Tag Archives: Poetry

Blog, Poems

Virtually Exploring Art Museums…

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This morning, I’ve been thinking about, actually I’ve been exploring art and art museums virtually.  Clearly there is no possibility of travel, even to the local St. Petersburg museum of fine art, or others that are local such as the Ringling Art museum, and Dali Art museum.  However, there is amazing fine art to be viewed and museums with tours.  Some of the site’s I’ve visited this morning include https://artsandculture.google.com/project/art-camera

A google project that includes high resolution photos of paintings with an explanation of the approach that the artist was taking, and the spirit of the painting.  There is the cave art, the earliest art by man, explored and viewed at Chauvet, https://artsandculture.google.com/story/sgUB9Mfa0DpmPA

There are virtual tours also using the google street map technology, I found however that some of that was tedious and difficult to navigate, but I admire the intent and ambition to allow us to wander and browse from our couches.

David Morgan of CBS news posted a guide to museum virtual tours that I’ve done some exploring with. https://news.yahoo.com/virtual-museum-going-guide-socially-102021811.html

As I clicked thru on to the MET from this article, I found myself looking at the sculpture tour, called body language.  On the ‘Vine’ I found the video of an interpretive dance reflective of the statue, as well as description of the art.  Very interesting. https://www.metmuseum.org/art/online-features/viewpoints/the-vine

A painting featured here is a photo I took at the St. Petersburg Museum of Fine Art.

Painted in the 1830’s it is a pre-impressionist (like I really know what that means) piece that is brilliant, colorful, and even though it is not realistic, it seems to be alive.  This little girl of maybe five, alive forever, anxious to go play, but obedient to the artist, thinking not of any great future, but of only the moment, and the inspiration, or instinct for the next moment.  Bright and buoyant, captured forever, just at this moment.

Bright and Buoyant

My silent protest, I’m alive
Sitting for a moment I’m told
But I want to play, I’m five
Holding flowers, I’m bold
Of color, from the fire glow
Forever, I’ll be bright, and five
Forever here, I couldn’t know
Bright and buoyant and alive
Beyond this I’ll never show
A life beyond the age of five

Poems

Last Flag… Not Dark Yet…

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I watched a movie last night (Last Flag) that was a poem, it had a surface and had a bottom many leagues deep.  And that bottom wouldn’t stay down, it had had to come up, and there were emotions and pain at all depths.  People die in war, as do and will first responders trying to help… and the survivors are not really survivors, until they can heal.  The pain of recovery and reconciliation yields to redemption and growth, if one fights through to get there.   I cried at the end of the movie, as the depth of the poetry came forth, and they framed it with a Bob Dylan song with lyrics so clearly about the end of everything, in a voice so beautifully strained and pained.

I don’t mean for this to be dark, and there is hope as he sings it is Not Dark Yet, and for this we must be sure that there is time for us to discover the murmur of a prayer.

Not Dark Yet
by Bob Dylan

Shadows are fallin’ and I’ve been here all day
It’s too hot to sleep and time is runnin’ away
Feel like my soul has turned into steel
I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal
There’s not even room enough to be anywhere
It’s not dark yet but it’s gettin’ there.

Well, my sense of humanity has gone down the drain
Behind every beautiful thing there’s been some kind of pain
She wrote me a letter and she wrote it so kind
She put down in writin’ what was in her mind
I just don’t see why I should even care
It’s not dark yet but it’s gettin’ there.

Well, I’ve been to London and I been to gay Paris
I’ve followed the river and I got to the sea
I’ve been down on the bottom of the world full of lies
I ain’t lookin’ for nothin’ in anyone’s eyes
Sometimes my burden is more than I can bear
It’s not dark yet but it’s gettin’ there.

I was born here and I’ll die here against my will
I know it looks like I’m movin’ but I’m standin’ still
Every nerve in my body is so naked and numb
I can’t even remember what it was I came here to get away from
Don’t even hear the murmur of a prayer
It’s not dark yet but it’s gettin’ there.

 

 

Poems

Teaching at Home…

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Teaching

Yesterday, I was a total failure at teaching
Until he decided he wanted to learn
That it was better than whining, this was no fun
He wanted to fist pump when he made an e correctly
He wanted to fist pump when he made a good 3
He wanted to fist pump when he circled 7 yellow cakes
He wanted to celebrate discovering that he can do the work
And see the word red among so many others
And I went from yawning, bored, to having fun,
He made me have fun, but tired
Is this what teaching is about?
How do you do this with a class of 30?
It must be exhausting!
Maybe it’s not a virus,
Rather collective exhaustion that sent kids home
To be taught by parents and grandparents
And it will be collective exhaustion that will send them back

Poems

Keys to Success…

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Keys to success in business

  1. Be prepared
  2. See risk and opportunities
  3. Be prepared
  4. Persist through challenges
  5. Be prepared
  6. Take care of your team first
  7. Be prepared

How to Succeed

In things of intent, be prepared for all
As fate’s prospects for fortune rise or fall
Are not for you to now or ever know
But rather be prepared for all that show
For your opportunities will come
As will risk, as sure as the rising sun
And the one prepared will win the day
And in the final analysis will get to say
What goes here and what goes there
As well as what is mine and yours to share
And if you think of all the others first
Before yourself and your ambitious thirst
Then you’ll be the leader whose most prepared
When it’s time to act and for wisdom shared
And if your talent, preparation and fates allow
You’ll have success, as well as the team who follow
And joined in the joy of a journey of many wins
That build wealth of success as well as friends

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poems

Dark Thoughts…

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Dark Thoughts

Such dark thoughts that live
In his head, each betrayal and slight
For which he’ll never forgive
As he energizes for the next fight

Like a boxer, cheered on by those
Who bet on him to win
And jeered by others that chose
To hold him and pin him in

For fear of the tremendous wrath
Of this wrecking ball mind
Bent on clearing a devastating path
Through whatever he can find

That he defines as the other side
For which there can be no truce
Nor compromise he can abide
So, words and threats he lets loose

And the war is fought
With referees and judges unfair
And what we thought
Was there under his wild hair

Was not hope and care,
And positive works for all
But only the deep and dark despair
Of dark thoughts and their hopeless call

Poems

Gale Force

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Gale Force

Gale force winds make such noise
As air rushing out of the balloon
Of the Southern Gulf of Mexico
Rushing to catch up with a storm
That will plow across Eastern states
Adding fuel to energize, to create havoc
Like a little boy with no impulse control
Let loose in a room of fragile china
And figurines, with thoughts of mischief
We listen as we hear him go by
Knowing he’ll be trouble for someone
And all we can do is hope and pray
That he just runs between the aisles
Making a lot of noise

Poems

Music is in us…

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I read an article that reported that chimpanzees, our closest primate-relative will sway and dance when they hear music. Some birds, sea-lions and dogs can be trained to move with music… however chimpanzees move with music spontaneously, and have been observed in the wild rhythmically using sticks to create a beat and moving with a beat. It is theorized that music is something ingrained in our most ancient consciousness.

Music is in us

Ancient rhythms are in part of us
A feeling of connection among us
As mother child lullaby becalms us
And God’s first communication with us
Learning to express feeling between us
To call each other, and know it’s us
Then to move and dance, inspiring us
Forever, our world is better
…. Because the music is always in us

Poems

As we watch…

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Dissembling

Cranes are remarkable constructions
Capable of rising to great heights
Or wreaking massive destructions

Assembling arguments to new heights
Democracy, purpose, constitution
Or devolve into win-lose power fights

It’s only a matter of what you will believe
As the words spill out like debris
Of wreaking ball lies that confuse and deceive

It’s our choice to endure dissembling
Or push for construction, constitution
And democracy’s future assembling