Thursday, April 29, 2010

AFTER SEEING MATISSE

 

(the curvilinear steel bridge

 

             a reclining nude

 

      Matisse’s line)

 

 

 

the first two drawings

simple graphite on ivory     allure

 

a woman standing, nude

flesh captured not by marks

but by what is not marked

 

            her calves

            her arms

 

            lines

                        slightly bent

           

     but mass,

  volume, not

       desire, but

     woman

 

 

 

just        seeing that

 

 

       the buses on Monroe

                        on Michigan Avenue

                        everywhere!

                        emblazoned

                        MATISSE

 

 

two silver-haired women

stand before Matisse

a woman in a shawl

”I don’t believe that sentence!”

she declares, “there’s no

intuition at all!  I wonder

how she felt about this picture!”

 

 

                        in a film Matisse

                        draws a school boy

                        with one hand

                        while with his left

                        he touches the boy

                        as if he were divine,

                        as if he were reading Braille,

as if to guard himself

from the boy’s innocent fire

 

 

the woman reclining

in the studio

voluptuous line

among so many others,

that line is eros

 

            two gold fish!

            swimming

            in a blue room!

 

                        floating in consciousness

 

            they have been

            swimming in your mind

            behind your eyes

 

 

a lilac branch

like a peacock’s tail

 

                        some wonderful

                                    language

                                    spilling

                             from your lips. Chirps,

                        whistles, clicks, something

                                    beyond the mind

 

            all these people

            so self-conscious, cold

            reading words

            and walls

            ghosts          waiting

            for

            something

            something real

            the words

            the fish

            the lilacs

            to shimmer or speak

            or blare out some Saint-Saens Marche Militaire Franchaise!

 

in Millennium Park

two copper mockingbirds

perch on a bench

            and yelp out

            their hillbilly calls

while skinny Russian girls

in pink slippers!

Slurp frappacinos

 

            Oh Matisse!

            everyone’s

            snapping photographs

            at the cloud gate,

            the mercury-skinned bean

            reflecting the cosmos,

            a pulsar!

            circumscribed by

            the magnificent line!

             

Matisse’s nude bathers

inspect themselves

sure in their being

sure in their eros

 

           

            after the show

            people can no longer see

            exhausted,

            faces washed

 

            they were          somewhere

            for a moment          (open)

            THAT

            is radical invention

            before they returned

 

 

the fish?

the line?

the blue?

 

            and then

            the words

MATISSE

MATISSE

MATISSE

from every

light pole

 

            You see him

            In those apples in a bowl!

            those gold fish!

            that lilac!

            that woman’s leg

 

the words

you scribble

a line

before breakfast

in Tangier

consciousness

radical invention

unguarded / breathe

1 comment:

Not Specified said...

Matisse plays
played
is playing
to the sound
of children

perhaps
he is
the room
the
little bird
Anais Nin
wrote about

or maybe he is
justified
in simplicity
touching his brush
in solid hues
contour lines
blue women
in
red rooms
angry at Picasso
in
a

genius

tantrum