So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Sara Teasdale’s poem, Spirit’s House.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

HOMELAND

still starry night
and moonlight to read by
the book of my homeland
a page for the cloudy meadow
a page for the arid plain
a page for the white mountain
a page for the roiling sea

a page for a forest of corpses
smoke from the ash
dead embers of the branch
of skeletal trees
the air does not move here
and it is hard to breathe

phantoms fathoms deep
purveyors of all my wrongs
kick the dust from their graves
to haunt my faltering steps
and whisper to my listening ear
of the clawing forgotten past

father why
mother why
were you not an aegis
against this cruel world
that fashioned fanged Cerberus
from the marble of my child soul?

and yet there is the all-consuming sun
the page of the desert of
my solitary wandering
the sand and dry wind will cleanse me
of my shame
and though I am not blameless
my god is just and decrees
to reckon and remember
to finger my rosary
each bead a wicked deed
and count them always

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OUR INSPIRATION

SPIRIT’S HOUSE
by Sara Teasdale

From naked stones of agony
I will build a house for me;
As a mason all alone
I will raise it, stone by stone,
And every stone where I have bled
Will show a sing of dusky red.
I have not gone the way in vain,
For I have the good of all my pain;
My spirit’s quiet house will be
Built of naked stones I trod
On roads where I lost sight of God.

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Notes:

Sara Teasdale, 1884-1933. Born in St. Louis, Missouri.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sara-teasdale
Link to Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse?contentId=13729

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Life is far too important a thing ever to talk seriously about.

Oscar Wilde

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Sappho’s poem, The Rose.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

SOFT RED ROSE

Soft red rose. Transcendent.
Your four petals turn—
curled, young, and eager,
like pubescent lips,
wrapped tight in your core—
into four more,
and four more in turn,
turning again and yet again,
until they singe the far-flung corners
of Love’s sublime experiment.

Soft red rose. Transcendent.
Your petals blush,
flicks of flame,
and dart like tongues,
from your mouth agape,
wet with dew
to lick the outer walls
of Love’s crimson kingdom.

Soft red rose. Transcendent.
Yours is the musk of two young lovers.
Where does She end and He begin?
Each is whole in the soul of the other.
O goddess of Love! You
sigh and unfold,
sigh and unfold.
You are both wine and toper,
both quivering limbs—
petals bent—
smiles brimming
with unspoken words
of breathless adoration—

… and the yielding eye
of Time’s tumultuous tempest—
full of milk and stars—
of joy and disbelief—
of ecstasy.

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OUR INSPIRATION

THE ROSE
by Sappho

If it pleased the whim of Zeus in an idle
Hour to choose a king for the flowers, he surely
Would have crowned the rose for its regal beauty,
Deeming it peerless;

By its grace is valley and hill embellished,
Earth is made a shrine for the lover’s ardor;
Dear it is to flowers as the charm of lovely
Eyes are to mortals;

Joy and pride of plants, and the garden’s glory,
Beauty’s blush it brings to the cheek of meadows;
Draining fire and dew from the dawn for rarest
Color and odor;

Softly breathed, its scent is a plea for passion,
When it blooms to welcome the kiss of Kypris;
Sheathed in fragrant leaves its tremulous petals
Laugh in the zephyr.

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Notes:

Sappho. Born est. 620 BC on the island of Lesbos. Ancient Greek Poet.
Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/sappho
Link to Poem: https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/pos/pos07.htm
(The Poems of Sappho, by John Myers O’Hara, 1910)

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One day you will wake up and there won’t be any more time to do the things you’ve always wanted. Do it now.

Paulo Coelho

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by E. E. Cummings poem, but the other.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

FLUSHED AND TREMBLING

I’m flushed and trembling,
like a splayed young lover,
moved to the sun’s first glow of tears—
prisms of dew,
each of their grand multitude
a shining, eternal moment.

My skin is shorn.
My soul exposed,
I offer up to you like a
naked newborn
in the sun’s first glow of morn.

Will all your kisses
and tendernesses
frolic together
like children
forever?

Will they live evermore
in the ruddy reminiscence
of some drunken god or other?

The days with you!
And the nights, too!

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OUR INSPIRATION

BUT THE OTHER
by E. E. Cummings

but the other
day i was passing a certain
gate      rain
fell        as it will

in spring
ropes
of silver gliding from sunny
thunder into freshness

as if god’s flowers were
pulling upon bells of
gold      i looked
up

and
thought to myself        death
and will You with
elaborate fingers possibly touch

the pink hollyhock existence whose
pansy eyes look from morning till
night into the street
unchangingly       the always

old lady sitting in her
gentle window like
a reminiscence
partaken

softly     at whose gate smile
always the chosen
flowers of reminding

Notes:

E. E. Cummings, 1894-1962. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/e-e-cummings
Link to Poem: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/But_the_other

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I paint flowers so they will not die.

Frida Kahlo

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by T. S. Eliot’s epic poem, The Wasteland.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

A ROTTEN CORPSE

A man had died from loneliness
on a bridge.
He had wanted to jump
to end his suffering and shame.
But he had no legs,
was spent and penniless,
with only an obol for Charon,
that a passerby had tossed in his mouth
out of pity,
so he fell in a heap,
like a marionette
when its god cuts the strings,

… and no one took notice.

No one knew his name,
or from where he had come,
if he had loved his mother,
if his father had beat him like a dog,
if he had cried like a baby,
when his limbs were sawn off,
in some backwater country
for which he cared nothing—
if he had read the Bible

… and believed its promises.

Now narcissus springs
from his rotten corpse,
but no one sees or smells it.
The worried, morning crowd
crosses the bridge,
so focused
on the the tips of their noses
and pining for the meat
of tonight’s dinner table.

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OUR INSPIRATION

from THE WASTELAND
by T. S. Eliot

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  Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”

Notes:

T. S. Eliot, 1888-1965. Born in St. Louis, Missouri
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/t-s-eliot
Link to Poem: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47311/the-waste-land
To understand that last line (“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”), it is good to know that it comes from Charles Baudelaire’s poem To The Reader from his collection Flowers of Evil. Here is a nice little synopsis of that last line in both poems: https://motionverse.wordpress.com/2010/04/01/%E2%80%9Cyou-hypocrite-lecteur-%E2%80%93-mon-semblable-mon-frere%E2%80%9D/

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Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.

Pablo Picasso

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Charles Baudelaire’s poem, The Owls.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

THE QUIET HOUR

This is the quiet hour,
when the moon casts
all that’s seemingly manifest,
into doubt and shadows.

This is the quiet hour,
when all the world sleeps,
except for the horned owl
perched upon a pine tree.

Be still, my friend.
Be fearless and listen.

This is the late, breathless hour
when the storm breaks,
the world stops spinning,
and the moon freezes,
turning the river into glass,
over which you bend
to gaze at your reflection.

Be still, my friend,
be fearless.
Confront yourself,
and wrestle with

who
you
are.

The great horned owl
doesn’t ask a question.
It asks you to question.

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OUR INSPIRATION

THE OWLS
by Charles Baudelaire

‘Neath their black yews in solemn state
The owls are sitting in a row
Like foreign gods; and even so
Blink their red eyes; they meditate.

Quite motionless they hold them thus
Until at last the day is done,
And, driving down the slanting sun,
The sad night is victorious.

They teach the wise who gives them ear
That in this world he most should fear
All things which loud or restless be.

Who, dazzled by a passing shade,
Follows it, never will be free
Till the dread penalty be paid.

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Notes:

Charles Baudelaire, 1821-1867. Born in Paris, France.
See French Symbolism and the Decadent Movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decadent_movement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbolism_(arts)
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/charles-baudelaire
Link to Poem: https://fleursdumal.org/poem/156

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Creativity is contagious, pass it on.

Albert Einstein

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired Carl Sandburg’s famous little poem, The Fog.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

ASPHODEL FIELDS

Murmuring in the misty maw
in dark fields of asphodel
a cauterized face,
faceless,
stammers and halts.

For just a moment
it’s deathly still—
deathless,
dumb and mute,
without a past,
and no story to spin for a soul.

Is it a memory
that’s just on the tip
of its toothless tongue?
Had it not lighted
a coal-black lantern
to remind itself of its way?

It’s just one face—
one among many,
one among pathless, hapless,
uncountable legions.

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OUR INSPIRATION

THE FOG
by Carl Sandburg

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

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Notes:

Carl Sandburg, 1878-1967. Born in Galesburg, Illinois.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/carl-sandburg
Link to Poem: https://poets.org/poem/fog

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The creative adult is the child who survived.

Ursula K. Le Guin

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Omar Khayyám’s timeless book, The Rubáiyát.

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

IRIS

I once filled
my empty inkwell
with lonely tears
and the words I scrawled
could not be read—
neither by me,
nor anyone.

I prayed and wingèd Iris
gave me wine to drink,
infused my cheerless ink
with every color and hue—
cadmium red and ultramarine,
lemon yellow and cerulean blue,
to name just a few.

She put her hand on mine,
and plucked a feather from her wing.
She loved me,
guided my pen,
and so I began
to write words for the world to read.

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OUR INSPIRATION

from THE RUBÁIYÁT (VERSE 71)
by Omar Khayyám (trans. Edward FitzGerald)

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

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Notes:
Omar Khayyám, 1048-1131. Born in Nishapur, Persia.
Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/omar-khayaam
Link to Poem: https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2008/dec/29/poem-week-edward-fitzgerald
Link to Translator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_FitzGerald_(poet)
Rubáiyát (Persian) means quatrains: verses in four lines.

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Everybody born comes from the Creator trailing wisps of glory. We come from the Creator with creativity. I think that each one of us is born with creativity.

Maya Angelou

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!

ABOUT THE POETRY PAINTING PROJECT

For the past couple of months I have been working on a huge new secret project with my painter, Addie Hirshten, of Studio Alchemy

We selected 30 poems (from the public domain) and each day for the next 30 days I will write a poem inspired by it, and Addie will paint a painting.

Expect an outpouring of creative energy! This is the sort of big project that artists live for … where we can say what we yearn to say.  Big picture stuff. Heart wrenching stuff. I feel so inspired by the poetry we are working with AND seeing Addie’s process as well. Expect daily surprises with our posts. Expect passion. Expect love. Expect life.

So, without further ado, let’s get to today’s painting and poem, inspired by Matsuo Bashō’s poem An ancient pond …

To read this poem, click here (or scroll down near the bottom of the page)

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ADDIE’S PAINTING

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MY POEM

DESTINY
(a reimagined telling of Odin’s sacrifice)

You, old frog,
warts and all, gazed
at the still, black water
from a thicket of reeds.

You listened absently
to the sound of crickets.

How long had you stared,
with tears in your bulbous eyes,
at the moon’s reflection?

The night had been long.
It had been more than a year
since the pearl of the sun
fell in Lake Mimir.

How long, old frog, had you,
out of cowardice,
evaded your destiny?

“Enough,” croaked the frog,
“I am a friend to mankind,
and, like Prometheus,
will give you fire!”

Then you, wise, old frog,
plucked out your eye!
Oh, the pain! The socket bled.
You paid your due for the shaman’s sight,
saw the sun in your head,
lost in the riverbed.

With one momentous leap,
you dove into Lake Mimir
and braved alien-like fish,
predators all,
their long teeth arrayed
in tight rows
like the bayonets of a tyrant’s army.

You sussed out the pearl of the sun,
pulled it out of the muck,
and swam to the surface
as fast as your strong, squat legs
could carry you.

Wise, old frog!
A winged dragon you then became!
Your destiny honored! Coward no longer!
You bore the burning sun,
soared up into the sky,
black and full of stars,
and placed her on her golden throne,
and the heavens shone,
and mankind cried for joy,
once again felt her warmth,
and saw the light of day.

It had been far too long.

Wise, old frog!
You were too long a miserable chrysalis.
Still … we thank you for your sacrifice.

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OUR INSPIRATION

AN ANCIENT POND …
by Matsuo Bashō

An ancient pond!
With a sound from the water
Of the frog as it plunges in.

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Notes:
Matsuo Bashō, 1644-1694. Born in Matsuo Chuemon Munefusa, Japan, and was the most famous poet of the Edo period.
Link to Biography: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/basho
Link to Poem: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Frog_Poem_(Aston)
Found in: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/A_History_of_Japanese_Literature
Link to Translator: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_George_Aston

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There is an energy in the creative process that belongs in the league of those energies which can uplift, unify, and harmonize all of us.

Corita Kent

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Every month or so, I’ll send a newsletter via e-mail to my subscribers. More often than not, it will contain a list of my new blog posts.  You may find something in it that interests you! Or more likely, you’ll be bored to tears and curse my very existence. In either case, you should sign up. You may unsubscribe at any time!