1997 Brooken Beauty ...another round part 1

1997 Brooken Beauty ...another round part 1






“ ...Odysseus’... ever present
solitude and loss
the copious uncomforting tears--
Again and again
his journeys,

the struggle, against temptations
to cease struggling
sinking into an exotic
drugged oblivion
listening,

the Sirens
passing lotus eaters
the real danger
to find
contentment in

non human forgetfulness
dangers over come
finally and painfully
as he reconstitutes
his social role

father, husband, and son, King
One does not always like--
nobility mixed
with dissemblance,
gentleness mixed

with ruthless fury,
but one always recognizes him.”
muses echo, the song of this quester’s
swerving twists and turns,
something is slipping away

something is beginning
repetitions, another to depression
can this search be continued,
this artist thing--
maybe this is the end

the time to leave, quit--
CA plates on the van,
looking for a job
the old outa fashion painter,
feeling the clown

needing a change, ready to leave
spiraling from dark to light,
return to nature, the origins
of so much we think
the sun goes up, the sun comes down

searching--
for revitalization, returning cycle,
caught up in, culture copying culture
even to a tracing of a memory--
are we that distant from any tradition?

that close, to modern?
to be post-- anything?
again each year
the proportions of mock epic,
the over the hill artist

shot dead, not knowing--
keeping on
revision of romantic idea,
out of reach, abstract--
symbol, along side

narrative storied building,
toward same symboled height--
and falling once, again
in distance from nature
back, to a re-- dreaming--

a new
nature-- there culture is seeing,
but the continuing change--
all death
of moments saved

by painting them--
preserving
the wonder we face, life
a painting seen on ones last bed
the pictures whirl-- past,

fading colors through reeds
the sunflowers,
by their repetition, comic--
brown, now, tragic stripes
the bread and the wine--

toppled still-life
unrealized, blank
dark now
inner form,
emerges

the striped torso
flying,
over broken
ideal,
BEAUTY, in this cycle

that Kiefer show was the best
a real excitement
in the air, 1984, Rene was there,
we went to Roy’s after ward
never stopping a fevered chant,

looking at Fra Angelica
so authentic we thought, the other books strewn
across the floor and Julian ambition --
It was what I saw, thought I could --
the interior world figured

as Sublime
from the physically abstract, before us
yet beyond touch
but then, that other rivulet
of Corot at the museum

outside, painting the sincerity,
if there was any other the concept
was somehow there in fever,
beyond a moral of after-death
death was contained

there, the whole fear, right here!
seeing NOW, the change-- being now
he painted from outside in
we began inside, struggling out,
the inner self

is the self of outer freedom,
gazing upon a classical
ideal that must be broken,
we see the busted world
revolving to Apocalypse-- signifying nothing

all part of our creation of romantic
tattooed pose
pierced ear, depth in scarred brow
our Apocalypse now-- come
we are torn, flung in paint

pushed to recreate the surface,
of our continuing
modern art
held up, to stand in
for the lost

depth, we feared
to penetrate, was too simple
just nothing there
in that space, losing our selves
from this mythic place,

now 2001, looking old
and tattered
and the end still far and Walt--
an end for every beginning,
alone-- with others,

to use us as pawns
critics to make their worlds
each of us only a piece?
of a world? mosaic they say, pigeon holed,
in his place, playing one part only

NO, I want to play all the parts at once
spoiled child and withdrawn from the game--
idle conversation bores
great voices showing direction!
-- each in democratic depth

modern mediocrity
to be, hung revolving
all the broken pieces
in lowest common denominators
but look the sun shines on us all

of sun,
figures in leaves
blown
face
of the night

all revolving,
the planets
out the window

I’m in the library, the first snow
on the ground,
drawing, drawing, obsessive drawings
trace these drawings?
loosen the landscape of reality

or photographic fact?
experience lost to abstract head?
but what is art?
experience lost only to be saved
I write it is already gone,

but I write to get by
and the narrative
still haunts
the western story
out there, out there

my romance
and just plain painting in the landscape
no old lady’s Sunday feat,
heroic keeper of some light,
sees the Sun for the first time

fast-- colorful, POP!
short even line
no character involved,
turns to twilight,
depth and shade

lost in the reeds,
colder
sun going down
green
pop
against
oranging

sky before
last gasp
the falls
blasted tree,
rock--
out stretched arms,

”my brooken beauty”

the sea wave
continues
ripple rip
the wind blows
the clouds,
the leaves
swing low
skitter and swoosh
the paintings line up

fragment
and blown away
sand on the beach
exposing
a new idea,
morning

a line makes a shape, to color,
the ‘note’ one reaches for,
drawing at Paul’s in that old brown loft
still thinking,
I might go further

a wonder, seeing
the shapes he comes up with
beyond all of our reach,
beyond skill level
what I recognized as the supreme feat

to abstract the human shape to represent
in that shape and simplicity, the depth
of so many aspects, this is the poetry
that Greek sculpture, made a world
from the human shape

a perspective never toppled
that simple but all encompassing need
divine convention as tradition,
I draw over and over,
change ever so slowly

through the shapes of Polykleitos
Raphael to Ingres,
Manet into Picasso, but
a different world, now
must I be without? I grow tired
of the copy

this second order disconnected
from first order reality,
original
Drawing now a tracing
of what’s already there

a depth in slowing and then speeding line
another dimension beyond present
rightness of any, one, perceived reality
Achilles reaching to Blue Man
Crispin in the sun

ideal and
Crispin falling--
Charlie Bum under concrete overpass
hitching to Gallop
snuggling lost waif

tears running through
glittered cheek, “my brooken beauty”
the soul-- striped, the figure
brought forward,
in idea striped, BANG! and now

dies, Oh!
try harder the ideas, the reality sought
against the ground,
(nature) blank, space of death,
memory-- what’s broken--

a hand, spot of flesh, figure of
crooked shape, the wind
a far off, waterfall spilling
silent-- yet continuing through
blackened space

to wildflower glow of back lit sun
and narrative builds and breaks
bird of great height
west of dream, this imagination
a god flies unconcerned

power suit, joker, King
coyote warrior,
blue man mind,
artist poet
the critical, bummer queen

cool princess, corrupting force
culture’s fashion, whore
the natural nude in
sun warm, truth as nature
OUT THERE

the whole cycle
muse in sun and naked flesh
the paintings revolving
through night
returning flower

hero in the sun
fading
dream
to blank
figure striped, there holding truth

beauty in order and idea
come forward,
recognition in the sun
steps out from the ground
reaching from nature to cultural height

the repeated shapes, declare an end?
walking around
down turn
the old dark bars,
I had stepped from

that proud darkness into a braver light--
had I failed?
I’m so far from now,
looking-- for connection
they’re all gone-- one went west

should I plant the,
sunflowers?
the dirt is frozen and barren
besides it’s January,
here in the city

then after the end
beyond the land
out painting the sky, that feeling
this is it, why did I stop?
a stay against, the ongoing wind

“The red square is the heart of misery,”
I didn’t hear him-- Allen died this spring
working on the new paintings,
thinking about a figure painting
that flies-- part of the abstraction,

Tiepelo at the Metropolitan, gods with earth
and sun revolving,
Grand Style, we have Versace
fashion symbol, on the Miami scene
symbol, falls to realism and want

tumbling over and over
Can’t I see who I am by now?
why go on breaking myself
to newer shape, we want a deeper
shape, art and culture, fashion so--

sophisticated-- culture as art,
Crispin left Art
a bum for what he loves
himself an idea, the hero
in the sun shine

extreme
I want to go to the sea
take me back to the sea
a surface style
wallpaper

the surface we loved
fast, abstracted
without worrisome--
depth to shards,
to broken pieces covering the ground

ruins of the sacred truth
scattered stones
in the sun
the crumbling tower
I can’t go on

I will go on
sea wave
celebrating cycle
whisper to lightening day
Pop! in the sun, surface to inner

murmuring
the painter’s master, nature
nature as muse, nature always
death, death, death
the whisper

“I am nature”
and respectful representation,
I am dumb in front of--
the blasted fragment,
the continued story

the pieces of narrative
blue bird
red bird
pine trees and falls
arms wide spread,

Hero
falling shape
beauty’s order
to love
becoming familiar place

something made of it--
an elite love
developing, entangling
forest, Crispin remains
the cardboard image,

fallen from cycle
Buddha form to narrative
hell,
meandering
lost without depth

loving the modern,
flat confused order
of profane interest
seeking another form
to climb