—Poetry by Tom Goff, Carmichael, CA
—Public Domain Photos
LED HEADLIGHTS
Cars, cars, cars, cars. Thy bluish headlights blind.
It’s the reverse of Jesus’ parable:
The mote is in mine eye, the beam in thine
Dazzling basilisk lamps. We’re arable
Land your vicious brightness plows with sharp-
Bladed discs. Your bliss makes corneas blister,
We swerve too close to dropoffs; lay the tarp
Over our corpses now. And so’s your sister
A berserker. Yeah, my windshield, at night, stars
As if you’d bullet-holed it, even when cleaned
Inside and out: your scintillating spars
Rank with unsafe and insane fireworks.
To have to plead for restraint, we feel demeaned,
Crying danger alongside old cranks each itch irks.
[See “Blinded by Bright Headlights? It’s Not
Your Imagination,” New York Times, 6/5/21.]
Cars, cars, cars, cars. Thy bluish headlights blind.
It’s the reverse of Jesus’ parable:
The mote is in mine eye, the beam in thine
Dazzling basilisk lamps. We’re arable
Land your vicious brightness plows with sharp-
Bladed discs. Your bliss makes corneas blister,
We swerve too close to dropoffs; lay the tarp
Over our corpses now. And so’s your sister
A berserker. Yeah, my windshield, at night, stars
As if you’d bullet-holed it, even when cleaned
Inside and out: your scintillating spars
Rank with unsafe and insane fireworks.
To have to plead for restraint, we feel demeaned,
Crying danger alongside old cranks each itch irks.
[See “Blinded by Bright Headlights? It’s Not
Your Imagination,” New York Times, 6/5/21.]
OBOE
You chose a straight instrument, slim barrel of wood
That segments and packs in a small carry-on case.
As the tube of the Pied Piper to no true good
Is up, it wooed you, pretending supple grace
—Like river-reeds? Stiff, jointed, key-clapping surfaces.
Those blowgun note-darts flit from thin twin reeds
You custom-shaved thin to those purposes
Of flapping vibration shape the airstream outbleeds.
Commander Philip Taft and Peggy Sahmaunt
And Steve Foster trained in you that plangent wryness
Of tone that could’ve fulfilled a lifelong want;
An oboe cocoon would uncaterpillar shyness.
You performed, at someone’s insistence, on English horn
In Honegger’s King David. That goose-voiced thing
Cracked honks, like “gold uncurrent within the ring.”
One concert of squawk! You went silent, in self-scorn.
You chose a straight instrument, slim barrel of wood
That segments and packs in a small carry-on case.
As the tube of the Pied Piper to no true good
Is up, it wooed you, pretending supple grace
—Like river-reeds? Stiff, jointed, key-clapping surfaces.
Those blowgun note-darts flit from thin twin reeds
You custom-shaved thin to those purposes
Of flapping vibration shape the airstream outbleeds.
Commander Philip Taft and Peggy Sahmaunt
And Steve Foster trained in you that plangent wryness
Of tone that could’ve fulfilled a lifelong want;
An oboe cocoon would uncaterpillar shyness.
You performed, at someone’s insistence, on English horn
In Honegger’s King David. That goose-voiced thing
Cracked honks, like “gold uncurrent within the ring.”
One concert of squawk! You went silent, in self-scorn.
VINCENT AND EDMUND
Look closely if you mean to look at all.
This painting is by Edmund Walpole Brooke,
Who scuffed trail dust with Van Gogh; thick dust
mutes footfalls.
It’s watercolor, impasto is impossible,
Yet Brooke seems eager to mimic Vincent’s thick:
Look closely if you mean to look at all.
Japan in blue leaf-blobs, branch-straw grays, no squall
Like Wheatfield with Crows; all Vincent’s gusts turn rook.
Brooke scuffed trail dust with Van Gogh? Does dust
mute footfalls?
Brooke daubs his foreground-background-perplexing pall
The more coolly to concentrate the path that hooks
—Look closely if you mean to look at all—
Hooks us to a red-obi’d woman and infant trawled
Where all paths lead: a shrine swiped in by Brooke
Who scuffed trail dust with Van Gogh—thick dust
mutes footfalls—
Who, lesser of palette, easel, and smock, traced al
Fresco Impressionist-emulating strokes:
Look closely if you mean to look at all.
Brooke scuffed the same trail dust. Van Gogh
mutes Brooke’s footfalls.
[See “The Hunt for Clarity about Van Gogh’s Last
Days Leads to Maine,” New York Times, 6/4/21.]
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
I guess I just look at talent as a very subjective thing. I mean, if you never tried playing an oboe, how do you know you're not the most talented oboe player ever? The point is that if you don't love it, then it doesn't matter.
Look closely if you mean to look at all.
This painting is by Edmund Walpole Brooke,
Who scuffed trail dust with Van Gogh; thick dust
mutes footfalls.
It’s watercolor, impasto is impossible,
Yet Brooke seems eager to mimic Vincent’s thick:
Look closely if you mean to look at all.
Japan in blue leaf-blobs, branch-straw grays, no squall
Like Wheatfield with Crows; all Vincent’s gusts turn rook.
Brooke scuffed trail dust with Van Gogh? Does dust
mute footfalls?
Brooke daubs his foreground-background-perplexing pall
The more coolly to concentrate the path that hooks
—Look closely if you mean to look at all—
Hooks us to a red-obi’d woman and infant trawled
Where all paths lead: a shrine swiped in by Brooke
Who scuffed trail dust with Van Gogh—thick dust
mutes footfalls—
Who, lesser of palette, easel, and smock, traced al
Fresco Impressionist-emulating strokes:
Look closely if you mean to look at all.
Brooke scuffed the same trail dust. Van Gogh
mutes Brooke’s footfalls.
[See “The Hunt for Clarity about Van Gogh’s Last
Days Leads to Maine,” New York Times, 6/4/21.]
_____________________
Today’s LittleNip:
I guess I just look at talent as a very subjective thing. I mean, if you never tried playing an oboe, how do you know you're not the most talented oboe player ever? The point is that if you don't love it, then it doesn't matter.
—Steven Soderbergh
_____________________
Good friend Tom Goff sends us two sonnets and a villanelle—all tasty fare for this bustling Kitchen Chez Medusa this morning! Form Fiddlers who Function on Friday can appreciate the smooth quill with which Tom plies his fare… Thank you, Tom!
Tomorrow night, Thurs. (7/1), 7pm (new time—not 8pm), Poetry Night in Davis will feature Emily Hughes and Charles Halsted IN PERSON, plus open mic, at the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st St., Davis. Facebook info: www.facebook.com/events/332338015114088/. Host: Andy Jones. (Check out Dr. Andy’s new [free] weekly newsletter at andyjones.substack.com, and please subscribe!)
For “A Brief History of the Oboe”, go to www.oboefiles.com/history-of-the-oboe/.
_____________________
—Medusa
—Painting by E.W. Brooke
For more info, go to www.theartnewspaper.com/blog/discovered-a-picture-by-van-gogh-s-colleague/.
For more info, go to www.theartnewspaper.com/blog/discovered-a-picture-by-van-gogh-s-colleague/.
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