The Visual Word Working Blog

SCENE WITH BIRCHES

Tom Thomson was here

moving alone through these woods

rucksack on his back

images forming behind his eyes

seeing this the way he or Harris or Varley did

not the way you and I do.

Tom Thomson was here

stepping back for perspective

seeking the one vantage point

from which he could see the composition

in his abstract mind

Ansel Adams said it’s all about knowing where to stand:

where to place the tripod, or the easel.

Tom Thomson was here

he sat quietly on his canvas stool

sorting tubes and brushes and knives.

He closed his eyes for darkness

then opened them for light

to see the vision fresh

new-made in front of him

needing only his inner sight

and his guided hand

to make it appear on the board

interpreted.

Tom Thomson was here

spending the day alone

letting the shadows drift

making the birches live

with sure, unhurried strokes

portraying the scene

as no one had ever seen it before.

Tom Thomson was here

alone.

A few days later

his body was found in Canoe Lake.

(Image © Derik Hawley, 2012.)

Daybreak Be Gone

Be gone and let me be, oh obdurate morning
‘Tis an unwelcome and unasked invasion of my privacy
For here am I, lost in mysterious musing
of what is, and was, and what may yet come to be.

Your glaring, blaring, beacon is tearing.
Its uncaring, tumultuous, slashes through venetian apertures
Leave lacerations in the ebon body of deepest contemplation
rupturing ruminations with unbidden coercion

I wish only to be alone, without distraction
Left, to my precarious darkness of mind, and mood, and thought
where ideographic thoughts intertwine
unrepentant and unsolvable in their murky complexity

I have no desire to cross that bridge to daylight musings
To become the jilted paramour in an elopement of my reflections
Abandon us then, my conjecture and I, to our rayless bliss
Come not, and grant us furlough to tarry in our nocturnal embrace.

Be gone, be gone and let us be.

©George Arnold March7th, 2012

My Heart to Yours

Come to me, love,

and we will seek that place

where only truest lovers can be found.

We will make that mysterious elopement together

beyond the distraction,

beyond the voices and the teeming of life.

Let us love each other in obdurate oblivion of the world,

holding only each other’s hearts and souls,

to the exclusion of all else.

Hiding in our privacy,

let our fingertips intertwine,

the joy of our passion becoming a bridge,

from my heart to yours,

from your soul to mine.

Let the heat of our love

be as steam in the midnight,

filling and penetrating the most precarious apertures,

that the morning light may find us

surely united,

indivisibly as one,

and forever true.

Seeking the Bridge

The mind whirls,
perched on the edge of precarious thought.

With obdurate intent I probe psychic apertures,
archly insisting on cogent arrival
at the morning of realization,

That tenuous point
from which synapses intertwine,
forming a mysterious connection.

Relentless pursuit rules
A harsh and tyrannical dictator.

Mental distraction be damned!
I must realize that vantage,
that vicarious elopement
by which to bridge emotion and belief
privacy exposed no obstacle in dogging that elusive spoor.

For it is there, and only there,
that I can find the path to expression.

I know it exists if only because self delusion says it must,
hiding between the cinder piles of dogma and fancy,
caustic pitfalls to be avoided in the pursuance of clarity.

The path to enlightenment and enlightening is here, But where?

©George Arnold February 26^th, 2012.

DISNEY LIED

Reality check:

no kiss awakes the dead, ever

there is no talking cricket

no flying elephant

no metamorphing pumpkin

no Beast made princely

no wicked witch thwarted

no dragon slain.

Wish upon a star? see where that gets you

Santa Claus? ask that ghetto kid

Easter Bunny? a predator

Tooth Fairy? a night prowler

Tinkerbell? a glint of illusion.

Yes:

The magic wand is a powerless piece of stick

magic ring a bit of metal

magic cape a length of fabric

magic elixir a fool’s quaff

magic spell a silly saying.

El Dorado is a leaden slag-heap

Fountain of Youth a stinking sewer

Bluebird of Happiness a carrion crow.

There is no Arizona

no gold at the end of the rainbow

no Shangri-la

no Paradise.

We live in vain, die in despair.

And yet we hope --

always, we hope.

THAT I CAN GIVE