Las Flores Rotas

Frits Thaulow, "Red Church Wall in Venice" (1894)

From the rotting fish,

from the lazy cats,

beneath the squashed summer fruits,

your glory grows:

Maria della Salute, Ca d'Oro,

Colleoni, Pallazo Ducale...

I count my coins on the steps,

place my ham on the dry bread

and remember the Giorgione

with its fretful tattered clouds

bearing the title:

        "la tempesta."

Thomas Bernhard (1931-1989). On Earth and in Hell. Translated by Peter Waugh. New York City: Three Rooms Press, 2015.

Tadeusz Makowski, "Study of a nude (Female half-nude)" (1912).

In front of the sombre mountains, a faint, lost ribbon of 

     rainbow

And between us and it, the thunder;

And down below, in the green wheat, the laborers

Stand like dark stumps, still in the green wheat.

You are near to me, and your naked feet in the sandals,

And through the scent of the balcony's naked timber

I distinguish the scent of your hair; so now the limber

Lightning falls from heaven.

Adown the pale-green, glacier-river floats

A dark boat through the gloom—and whither?

The thunder roars.  But still we have each other.

The naked lightnings in the heavens dither

And disappear.  What have we but each other?

The boat has gone.

D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930). Poetry: A magazine of verse. Vol. III, no. 4. January, 1914. Chicago: Harriet Monroe. 

Turner, "The fighting temeraire tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838 (1839)

The gold stars are sleeping,

The mirror-pond trembles,

The dawn light comes creeping

And heaven's net reddens.

The birch-tree smiles sleepily,

Her silk locks free-flowing,

Green earrings are rustling,

And silver dew glowing.

Tall nettles by the fencing

Their bright pearls are flauting

And whispering merrily:

"Good morning!"

1914

Sergei Esenin (1895-1925). Selected Poetry. Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1982. Translated by Peter Tempest. 

Sarah Goodridge, "Beauty Revealed" (1828)

"WHY should beauty endure,

Once in its perfect act

Manifest and secure?

"Although to-day retract

The breath that yesterday

Informed the body's fact,

"Still from the angry clay

Some ripe significance

Is reaped and laid away,

"Out of the husk of chance

Drawn clear, and purified

Of earthy circumstance."

So they said. I tried

To believe what they said,

Because my friend had died...

But the dead are dead.

E. R. Dodds (1893-1979). Coterie, A Quarterly. Art. Prose and Poetry. No. 3, December, 1919. London: Hendersons. 

Piero di Cosimo, "Portrait de femme dit de Simonetta Vespucci" (c. 1480)

How have I labored?

How have I not labored?

To bring her soul to birth,

To give theses elements a name and a centre!

She is beautiful as the sunlight, and as fluid.

She has no name, and no place.

How have I laboured to bring her soul into separation;

To give her a name and her being!

Surely you are bound and entwined,

You are mingled with the elements unborn;

I have loved a stream and a shadow.

I beseech you enter your life.

I beseech you learn to say "I"

When I question you:

For you are no part, but a whole;

No portion, but a being.

Ezra Pound (1885-1972). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. Vol. II, No. I, April, 1913. Chicago: Harriet Monroe.

Hans Baldung "Death and the Woman" (1520-25)

I

The stars were wild that summer evening

As on the low lake shore stood you and I

And every time I caught your flashing eye

Or heard your voice discourse on anything 

It seemed a star went burning down the sky.

I looked into your heart that dying summer

And found your silent woman's heart grown wild

Whereupon you turned to me and smiled

Saying you felt afraid but that you were

Weary of being muted and undefiled.

II

I spoke to you that last winter morning

Watching the wind smoke snow across the ice

Told of how the beauty of your spirit, flesh,

And smile had made day break at night and spring

Burst beauty in the wasting winter's place.

You did not answer when I spoke, but stood

As if that wistful part of you, your sorrow,

Were blown about in fitful winds below;

Your eyes replied your worn heart wished it could

Again be white and silent as the snow.

Galway Kinnell (1927-2014). Poems. Classic Poetry Series, 2012.

Armand Guillaumin, "Le Pont De Charenton, Ile De France" (s/f)

The eager note on my door said "Call me,

call when you get in!" so I quickly threw

a few tangerines into my overnight bag,

straightened my eyelids and shoulders, and

headed straight for the door. It was autumn

by the time I got around the corner, oh all

unwilling to be either pertinent or bemused, but

the leaves were brighter than grass on the sidewalk!

Funny, I thought, that the lights are on this late

and the hall door open; still up at this hour, a

champion jai-alai player like himself? Oh fie!

for shame! What a host, so zealous! And he was

there in the hall, flat on a sheet of blood that

ran down the stairs. I did appreciate it. There are few

hosts who so thoroughly prepare to greet a guest

only casually invited, and that several months ago.

Frank O'Hara (1926-1966). Meditations in an Emergency. Grove Press, 1967.

Mikuláš Galanda, "Family" (1930-1932)

on the phone from prison my father asks

if i am happy. every conversation

yields the same weight. how can i say

that i'm not, that i take everything

for granted while he stays frozen

in plexiglass through his life

and the next. i kill him

over and over again in my poems, write

the eulogy, mourn loud and send his body

to the lake. while he is alive i cannot 

speak to him normally, a tooth shocking

in absence. i will always tell him

that i'm the best i've ever been.

Lily Someson. Columbia Poetry Review, no. 32, Spring 2019. Chicago: Columbia College Chicago. 

Henri Martin, "Étude por 'La Moisson'" (1919)

I remember after people are gone thinking of things I should have said but didn't.

I remember having a casual chat with God every night and usually falling asleep before I said, "Amen".

I remember that my father's favorite movie star was Rita Hayworth.  

I remember buying things that were too expensive because I didn't like to ask the price of things. 

I remember trying to visualize what my insides looked like.

I remember bright orange light coming into rooms in the late afternoon. Horizontally.

I remember "sick" jokes.

I remember wondering why anyone would want to be a doctor, and I still do.

I remember thinking about whether or not one should kill flies.

Joe Brainard (1942-1994). I Remember. New York City: Granary Books, 2001.

Johann von Tscharner, "The Resting One" (1924)

For years I have seen

dead animals on the highway

and grieved for them

only to realize they are

not dead animals

they are t shirts

or bits of blown tire

and I have found

myself with this

excess of grief

I have made with

no object to let

it spill over and

I have not known

where to put it or

keep it and then today

I thought I know 

I can give it to you

Heather Christle. Mistake en Poem-a-Day, September 18, 2017. Academy of American Poets

link: https://poets.org/poem/mistake

   NOT that I love thy children, whose dull eyes

See nothing save their own unlovely woe,

Whose minds know nothing, nothing care to now, —

But that the roar of thy Democracies,

Thy reigns of Terror, thy great Anarchies,

Mirror my wildest passions like the sea

And give my rage a brother ——! Liberty!

For this sake only do thy dissonant cries

Delight my discreet soul, else might all kings

By bloody knout or treacherous cannonades

Rob nations of their rights inviolate

And I remain unmoved —and yet, and yet,

These Christs that die upon the barricades,

God knows it I am with them, in some things.

OSCAR WILDE (1854-1900). The Poems of Oscar Wilde. Vol. I. New York: F. M. Buckles & Company, 1906. 

Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo, "Lady Reading on a Bench"

On the bed

A bowl of good peaches

Luscious as the red curtain

Melting over the open window

Where your reflection distorts

Like cruel comedy

And the letter you hold

Imports the death scene

Of someone you were supposed to love

Yet your face is so yellow

Go on sweet

Leave it

Temper your breasts

Against the now new bed

Send the fruit to profane the floor

You may sink your teeth

Into anything with succulence

Go on then

And with certain laughter

Jeffrey Brown. Columbia Poetry Review, 1, 1988. Chicago: Columbia College Chicago.

Egon Schiele, "Death and girl" (1915)

What if I lost all those things

Humor, wit, beauty

What if I lost it all

And there was nothing left of me

And what if I were just a corpse

And what if I were less than that

Would you still love me

Would you tunnel into the ground

Until the sun came out

So that you could have my body to hold

What if the sun were gone

Would you hold my body in the dead of night

Once he did

Once he did hold my body in the dead of night

If I forgot him then, will I forget him still

If I always loved him, will I love again

Dark night that is always calling

My body is thin paper to the air

We call conversation

Dark language

My body is dark red paper tonguing

The sun of the grave that I am in

Will you go tunneling through my grave

To find the setting sun

Will you go through my grave to get to another sun

One that is deep and blue

And fiery

Dorothea Lasky (1978). Columbia Poetry Review, no.24. Chicago: Columbia College Chicago, 2011.

2

Cornelis Van Poelenburch, "The Expulsion from Paradise" (after 1646)

I remember very old people when I was very young. Their houses smelled funny.

I remember a boy. He worked in a store. I spent a fortune buying things from him I didn't want. Then one day he wasn't there anymore.

I remember daydreams of dying and how unhappy everybody would be.

I remember that life was just as serious then as it is now.

I remember a girl in school one day who, just out of the blue, went into a long spiel all about how difficult it was to wash her brother's pants because he didn't wear underwear.

I remember saying "thank you" in reply to "thank you" and then the other person doesn't know what to say.

I remember that I never cried in front of other people.

I remember seeing colors and designs by closing my eyes very tightly. 

I remember monkeys who did modern paintings and won prizes.

I remember "I like to be able to tell what things are."

Joe Brainard (1942-1994). I Remember. New York City: Granary Books, 2001.

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, "Tavern" (1909)

I remember my first erections. I thought I had some terrible disease or something.

I remember how good a glass of water can taste after a dish of ice cream.

I remember when I went to a "come as your favorite person" party as Marilyn Monroe. 

I remember a dream I have had often of being able to fly. (Without an airplane.)

I remember when I worked in an antique-junk shop and I sold everything cheaper than I was supposed to.

I remember the clock from three to three-thirty.

I remember many Septembers. 

I remember when I thought that I was a great artist. 

Joe Brainard (1942-1994). I Remember. New York City: Granary Books, 2001.

Utagawa Kunisada, "Black" (1847-1852)

They asked me if I was on fire and I said No no no no

no no no I did not want to make trouble I was lying I was

on fire on my legs and on my hands I was ashamed I tried

to hide my legs by kneeling I set the grass on fire The colors 

were a pleasant green and orange combination I liked it and smoke

I was not in pain or on pain I was on fire and lying why

to the people Obviously they loved me were warm and pink

and vocal on a promising spring day with electric buds Electrifying 

I mean I mean bright bright bright like a likeness of me I wanted

to gnaw and to gnaw on an extra large slice of my likeness

Heather Christle (1980). Columbia Poetry Review, no. 23, 2010. Chicago: Columbia College Chicago.

James Ensor, "Skeletons Fighting over the Body of a Hanged Man" (1891)

9 am mimosa

buoyed sour

stomach acid

pouring over

on a red eye

into massive

coronary i'm

a bull's balls

at a rodeo

drinking from

a broken glass

someone told me

go to spain

for the beaches

and the living

i would rather

live in sweden

in the summer

longer days

Leonard Morrison. Columbia Poetry Review, no. 32, Spring 2019. Chicago: Columbia College Chicago. 

François-Nicolas Chifflart, "Meditations" (1865)

Nobody is missing from the garden. Nobody is here:

only the green and black winter, the day

waking from sleep like a ghost,

a white phantom in cold garments

climbing the steps of a castle. It's an hour

when no one should arrive. Just a few drops

of chilly dew keep falling

from the bare branches of winter

and you and I in this circle of solitude,

invincible and alone, waiting

for no one to arrive, no, nobody will come

with a smile or a medal or a budget

to make us an offer or ask for anything.

This is the hour

of fallen leaves, their dust

scattered over the earth, when

they return to the depths of being and not being

and abandon the gold and the greenery,

until they are roots again,

and again, torn down and being born,

the rise up to know the spring.

O heart lost

inside me, in this man's essence,

what bountiful change inhabits you!

I am not the culprit

who has fled or turned himself in:

misery could not exhaust me!

Your own happiness can grow bitter

if you kiss it every day,

and there is no way of freeing oneself

from the sunlight except to die.

What can I do if the star chose me

to flash with lightning, and if the thorn

guided me to the pain of so many others?

What can I do if every movement

of my hand brought me closer to the rose?

Should I beg forgiveness for the winter,

the most distant, the most unattainable

for that man who used to seek out the chill

without anyone suffering because of his happiness?

And if somewhere on those roads

—distant France, numerals of fog—

I return to the extent of my life:

a lonely garden, a poor district,

and suddenly this day equal to all others

descends the stairs that do not exist

dressed in irrisistible purity,

and there is the odor of sharp solitude,

of humidity, of water, of being born again:

what can I do if I breathe my own air,

why will I feel wounded to death?

PABLO NERUDA (1904-1973). "Jardín de invierno/Winter Garden", 2002. Washington: Copper Canyon Press. 

Edvard Munch, "Knelende kvinneakt" (1921)

without the rain       i undress the night myself

like the skin of bruised fruit      i can’t help but

push. there is no riot        of thunder slick & heavy

under the tongue,       no flood to cleanse     the sin

i wear as if        it is only a layer        of blush

on my cheeks, the colour of roses.          the colour

of august & my quiet       undoing. on the train

ride home, it felt good     to admit i was lonely.

to look out      the window      & see vague lights

floating      around each other    beneath the faint

glow of broken street lamps     just light dancing

with more        light, orbiting        the same circle,

taunting me       with bright mouths.     the world

goes on touching everything      except this strange

body of mine.       sick with longing,        i undress

the night       the way           a lover would. the way

an ampersand        curls into itself –      arms always

seeking, nothing                    waiting on either side.

DONNALYN XU (Sydney, Australia). "Vague Lights". Online:   https://www.palettepoetry.com/2020/05/11/vague-lights/