inkblots mutate to form pictures, alphabets, stories I did not create
***
decorated trees sway to songs emanating from masked lips imagining smiles that reach twinkling toes and luminous tips (Words are from Reena's Exploration challenge. Art my own.)
Solitude.
I dream of
panoramic
silence –
breathtaking
boundless
sanctity.
Solitude.
Wrapped in separateness
cardboard walls fallen
curling corners of instability –
no refuge in stillness.
Solitude.
Smothering starkness
madness reverberating
canyons of aloneness
overbearing.
Solitude.
Persevere
regale moments
feathered encounters
faces on screens
tenderness
in voices.
Solitude.
Grace finds me
mercy lifts soul
possibility
opens the door
panoramic.
(This is a rewrite of an older poem, last appearing here in August, 2018. I submit it for Reena’s Exploration challenge #163. Please visit her post for a most inspiring video. Art my own.)
Picture-perfect life
who doesn’t aspire?
I’ve reframed the image
time and time again
Searched for definition
in 5′ x 7′ then 8′ x 10′
But a creative soul
cannot be confined
frames now accents
for the life that flows.
For Reena’s Exploration Challenge #159. Images mine.
A cruel master
the ticking clock
So much potential
Get it done!
I rush past shadows
crumple the pages
failed attempts
mounting
What of dreams?
Of life’s destiny?
How I worship
at the altar of should
Even with positivity
fantastical notions fall short
I argue against uncertainty
meet only disapproval
There is no magic
no pre-destined fame
just dust gathering
the dead are unimpressed.
(Linking up with Reena’s Exploration challenge: follow link for video prompt. Image my own.)
Drawn to trees
ink chasing lines
yearning for definition
How to capture
strength…beauty…
such profound calm
Even as the regal Walnut
towers over this place
she dwells within me
I know
I feel her
she seeks expression
My Tree of Life.
(In Response to Eugi’s Weekly prompt: Tree of Life. I have been obsessed with drawing trees. The featured image is the beginning of a series that keeps drawing me in. Others in the series below.)
Of cubism,
I am ignorant
yet, I relate
To express
depths of perception
concurrent aspects
Of a multi –
imagined
universe
Or even
to embrace
the possibility
of oneness
in fractured
slices…
I pull apart the pieces
re-create the image
still cannot find the whole.
(Reena’s Exploration challenge this week is cubism, a subject I know nothing about, but it does seem to fit with this self-portrait I’ve been working on. Synchronicity in action.)
Artistic sensibility
hungered by the exquisite
craves expression
The critic guffaws
decries creativity
starves the impulse
Who unleashed
such nonsense,
such magical thinking!
To think beauty
once espied
can be replicated
and by such an amateur
the unskilled hand
an unworthy representative.
But the artist, unleashed
knows only magic –
this genie will not be rebottled.
(Thank you to Reena’s Explorationchallenge, whose prompt line is: The genie is not getting back in the bottle.  Art work my own – self-critiqued and found lacking, thank you.)
Blackbirds utter gloom
speak in murmurations
grey blots out sunlight
blurs definition – pencil
contemplates early nightfall.
(Tanka and sketch by yours truly)
My mind is ablaze –
ideas churning
vying for recognition –
greed is ego’s bane
hogs the spotlight
but other thoughts stir
gentler, more insightful –
will remain in shadow
till a quorum empowers
artful expression.
(This poem is from Twitter @Vjknutson. I’m linking it up with Reena’s Exploration challenge which is the featured image. Photo credit: Daniel Salmieri.)
My faith is goat steady –
surefooted in rocky times –
I keep her within sight,
safely separated.
Store her with potential –
mountain lion persistent –
set them on the other side
of vision – lock myself away.
It’s the tigress in my heart
that unsettles me the most –
certain by her pacing
that she’ll consume me
Tremble at the demands –
self being called to embrace
something higher, deeper –
an assertion of essence.
( “Contemplating Emergence” is the name of the art, that like the poem, found its origins in my dreams.)
