On Fumbling Legs, Visiting The Santa Barbara Musuem of Art

Dark Cloaks

Under the horses hooves
I'm looking
For my Grandmother
In the tumult
Of a Century turning

She walked on mud streets
Stepping on the immigrant
Foot trails
A nation was bursting
From motherland

She held me by one hand
Returning in story
While scooped up in the arm
Of Yesterday's indignities

Buggies and transportation
She could safely
Relate their enormous
Transformation to wheel and engine

Keeping aside the turmoils
Not spilled into the ears of her young
Of ghettos
Goliath to her David.

She was narrowly missed
In this day
By the rearing of a
Horse charging through the frame

Into the gallery
Of now
She is huddled
Tucked into the masses.





Fleeting

There catch it
My daughter moves
Into the mist
Of yesterday
Caught in frames
Moving
Before those times.





Young Girl In Pursuit

I have heard it said
That it is the pony
She rides plying her skills
Of Acrobatic arts
That lands her
You.

But I think
This Young rider
Will one day find her
Pursuits returned
On a flailing
Nag.




Coat Hangers

Wire can be bent
Molded
To hang our clothes
Dress the stairs
Of a place
Dedicated to our
Designs.

Wire can be
Wrapped around our teeth
Positioned
Holding sea glass
In a necklace
Around our
Decoration.

Wire seems
To be able to
Hold open the artery
Or stitch the
Wounded
Daydreams.

Thiebaud Slices

Would you like a slice
Strawbella stomboli
Delectable surprise
Sensual thighs

Would you display yourself
Up on this platter
Female sugar butter
Serving heart flutter

Would you buy the cake
Pistachio, man
Lay down some change
Lusciously strange.

A Picture in A Picture In a Poem

From the artist's perspectives
There was no way but to grid
The spaces and just then find the meanings
Much later, looking backwards
Technically the saturation,
That was hardest.
The thing is, what you saw
And what you drew
Seldom matched.
What was there to replicate.
A second caught in a lunch.
Uttering to you
A kind of failure
Or challenge
Of re-invention, no matter how hard the desire for distance.

She wasn't my daughter
Anymore
She was this modern woman
Who had come through time
Beauty in new form
Wearing the bracelets of her aging lovely sisters
Who sat behind her
One turning
Straining
To look and stare directly into the face
Of the artist
Furious for being caught by time.
Another accepted
The day was passing outside her spaces
She passively looked out waiting.
Held like the paintings on the wall
In a frame talking to tomorrow.
A buttoned sweater and a purse
At the cafe tables watching life passing.

But as I worked the drawing
My leg was numb, nerves intransigent
Facing my thoughts and fears
My mind was exercising
A pull out of the concentration required
Into the deep disappointments of personal regrets
Realities.
Fooling me into blinking
At what I saw speaking there
In these three internal spaces.

The artist, the women, the person
Often speak to me
As well as the mother, the teacher
At once crowding in to chatter
Move things around in the service of appetites
Hungers, thirsts
None so aware of the other.
Existing at tables
That don't relate.
I saw it that day drawing for a minute.

Silver

Once at a fair
In the cheer and lightness
The birdlike chatter tones
I bought a silver ring
With a check
That was hot.


My money wasn't coming for three days
The artist
Called to get his
Twenty by that evening
Well before
Anything deposited
He spoke to me as if handling filth

I had to ask my mother
For a twenty minute loan
To cover my foolishness
She never let me forget it
Vindicating her
So she could wrap her resentments
Around my follies.

Silver
Tarnishes, but it can be polished
Protected
I can enjoy it
When I see that ring
On a daughter's finger
Free from my mistakes,
A forgotten story.




Roman Baths

In the courtyard of the museum
Is a group of statuary
Naked Men with missing parts
Heads of one kind or another
I had to sit
My body is no longer wired
For walking and coordinated movement
In the fatigue I looked
Up at a more viable form
As the light washed her face
There was a tinkling babble
Water in the fountain
She laughed.










Crush

The thing about a bully
Besides the intimidation
Is they walk over your opportunity
To enter a space free and easy
At the worst you call into
Question your own value
In a dream I was facing
Someone talking to his brother
about a fat woman that had some idea
Of a friendship
That rose like a fist
Exploding into my heart
And it sits in my spaces sculpturally
ever since.







Dale

Once I knew a silent man
That worked in my father's department
He was less inclined to conversation
Listening, responding
With these glasses made of tortoiseshell
He was just gentle and free of harm
I see him sitting by a giant Christmas tree, in a room
walking down a hall in a New York shady hotel
In a restaurant, at a child's party
By a roasting pig.
In his office as the door slowly opened a crack once I saw him
Sitting under this window,
I waved a little bit and he waved a little bit
But there was no reason to startle the air with vocalization.
He didn't tell stories to me
Or emote, get into furies
Take out his day and dignify you with his
Competitive nature responding to an affront.
It was very interesting to watch him in his life.
A little painting on the wall, helpfully
Offering into that
Dungeon of the Ag Sciences building his artful silences.







My Ebay Friend,

Thanks for the box
On my birthday
It came anonymously
This last summer
In velvety black leather
Peace sign, flower power
Decal
Matched my purse
Exactly.
It slid in like home.

Hey, my legs have gotten
Knocked out
From under me.
Can't find the floor
My spine's
Not sending signals, anyways
Gifts do matter to me, oddly, I'm sorry
For that.

I kinda thought you
Would know that issue,
Yeah
I liked the change coin purse
For all its humor
Don't even know why I
Only put quarters inside
Maybe awaiting the slots
But,
I never play them.





The Invisible Wall

You built a wall invisibly
I'm here
You are there
We see each other through
A looking glass.













It was art
It was a giant contact lens
Laughing at me
On hands and knees
Grinding through the carpet
Desperate to find
It.

In college
I got glass contacts
That he colored green
Telling me I would look lovely
That Greek
Was right
It made me different alright

I was always popping one
Or caught in a situation on a couch
Where I couldn't get up and remove them
They cost me $45 to replace
Which might as well
Have been the moon and stars
A week's pay was too precious

One morning
In the bathroom by luck discovered
I'd worn two stuck together
For weeks
Some misery of my self care
I got the purple glasses out
And gave it up.








Honza?

It might be a Yugoslavian
Peasant with her son Hans
Returned to her
Or a figure reaching around
Thumb folding in to
Caress a modern form
To breast.







Rock, Paper, Scissors

Rock, paper, scissors
Ink, blotter, ruler
Stapler, pad, surface
Paint, feather, quill
Moon, rapture, stars






Distillation

They all seemed to hear the lines, the bits, in their contexts
Enjoying the places and patterns, private matters, personal connection
But I am somehow outside the Zeitgeist
Storyline, writing, limping, unsure
Beaten, perhaps, imploring.
It isn't , and then it is.
The feelings that pulse
Admittedly in my errant, synaptic illusion
Remain for me reality.







A Little Artist, Big Dog and A Girl

A little artist, big dog and a girl all met on a canvas
The dog was stuck in his painted yard
The artist awaited the next moment to capture
And the girl agreed to strike a pose
With her back to his efforts.
That really is the punchline.



Anxiety

It was turmoil
My hips felt incredible tension
Pins and needles in my legs
Jelly and uncooperative
Looking at the forms
In some metaphysical struggle.
A nervous collapse

This text read:
Save me, my parents
have taken me hostage to the Art Museum.
we just saw a group of paintings that escaped from Baltimore in record snows
to get to sunny walls in california
i'm trying to get them to move it along
so i can be back for your visit
but they talk and talk
looking for something
from above in paint
that's like a million years old as they are

He said,
"Come on over here Sophia and look at this field
If you look really hard you see that the surface
Leads you deep into this space
He's a genius to know how to use mud like he does.
It takes awhile but if you just stand and watch
You catch the light folding over the fields
Of wheat
Up to that town, the strokes
Just take you. The sky lifts you."




Jeeze.

"Ah jeeze, you again," I thought
Flopping down in my seat
In front of flannel therapy.
She had a new topic,
"Say whatever comes to your head."
So I said, " Vomitorium, Verizon, veritas."
But she "hadn't started."
Flannel is a lot like yellow walls,
Use with caution!
She said, "I'll suggest something and let's just see
What pops in your head."
I was chewing gum.
It bothered her, I could feel that desire
To pop something a mile away.
She said, "Okay?"
I thought it strange but answered,
"Oddly Cassandra, just right this second,
Seems an awful label to stick on a kid."
"What?" was next.
So I went on with this game,
"It never ceases to amaze me
That my parents let me walk
Among the alligators.
I was like three, duh."
"We haven't started" prompted me to say,
"I would if you wood."
And laugh it was so stupid.
"Just address the question, relax"
So I spilled accidentally, "He wouldn't include me
On the mailing list. I have no address, nothing."

we concluded the session, I couldn't cross my legs
flannel had had enough.







I Wonder Why?

Art museum visits line my life
Some joyful, light, alive, others black
As a dark night walk on my grandfather's farm
Each felt in the steps of time
None more disconcerting than this trip

Walking with legs that would not
Lift and carry me as if I'd been
Unwound and flopped.
It spoke of last visits, dying arts, and yet
I tried to remain present.

I wonder why?






Blown By the Fates

Earth, wind, fire
Played bouncing from the dash
Stick stuck into my back
Meeting my fate
A ride out
On a West Virginia night
Up hollow
To a secluded stand
Pressed me down
Humid sweat dropping
Down by my panties
Springs rolled me down low
Way down
A craft less
Rusty molded Cutlass
Turned into my
Chariot
After the movies.

The fates have set up
Some interesting
positions
Blown in some
Ticklish
Frolicking
Vehicles
Fueling libidos as
Rides for an evening
On old
Country Roads.






Outside the screams from kids
Skateboards roll, hailing the coming
Of dusk. As I lose the light
To write. Cars flow home after
Long days work. The feel of neighborhood life
From the kitchen pots and pans
Signal signs of dinner rustling
Horns, whooshes, quiet barks
Growing more insistent
Shrill child spits out calls in the
Dimming light. A pan lid rocks the floor,
Telling me to put aside pensive scribbling.





Intention

She said,
"Do not show me with those
Naked men."
I thought I'd blocked them
Just catching this "Girl and Admirer"
In the gallery pic
But a butt intruded
On the soliloquy.





So Like a Feininger

So like a Feininger I once loved
Kept stashed on a card in my drawers
Souvenir of a New York
Visit with Peter,
I couldn't look at the tag now
To see if this
Duchampion version was
A series, an echo
Neighbor, or another line altogether
I was speaking aloud my connections
Mid gallery
When one of the guards
Strolled over to better
Hear what I was
Muttering.
"Oh I once was
Thin, young, these paintings
Answered my prayers sometimes, sir
I walked into a different
Sort of Cathedral
Ones tourists never saw
Heard the reverberation on the stone
Granite and marble
Carried by the lives
Of the ordinary in service
Over the centuries
Building block sanctuary."
He just looked up blankly
Through me, nodding.
Another day in the gallery.






Portrait of A Portrait

A painting crawled up
On time's easel
Intending to be
Captured by the artist
In her best light.

Instead the artist
Said goodnight
Turning to less whimsical
Concerns, portraying
The space around
Her instead.






Two Jugs of Milk

If they stopped on the bridge
And listened
An oriole would call
Clearly out, a dove hoot to mate
Frogs gulp, as the water
Flows incredibly
Harmonious.
These are not
Sojourners

They are following
Beaten paths to bridges
Peasants that carry
Jugs of milk
Wearing the gray uniform
Trudging home from work
Catching their breath
As I drink and stare
At the red dawn
They inhabit.





Generation

Never know their language
The private sanctum
Of father and daughter
Seeing the child in me.






A Poem in Two Parts

I.

Why is Stuart Davis' name
Caught on the top of a Van Gogh
Is it some graffitied amusement?
An homage by early student?
Somehow this is
Coltrane playing an
Etude by Chopin
Interestingly avuncular.

II.

The fields move rapidly right
By the window
The ranges beyond loiter and stroll
Bearing right eventually too
As this train flings westward

Through the pane the moon seems to
Hang in a daylight sky
While everything in motion
Plays out.