SPECULATIONS ON VISION

Van Gogh cut off his ear

because he couldn't stand to see

unlike Salvador Dali

who ritually

plucked his eye

in a movie

  

Oh the masterpiece

by Leonardo DaVinci

Mona Lisa’s mystery

the secret posed to history

her illusive smile is merely

a mirror’s memory

  

Look, Pablo Picasso’s

abstractions and blue cubes

are the real close-up view

of two

lovers face to face

eyeball to eyeball

 See?

  

Copyright 1976 Jeanie Dean - Reprinted in Analecta Husserliana

 This poem anticipates the 1986 academic controversy about the Mona Lisa as reported in the New York Times and Los Angeles Times. Art historian and Bell Labs computer graphics engineer Lillian F. Schwartz claimed in Art & Antiques (1987) that digital analysis proves the Mona Lisa to be none other than daVinci’s self-portrait or a ‘mirror’s memory’

 Schwartz, Lillian, Laurens R. Schwartz. The Computer Artist's Handbook. W.W. Norton, 1992.

“Reason for the Smile: It's a Self-Portrait Computer Says `Mona Lisa' Is `da Vinci'; The Los Angeles Times: Dec 18, 1986; pg. 2.

“Artist's Theory Gets the Brushoff”; Ann Herold, The Los Angeles Times: Dec 19, 1986; pg. 2.

"We consider it to be a lot of nonsense and not worth the time to discuss it," said a spokeswoman for the European Paintings Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. "Every artist paints images that look, to a certain extent, like him. That's a truism in art" ," said James Beck, chairman of the Art History Department at Columbia University and author of a book on Italian Renaissance painting.

The Dynasty (a Sonnet)

 How does wealth’s angst create an empire

out of freedom’s capital, democracy?

Take old feuding families raise a dynasty.

Train armies to kill at your command. Conspire.

Invent an arch enemy that must be destroyed,

add an energy crisis to diminishing supplies.

Make the word terrorist more fearful than lies.

Squash dissent, control how news is deployed;

sell war to the public with blind fears of terror.

Monopolize technology, power and weapons.

Incite madmen to launch mass destruction

against the homeland. Watch red rockets blare.

Suspend elections to insure public safety.

Install guardians. Disband the presidency.

2003

Writer’s Cramp

  

My word it was always a tenuous relationship at best

You holed up at a table in the corner of the British museum

wearing a groove in the oh so wooden chair

Me she he them always us reading you later

daunted in the trek of mind through time

While she

Later

 

It was so much easier when I was a man

divisions of labor our minds at work distant

She was alWAyS home cooking folding the laundry

Mom doesn’t cook here anymore Mr. Marx

Mr. McDonald's does

Down on the old Latino farm by the back forty

of the rainforest where the caberos are so free

ki yippee yi ay

 

2003

Four Women

  

 Smiling in a song she nuzzles blue flowers

flying among stars dreaming the hours

  

Firekeeper hearth tender she counts the time

baking humble harvest nursing red prime

  

Hunting in green moonlight she is not afraid

resourceful and strong protecting the way

  

Weaver regal and calm she sees patterns

Winding golden circles in myriad matters

  

Hearth red earth green keep watch for life’s routine

Sea blue wind gold spin dance visions tomorrow

 2003

Nordic Ideal

they two love her

long slender blonde

as helpless as they

ideal of beauty

the ideal

marred by brutality

raped in the dark

robbed in life

she strides commandingly

in the kitchen puts the boys

in their place

at the table she drinks

speaks incessantly

until she falls they protect her

hopelessly the long blonde

their proper ideal

primeval collective nordic

untouched memory

her other men can not

knock knock

her from the pedestal

they try to repair her

 

to the one her escapades tease

promisingly the desires

the other would they never dare

touch the ideal the thrill of the hunt

always beckons

they are wed the three

 

2002

Glow in the Dark – Me and Gabriel Garcia Marquez

 

I could feel the light of my skin

as only pale can be

wrapped in a stark summer heat

white shadow of the self within

  

I could see my skin shimmering

skin glowing in the dark

in iridescent contours

vivid sheath of body lining

  

I could feel the light of my skin

a faint luminous sign 

burning a palpable light

in the dark of night shining

  

1976 

Baudelesque Virtues

 To: Alan Ginsberg

 Hey see the Earl of Gloucester 1636 “Song”

You and Frank O’Hara sledding in the Catskills

give new meaning to the sport of sledding  

From O’Hara's "Biotherm for Bill Berkson"

“Delicacy is horseshit from one who prefers Bullshit

Better a faggot than a fathead.”

They see the Buddha’s’ presence

as they pass by

 

It draws from the onlookers

the reluctant but necessary,

the perfunctory but inescapable

broken half-smile

and the lightness slides on

 2002

Dark Muse

Like chill smoke billowing in an anthill

alluring art loves to sting stun and kill

They were two brief moments strung together

hoping it wouldn’t last more than forever

There he was speaking elegant songs

sad sweet tunes that were so for long

 

On the dark stage in a pin striped suit

accompanied by violin bass and flute

His lyrics ripped hearts somber and cold

He was devious more clever than bold

His devoted patrons half mesmerized

clung on sordid sorrows memorized

 

Metaphors of demons gods and cosmic stuff

fell like crumbs from a dirty waiters cuff

Doleful songs to slit your wrist to

Darker and darker his muse grew

How deep melodious the hell he fell to

Zen mystic artifice no one quite knew

 

Catallus could not have said it better

I threw away all those old love letters

Conviction put a tourniquet of doubt

against the grave puddle of his glib mouth

Moments past from long moments to come

Sly silence hiding on a velvet smooth tongue

2001

Muse

 Come and

speak with me

Oh Muse

 

Your dance dies in our arms

Yet we strive once more

to revive your failing falling heart

 

Come and

speak awhile

Oh Muse

 

Vision’s perfection eludes

gone in lost days no return

hard to be a dying breed

 

Come and

speak with me

Oh Muse

 

Forever I hear fire. Your

mystic song wails out forgotten

tattered tainted glory

 

Come and

speak with me

Oh Muse

Come and

speak awhile

Oh Muse

2000

Planting

I speak to you as the mud on your shoe

daughters of my daughter’s unkempt trails

Come here, listen to the hubris of the vine

beneath dirty footprints sweeping leaves

when winds no longer sing their dance

in lofty heights

  

Be free my girl in their whispered silence

refuse the noise of satellite songs

step off the concrete to the forest way

there are no homing implants in trees

they remain standing holding

earth together

 

Gather your breath from blossoms

unite your thoughts to flowers

the fruit will tell you the time

of fallen skin and husk

inside the soil leaf and seed

of every being’s totality

  

Once in the earthly cycle

consciousness turns its soil

with mucky rhythmic waves

You are earth born, planted

within her wet loam

speaks your soul

 

2001

Refusing You

 

The

of your presence wanting

from me 
 apparent      to my senses knowing

refusing your request

 sad to feel your leaving

 the atmosphere
then

what desire is  for your presence  to refuse your desire  what energy is  your presence wanting  giving  ?

what is in pleasure’s denying ?

 what is the atmospheric pressure of your presence ? waiting