Tag: art

Desert Riders [Tribute to Tinariwen]

The Sahara beckons with music
Salty and sweet these hard rugged men sing
Battling those wars of men and nature

Poetry and music to cope
Poetry and music to hope

Barren sand and machine guns discordic
With trusty steed and gourd these men take wing
Clear-blue fountains discovered by venture

Poetry and music to find anew
Poetry and music to seek fresh view

(Edit: They’re from Mali. Don’t know why I made that mistake earlier. Guess I had Libya on my mind. Sorry.)

Image: https://goo.gl/images/sV4itH

Creation of Art

Does the artist create his art, I now wonder
Must he insist, animate canvas with his one answer?
Perhaps there is something moving his brush
Can it be? A depiction of more than just his mush?

Does he feed on some invisible fruit?
Depicting the songs of Parnassus’ choral muse?
Constructing the groves of spirit, and streams of truth?
Does his art belong to himself, or to the entire world?

Interpretations vary, the artist is baffled
But he must make up an answer, appear unruffled
(For his hand –or umm, mouth– holds the brush)

Image: https://goo.gl/images/16dGhn

To Grandmaster Will

(Hail) Eternal Bard. Your works never cease to amaze
Harrys galore, and a methodical madman
Mars peddling soothsayers, PUCK! Rhythm ablaze
Venetian merchants, passionate Moors, CALIBAN!
Storm King, do-be-dos ’bout nothing, A hunchback drake

I could never hope to match, my beat’s in a can
My vocabulary a pittance, my characters cardboard
But I can read and hoard, and sail your fjord(if those troupes ever come here again) making your world my own.

A visit to the gallery

I can spend an entire day on the ground floor
Sculpture, and gaudy gold leaf Byzantine imagery
Filled with symbols galore, but I climb to the first floor
Rembrandt greets me on the staircase, I appreciate
But then Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, I can’t (unimpressed)
Maybe I’m too young, maybe I just don’t have the eyes (no interact)
My brain’s just not wired that way, I’m wasting half my day (can’t resonate)
I’d rather go back and look again at that Van Eyck.
But then a lone Da Vinci nearly escapes me
That makes my trip up the staircase worth my time

(I take one glance at the modernist block, and make a strategic retreat to the souvenir shop)

Eureka, Duality of Stability and Change

I always saw the similarities, I never saw the opposing dualities,

I’d looked through the varieties, studied many pluralities

But now, thanks to you, I see it in a simple, “Hello, hey!’

Apollo’s “Allo”, and Nysa’s “Euoi”

Muses and maenads, choruses of ordered approach and spontaneity

Science and Art, City-state and Ascetic, combine the two to find a powerful polemic

I’d seen the relationship between order and chaos, guided by some philosophers

But never imagined it in the forms of Dionysos and Apollo until you showed me later

‘Know them by their fruits’, dithyramb and paean

Indeed it is a most striking duality, ‘Eureka’ their choruses sing together

Image: Pinterest

[Poem] The Solitary Painter

The painter marvelled at his creations
Alien road traveled in coloured pigments
His brush had moved to strange machinations
Mind possessed by incorporeal figments

He hardly understood what he had done
Even his mistakes held great mysteries
He decided to take a public run
Exhibit in one of the galleries

Perhaps other people would bring greater insight to his comedies and tragedies

A solitary man came the first day
“Wonderful, wonderful,” he’d walk and say
His finger stopping an inch away from paint
Without touch, the paintings’ magic was faint
“But those two don’t fit the theme,” he complained
How could he see the magical pattern

When he refused to be sucked into another world by the magical lantern?

(Note: People are normally not allowed to touch paintings in galleries. This nice man was just following the rules.)