| Poetic Matrix a periodic letteR on the poetic experience online spring/summer 2009 letteR 7 Poems Page 1 ANNE WHITEHOUSE, DANIEL WILLIAMS, SILLY DRACO, AMELIA CYPERT |
ANNE WHITEHOUSE
Van Gogh in Arles
Against the mistral I shoved
The feet of my easel into the earth,
Pushed in iron pegs to secure it,
And tied everything together with ropes.
Town violet, star yellow, sky blue green;
The wheat fields have all the tones:
Old gold, copper, green gold, red gold,
Yellow gold, green, red and yellow bronze.
The brutal wind beat me, yet I stood.
Everything not fixed was scattered.
What does a man get for his toil
When his thoughts are grief and heartache,
His dreams brooding, and speech foolish?
My love of art drove away human love.
Like the ox of St. Luke, patron of painters,
I shouldered the stupefying yoke.
Immortal is the art that creates life.
What am I in the larva of myself,
With the sun in my head
And a thunderstorm in my heart?
On other planets lit by other suns,
May there also be shapes and lines and colors.
Over other people’s wisdom,
I preferred my own madness
Giving strength and brilliance
To the full sun and the blue sky,
To the scorched and melancholy fields,
Their delicate scent of thyme.
The dark silver of the olive trees,
Green saddened by gray and black,
The sickly pink smile of the last autumn rose—
My life is here, among these clods of earth.
Often I’m like a sleepwalker,
Not knowing what I’m doing.
Yet leaving enchantment behind,
Showing what’s true, and possible:
In one canvas, a feeling of anxiety;
In the other, calm, a great peace.
************
DANIEL WILLIAMS
I believe the poet's responsibility in society is to record experience of a natural
world. Therefore:
Poem with Pulaski
chopping wood with a pulaski
each bite of the blade leaves a
white tongue of oak on the duff
a bird's beak in the silvered branch
a trail of wet down my cheek
from under my cap
I will remember none of this
sitting by the perfect fire
20 degrees outside all around
the flames themselves will speak
to me softly of other things
they are the poet's voice
poem and pulaski are one
************
SILLY DRACO
This poem is called "The Dead Wear Masks" and is about depression, and how
one should talk about things in order to help yourself or others. It is not good to
hold these things inside, and is sometimes hard to talk about but in the end it
always helps. And so this is my poem, written truly from the heart.
This is dedicated to all the lost souls
who haven't got a word
and have lost sight of their goals
And have pains they can't heal
with a smiling face full of panic
nothing in this world can reveal
and their lives become frantic,
all is lost
Cause the dead wear masks
to hide the unseen scars
and nobody knows so nobody asks
about the pain in their hearts
behind the dead man's mask
But the blinding pain is real
and the broken scars exist
you just cannot feel
when your hand is a fist
and your world crashes down
When the only light goes out
your mind decays from the stress
how can you say what you cannot say
how can you show what you cannot see
how can you heal an invisible wound
A million unsaid words
a million unseen horrors
a million pent up pains
all waiting to explode
leaving you numb
When it's all said n done
and you're all hollow inside
the real pain has just begun
cause there's nowhere to confide
you are dead
And the only thing you can do
the only thing you can do
the only thing to do
is wear a mask
And maybe one day
the masks will all come down
and wash the pain all away
but till that day comes around
on their broken hearts they will stay
And so the dead wear masks
to hide the unseen scars
and all will know and all will ask
how to heal the pain in their hearts
behind the dead man's mask
And this is my mask
************
AMELIA CYPERT
Shut Out
A prisoner screaming for release
bound to clumsy, stumbling, embarrassing feet—
a hopeful artiste,
begs attention.
Locked within the prison of thought,
my words fade into the ether.
Ensconced in isolation I speak
silently
on paper.
Words are my emancipator,
freeing my captured soul.
With rapid strokes on a keyboard my fingers
unleash my emotions.
Not a part of society's
history,
watching life unfold outside,
I focus my forlorn rage within
and find freedom as I write.
Van Gogh in Arles
Against the mistral I shoved
The feet of my easel into the earth,
Pushed in iron pegs to secure it,
And tied everything together with ropes.
Town violet, star yellow, sky blue green;
The wheat fields have all the tones:
Old gold, copper, green gold, red gold,
Yellow gold, green, red and yellow bronze.
The brutal wind beat me, yet I stood.
Everything not fixed was scattered.
What does a man get for his toil
When his thoughts are grief and heartache,
His dreams brooding, and speech foolish?
My love of art drove away human love.
Like the ox of St. Luke, patron of painters,
I shouldered the stupefying yoke.
Immortal is the art that creates life.
What am I in the larva of myself,
With the sun in my head
And a thunderstorm in my heart?
On other planets lit by other suns,
May there also be shapes and lines and colors.
Over other people’s wisdom,
I preferred my own madness
Giving strength and brilliance
To the full sun and the blue sky,
To the scorched and melancholy fields,
Their delicate scent of thyme.
The dark silver of the olive trees,
Green saddened by gray and black,
The sickly pink smile of the last autumn rose—
My life is here, among these clods of earth.
Often I’m like a sleepwalker,
Not knowing what I’m doing.
Yet leaving enchantment behind,
Showing what’s true, and possible:
In one canvas, a feeling of anxiety;
In the other, calm, a great peace.
************
DANIEL WILLIAMS
I believe the poet's responsibility in society is to record experience of a natural
world. Therefore:
Poem with Pulaski
chopping wood with a pulaski
each bite of the blade leaves a
white tongue of oak on the duff
a bird's beak in the silvered branch
a trail of wet down my cheek
from under my cap
I will remember none of this
sitting by the perfect fire
20 degrees outside all around
the flames themselves will speak
to me softly of other things
they are the poet's voice
poem and pulaski are one
************
SILLY DRACO
This poem is called "The Dead Wear Masks" and is about depression, and how
one should talk about things in order to help yourself or others. It is not good to
hold these things inside, and is sometimes hard to talk about but in the end it
always helps. And so this is my poem, written truly from the heart.
This is dedicated to all the lost souls
who haven't got a word
and have lost sight of their goals
And have pains they can't heal
with a smiling face full of panic
nothing in this world can reveal
and their lives become frantic,
all is lost
Cause the dead wear masks
to hide the unseen scars
and nobody knows so nobody asks
about the pain in their hearts
behind the dead man's mask
But the blinding pain is real
and the broken scars exist
you just cannot feel
when your hand is a fist
and your world crashes down
When the only light goes out
your mind decays from the stress
how can you say what you cannot say
how can you show what you cannot see
how can you heal an invisible wound
A million unsaid words
a million unseen horrors
a million pent up pains
all waiting to explode
leaving you numb
When it's all said n done
and you're all hollow inside
the real pain has just begun
cause there's nowhere to confide
you are dead
And the only thing you can do
the only thing you can do
the only thing to do
is wear a mask
And maybe one day
the masks will all come down
and wash the pain all away
but till that day comes around
on their broken hearts they will stay
And so the dead wear masks
to hide the unseen scars
and all will know and all will ask
how to heal the pain in their hearts
behind the dead man's mask
And this is my mask
************
AMELIA CYPERT
Shut Out
A prisoner screaming for release
bound to clumsy, stumbling, embarrassing feet—
a hopeful artiste,
begs attention.
Locked within the prison of thought,
my words fade into the ether.
Ensconced in isolation I speak
silently
on paper.
Words are my emancipator,
freeing my captured soul.
With rapid strokes on a keyboard my fingers
unleash my emotions.
Not a part of society's
history,
watching life unfold outside,
I focus my forlorn rage within
and find freedom as I write.
