarity of silhouettes

Milliner's Workshop by Pablo Picasso (1926)

Oh, how long our day,

Now come to a close.

Oh, how tired these eyes,

From your saturated tones.

Now the lights switched off

Now the colors drained out

Now my dizzy slows down

Now such silence abounds

 

Blindness,

A wicked specter of the mind,

Trailing me all day,

Exorcised at midnight.

 

An Evening with Friends

 

Avenue de Clichy by Louis Anquetin (1887)

                                             

                                                

Night rush.

Faces, food, and frenzied fumbling

Masks half worn 

and half undone. 

Night hush.

An uphill trod

Soles buckling underfeet

Each step lighter till finally set free. 

Night slush.

Word piled upon word

Some rehearsed, some drawn fresh

The poet's and ours. 

Night hush

Again.

And a wide open window

Nestled in the city, a party

Slivers of laughter floating our way.