Amusements

  Gogol's Dream

—Painting by Viktor Gontarov (Ukraine), 1995

* * *

—Poetry by Stephen Kingsnorth, Coedpoeth,
Wrexham, Wales
—Public Domain Art Courtesy
of Stephen Kingsnorth

 

 

 

GOGOL’S DREAM

I take my hat off for the search,
a siren call, Cervantes’ tilt,
near wearing heart upon your sleeve,
this canvassing, while carriage waits.

How find your place or mark your name
before inscribed on graveyard stone,
where least your son or lover knows
that sight has gone but site remains?

This is a crowded game to play
with footballer in middle field,
a javelin thrown overhead,
and metal archives banging head.

Ukraine fits novel Ivan brief,
flight pilot, biochemist too,
animation, purplize,
but how that view makes metre noise?

A chess-bored player turns to paint,
transliterating alphabet,
Cyrillic strains, acrylic taints,
Annunciation ’98.

More nightmare than a Gogol dream
to isolate, then analyse,
but making a clean breast of it,
I like the questions stylised.

Should you keep google at arm’s length
then too can find world complicate
turns into jigsaw freshly framed—
at least you find some pieces named.

 

 

 

 The Domino Players
—Painting by Horace Pippin, 1943

COMMONPLACE

Naïve to think that commonplace
should not be moved beyond the book;
for any light from upper left
must seep to favoured record frame.

A column advert set art pace,
first paint box won, with crayons, son
who won the contest, boyhood fun,
an entry point to pastel scheme.
He carried what his eyes had seen,
and stacked his memory with sense,
to shape own world for ignorant,
used porter, packer, moulder skill.

A front line troupe, back row at home,           
for land of free, no Goshen braves,
Harlem Hellfighter in the trench,
from colour-blind, the Croix de Guerre.
Two decades on, when mood had moved,
less colour chart, a Purple Heart,
mark courage, yellow opposite,
though cordial, vein pump, cord red.

The polka blouse, spots pallid space,
where plaster scarred by wattle daub,
with oil lamp, Sunday, nine at night,
toque, cloth, quilt, fire, for crimson signs.
Contemplative, lad, matriarchs,
what slant, which plane is in his mind,
ferocious scissors, teething flames,
these dangers through the pupil child?

By tiles of floor, pile, wall of nips
like fire, three generations joined,
these Methodists, pray, quilt, smoke pipe,
through dobs of oil, those dominoes.
The apple of his mother’s eye,
as any Pippin son must be,
the most important of his race,
as eulogised in NYT.

This commonplace is rarefied,
unknown white north of Dixon line,
insight Horace, massed dominant,
but do they read, appreciate?

 

 

 

 Flying Machines (double sided artwork)
by Charles A.A. Dellschau (USA), c. 1920

NB SUPER STAR

But what of fiction, what of fact,
incredible men, Wright or not,
Da Vinci codes that whirl about,
and Swift Laputa, flying high,
for Texas, San Antonio?

From magic carpets to balloons,
dirigibles, for him in draught,
flights of fancy, Sonora Club,
his Aero bubbles, Gas NB,
noted fuel, gravity free.

In ornamental borders style,
those watercolours, likened jewels,
imagination in full flight—
these circus banners, advert clowns,
domain of Fool who wears the crown.

Though Dellschau—name means Super Star—
his works were serendipity,
their preservation also chance.
A grave mistake, his spell ignored,
but mood flew on, think Pythonesque.

 

 

 

 Homage to Nina Simone
—Painting by Bob Thompson (USA), 1965

HAPPENING

Electric colours rendered flat
beneath the melding pastel sky;
this young black, deconstructing art
that’s old white for a hipper age,
whose story, back, excluded hues.

Thus dusky, husky sultry stage
of bacchanal where lute is changed
to strumming, groovy moody blues,
of flesh, skin, simple idyl nudes,
in Nina’s brew, sway. sinew swing.

His riffing, shifting of techniques:
they happened, all as Ginsberg primed,
but barriers broken, abled vice,
as burst, twist, stick, spill over, out
to souls, mouths, eyes unscene before.

‘It’s just a feeling’—homage thing,
‘you can describe’, but tell it, no.
‘But when it happens’, then ‘you know’
so ‘that’s what I by freedom, mean’;
the Simone sermon, sane to see.

He died as fast as he had lived,
visceral pleasures, pains conjoined.
To live in flesh so die there too;
he’s disappointed, not surprised,
no longer here; as he, so we.

 

 

 

 —Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Medusa

WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOMS

Upon turning off the computer

Withdrawal from this common drug,
I am bereft; known world has shrunk.
One on-line group denied to me,
because I feared a ‘friends’ stampede,
but ‘closed’ demands identity,
and I’ll not trade registered name—
though never hid myself from them,
but told directly who I am.
So fellow poets gone from field,
mature, emerging chrysalis,
with banter thrown around the verse
now out of reach, moon’s hidden side.
First ever venture, media,
for just four days, companions,
hands joined in metric dance around
the table where our meat was shared—
but now I’m gone and table bare.

_____________________

Today’s LittleNip:

You can’t live on amusement. It is the froth on water—an inch deep and then the mud.

—George MacDonald

_____________________

—Medusa, with thanks to Stephen Kingsnorth for today’s fine Ekphrastic poetry and pix. Two of our UK poets in one week—such treasures!

 

 

 

—Public Domain Photo Courtesy of Medusa

A reminder that
renowned Polish poet
Kacper Bartczak will read
in Davis tonight, 7pm.
For info about this and other
future poetry happenings in
Northern California and otherwheres,
click on
UPCOMING NORCAL EVENTS
(http://medusaskitchen.blogspot.com/p/wtf.html)
in the links at the top of this page—
and keep an eye on this link and on
the daily Kitchen for happenings
that might pop up
—or get changed!—
 during the week.

Photos in this column can be enlarged by
clicking on them once, then clicking on the x
in the top right corner to come back to Medusa.

Find previous four-or-so posts by scrolling down
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Would you like to be a SnakePal?
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send poetry and/or photos and artwork
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that which was previously published—
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Just remember:
the snakes of Medusa are always hungry—
for poetry, of course!

 

LittleSnake goes nuts

at the gaming tables...