Keep centre, the dancer said

Untitled [Las Vegas] by Saul Steinberg, 1989

I rode highways on a tilt

and watched the earth keeling over.

I searched for the river 

through a street of mansions

each lonesome in crisp green lawns.

I danced blind in art's cavern

looking for a neon cross underfoot. 

I toggled the flame high and low

bubbling over, going limp,

over and over. 

Off centred in the new world

I spent all weekend finding centre. 

Questions

  

Prisoners' Round 

by Vincent van Gogh

(1890)

Always the discomfort with questions

A booming sound, distant, distorted.

Me, a shifty dark room

Closing in on itself.

 

Like on a captor’s command

I step out in the blinding sun

Look up first and then down to my toes

Show up, speak up, account for my woes.

 

A mad scramble

For words and threads

A patchwork robe

To dodge the probe.

 

Handy wear, held fast and close

Eyes on the ground

Grows heavier still

More robe than me, less me each round.

 

I wonder tonight

When this term began

The penal call

The eyes downcast.

 

I wonder tonight

If I could shrug off the robe

Stretch an arm and pull it down.

 

When right beside me

in the open ground

I could ask perhaps if it would befriend me. 

 

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. 

In My Dreams

The Waltz 

by Felix Vallotton (1893)

 
The daggers drawn during the day,
Venomously tipped,
Rested in cushioned sheaths,
In my dreams.

So easily we swam,
Across the chasm of silence,
Filled by moonlight,
With freshsweet streams.

Easy steps,
All in perfect time,
Can you believe?
We almost waltzed,
In my dreams.

Leaving the day behind,
With its many rough jibes,
We met in a world quite unknown,
In my dreams. 

If You Ask Me, I'll Say

New York Movie, 1939 

by Edward Hopper

To say the very thing
One feels and thinks
Is getting harder by the day.

How does one say a thing,
When chatter swirls within?
An unruly cast
Assembled at a reading deranged
Flinging, singing, mumbling, screaming.

If you insist too much
Impatiently
I could present to you
a feeble show
Strung together with
Someone's sputtering opening
A muddled middle
And the wriggling tail of quite another.

But if you ask again
Sincerely
I would have to tell you
One cannot possibly say anything at all
While waiting in the wings
Of one's own cacophonous play
Lips pursed
And listening. 

Last Night Arose

Head by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff (1915)

Last night arose
Beneath my window
A golden gleaming sun.

Steady glare of the streetlight
And a troupe of dancing rain
A whirling expressionist woodcut
Etched onto the tarmac plain.

I watched transfixed
As the sky raged
And the tears began to swim.
I watched transfixed
And willed the glum fog
Inside me to lift.

But what warmth could I borrow?
What light could I seek?
What courage could I muster?
From a pool of damp lies and dreams?

To watch it transfixed
With hope and patience
And a quiet desperate might,
Was only a weak trick
To get through the black, black night. 

Grief

Workers on their Way Home, 1913

by Edvard Munch

Grief, a solid rock

Lodged in the quarry’s pit.

Immovable, unbreakable

Coated with a thousand nights.

Burrow around it all you like,

Wander above for hours on end

But one has to,

At the end of however distracted a day,

Clamber wearily down,

Down into that solitary cave.

A cave so full,

Full of that stubborn solid rock

Lodged in your quarry’s pit

Letting no air in, no light.

How many little people?

Pressed against

How many monstrous rocks?

A wretched underground orb.

खिड़कियां

Evening Wind by Edward Hopper (1921)

दीवार में खिड़की
खिड़की में रात
खिड़की की रात
दीवार से उजली।

दीवार की रात
में भी एक खिड़की
फैली हुई विशाल
सिरहाने से लेकर
छत तक चढ़ आयी खिड़की।

खुद परछाईं
पर चौगुनी खिड़की
हर कोने से खींची सी
भीतर इसके
और परछाइयां
पंखे की हौली धड़कन
और भागती हुई एक और छोटी सी खिड़की।

रात घनी हो
दीवारें कई हों
पर खुलती रहें
ऐसी खिड़कियां
उजली सी
लहराती सी
चारों ओर फैलती ब्रह्माण्ड सी।

Ghanshyam

Radha & Krishna Walking at Night

Folio from the Tehri Garhwal series of the Gita Govind (1775-80)
Punjab Hills, Kingdom of Kangra or Guler

Wept my eyes blue,
Looking for Ghanshyam.
I had him beside me
And now he is gone.

Standing at the crossroads,
Squinting in the dark,
I conjure blue shadows,
Turning to mist, each one.

Is he playing one of his tricks?
Making my heart so sink?
Am I abandoned for good?
Or to follow him into the distant woods?

Waiting at the crossroads,
I think I will rest my tired blue eyes.
Maybe as dawn breaks,
I will find him once again,
by my side.

A Dream?

Separation II (1896) by Edvard Munch

In foul togetherness,

We walked weary,

Of weather,

Of purpose,

And of each other.

Mud clung to our feet,

Our eyes did not meet,

Doors you opened,

Were not for me.

My breath split in half,

Coloured the vision a sickly grey.

You stood apart,

Pointing the way.

At the edge of indifference,

I would be hung,

Half-breath

And scarce a tongue.

  

The Itch

Thought (1895) by Auguste Rodin 

That old itch

To walk away

Is back.

That old itch

To walk away

Without a stomp, kick or a scream,

Is back.

That old itch

To walk away

With nothing but

The smoothening of all furrows,

The lengthening of measured breath,

The swing of the loose end of a borrowed ascetic robe.

That old itch

Is back again.

Clutch the ground

With twenty toes.

Ball your fists,

Lock those nails.

Let the face crease

With every passing breeze.

Don’t let placid waters

Drown the flickering dream.

Beware,

That old itch

Is back again.

The Panting-Pacing Eye

Impression Sunrise, 1872 

by Claude Monet

Days scorched
Dry and bare.
Caught like a fly in a web.
A pacing-panting eye
On a swiveling neck.

How far can one go?
Thirsting new skies.
Flicking old ties.

At least for a few silent moments
To peer into the clouded depths
of a breeze-creased lake so blue,
To feel the sway of water-weeds grey
And the kickswim of the froglet stray.

To see a lone cloud or two
Afloat on its surface.
And later that night
The molten red moon bleed all over it.

Then maybe,
The panting-pacing eye too
Would learn to still itself.
To hold tenderly in its waters, all life,
With a loving and patient sigh.

Shuttling

Potrait of Dora Maar , 1937

by Pablo Picasso

Shuttling between
Two halves of myself
Day, afternoon and night.

Before a moment of laughter ceases
Hark, the other peg.
And as the head finds a spot of rest
Rings the parting bell.

I rush this way and that
With clumsy entries and exits.
Trailing behind disappointed faces
And too much unfinished business.

Shuttling between
Two halves of myself
Day, afternoon and night.
I am quite certain,
Long ago, on this very ride,
I have let slip a part of myself. 

To Be Alone

Party in Paris 

by Max Beckmann, 1947

To be alone isn’t an emptying of the room,

Faces vanishing into the night,

Walking other lanes,

Turning other corners.

To be alone isn’t voices no longer speaking your tongue

Abuzz, alien, apart.

To be alone isn’t just eyes turned away

Smiles beaming elsewhere.

To be alone perhaps

Is my steps slowing down,

Toward.

Across.

To be alone perhaps

is a sealing of the lips.

A turning blind with open eyes.

The smile left unused at the dresser.

To be alone perhaps

 is to leave the full room

And step into the wall.

Growing Old

Seated Girl Facing Front

by Egon Schiele

(1911)

Growing old.

What does it mean?

I think not, the stray grey hair

Trailing amid the careless black.

Or the shortness of breath

After a flight of stairs winding up to you.

The change happens deeper within
Silently but decidedly.

Forgiveness, a closed fist,

Wounds heal not quickly.

Belief darkly tainted

Smiles held hostage by gloom.

Love once abundant in the heart

Trudges heavily and uncertainly

The road to imminent doom.

Memories

Portrait of Asian Woman with Flower

by Rhoda Weissman 

Memories

Like Russian dolls

Hide tenderly

One inside the other

Bright hued

And sometimes brittle.

I burrow through them all

To reach the littlest one.

The most distant now

Yet the most precious.

And to hold her in the cup of my palm

Is to fall in love all over again. 

Swinging from the Sky

    Spirits of the Flying Umbrellas 

      by Leah Saulnier

Swinging from the sky
Standing upright
On a bar of dazzling metal
I saw myself through the window tonight.

Though far away from me
I could feel her ease, her glee.
The breeze, the light, all made her shine
And swing with a lilt so carefree.

She had companions
Yet she stood apart
Hugging the silver rope
And stared down at me.

I wonder if she could see me after all
Could she feel my prickly skin and aching bones
My knotted heart and leaden feet?
Was she mocking me?
Or seeking me?
Was she here to stay?
Or just a passing dream?

My Wretched Sphere

Maha Bindu 1988

by S. H. Raza

It almost always starts 

With one of Raza's large dots.

The magnified black sphere of my moist eye.

Still 

but surely searching. 

At the outset, it latches onto things closest.

The clutter on the bed

The somber painting hanging overhead

Perhaps that novel on the shelf

Replete with its winding nightmares

Or that Greek composer playing on loop

Piano, oboe, strings

Piano oboe strings

pianooboestrings

A melodic lump lodged in my throat.

It could also just be those things he said

Or didn't say

Or almost just did

Last night

Or many nights ago

By the window, right here

Or much further away.

Or that new note

in voices everywhere

Doled out in spurts

A nauseating amalgam of panic and pity.

I take a stroll each day along the elliptical orbits of my life

Looking for the sources of the cracks along the way

But this steady gliding and less than graceful sliding

Almost always slips me back into

That wretched black sphere

of my very own eye.