Keeping a Calm Spirt

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you. If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, or being hated don't give way to hating, and yet don't look to good, nor talk to wise.....Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Learning to listen

Learn to be silent. Let your quiet mind listen and absorb!
Pythagoras 500 B.C.

500 Years of Female Portraits

Wow! Watch this incredible two minute film!!

Ocean View

Here is another almost finished oil painting. I tried to get away from my dark paintings with this one:) I was just looking for a beautiful peaceful scene, that would arouse a meditative feeling in the observer?

Still Life Study Large Oil Painting

Another large still life study oil painting on my studio easel. You start off with a vision of the painting inside your head, invariably it turns out differently than you imagined. Sometimes better, sometimes worse , sometimes your not sure?? With this painting I’ve been in the not sure mode, I like the large scale,the flowers, green vase and red tomatoes. I’m not thrilled with the white cloth and dark background?? Will I change it? I doubt it, I’d rather spend the time on a new painting instead and carry over lessons learned?
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Fallen Flower

I have two huge camellia bushes in my backyard, each about sixteen feet high. They bloom all winter, covered with hundreds of flowers from December through May. Their beautiful color against the stark winter grays and muted browns are a welcomed sight every day. I'm sure there is a good analogy here about plants, people and life? that if planted in the perfect location we will thrive.

Little Flower

Little flower I see you among the thorns
In a landscape so large and barren
I see your petals blush with delight
To be caught in the gaze of another’s sight

Your smiles inviting please come in
To my barren landscape where I grow
Tell me about life in other places
Of brooks and hollows where I might go

And feel the gaze of another’s sight
To see my beauty’s form and color
For that beauty I could not see
Until you gazed down on me

Before our meeting in the landscape barren
So large and empty was my view
My petals blush with delight
As I bask in your sight

Beautiful flower I admire your beauty
So fresh and colorful is your view
You make the sunrise
Just to shine down on you

It shines with more brilliance at your sight
Radiant colors I never knew
In this landscape large and barren
So big and empty until I saw you.

Painting in Progress

My Villa

Please come to my villa Nelly
we can drink and dance
I promise I won’t tell

We can laugh and play
you can even bring your cat Lance
please come to my villa Nelly

We can climb all day
and do more, I pray
I promise I won’t tell

We can write and paint
maybe all day; whatever you say
please come to my villa Nelly

You can go to the market
and buy to your hearts content
I promise I won’t tell

I hope you read
the last letter I sent
please come to my villa Nelly
I promise I won’t tell.




Written in response to Poetry Thursday's weekly challenge (April 26th): Write a Villanelle. Yes I too had to Google villanelle to find out exactly what the poetic form was!

Words.....a letter of love

With words we talk to God
words can give comfort and healing
words can hurt and destroy
words can tell lies

and fool those that listen
words can speak truth
but never be heard
words can be in the dictionary

but never read
words can be on peace treaties
and burn up when the bombs fall
words can describe your beauty

that you did not see
words can show humility
and say they are sorry
words can be pompous and arrogant

wallowing in their sin
words can be meek and humble
ready to lift up and encourage
words can add comfort to your sorrow

changing your tears to laughter
words can make you remember
what’s important, and forget what is not
words can lift up your spirits

and move you to action
words can hide where you don’t see them
until it is too late
words can be the name of a person

that you will never forget
words can be their life story
words can try to describe
how wonderful that life was

but they always fall short
words cannot replace love
but they can say it is real
words can try to say thank you

for all you have meant to me
words can say I miss you
when I mean adore
words can say I love you

I hope you know how much
words show our humanity
the good and the bad
words help us to understand life

words can be the Constitution
or the Gettysburg address
words can be Shakespeare sonnets
or just a child’s letter of love

words help tell our story
about civilization and what we’ve done
words, our letter to the future
about all our hope’s and dreams.


In response to Inspire me Thursday weekly challenge "Words" (April 26th)

The Local Bar

I visited the local bar last night
The lady I sat next to wanted to talk
I felt sorry for her, so I thought why not
She told me all about her life

She told me about her daughter moving away
She told me about her husband living in LA
She told me she lives here in Boston
She sounded lonely, cut off and apart

The daughter had moved away to marry
She would be moving soon, to be closer
To her daughter, the one that moved away
The one that she loves, and misses so much

Her masterpiece, the jewel in her crown
After we had talked a while I tried to eat dinner
The bar was very busy, a big convention was in town
Three bartenders, two girls and a guy

Were overloaded with requests
For food and drinks and service with a smile
“I need some more water”
“I’ll take a beer”

“I’d like a glass of wine”
“Can I see a menu”
“Where is my food”
“Please pass the ketchup”

They moved with grace and good speed
With fluid motions learned over time
It was like watching Swan Lake, or even Giselle
They moved with such motions, it seemed like a dance

They didn’t have to think which way to go
Their bodies knew where everything was
The glasses up above
The wine bottles below

They knew how to uncork
While telling a joke and giving a nod
“I’ll be with you in one minute”
A quick “Hello” or “Goodnight”

The conventioneers continued to pile in
All the aisles were packed
No one could move
They all wanted service, no one could wait

"We are famished and thirsty"
"What’s taking so long"
"Please hurry up"
"I’ll take my check"

"Where is my food"
"Where is the menu"
"Where can I take a leak"
The convention piled in

Swan Lake continued without taking a pause
At the end of the night, they were exhausted
From seeing hundreds of different faces
It all became a blur

Of being a friend and companion
To all in their sight
A smile where needed
A laugh when required

Trying their best to do the right thing
I hope they are actors in training
They put on a great show
On this different stage

They deserved an ovation
But I don’t think it came
Drinks make people hazy
They do not see Swan Lake, or even Giselle

They only see their glass empty
And they want desert
So I send this bravo
For watching the show.

A Fragile Moment

For a fragile moment
I was caught in your Golden Web

As you moved closer
My heart Increased Its beat

I started breathing deeply
In this trance we meet

Your teeth showed their brilliance
Your lips were fresh and sweet

Your hair framed a picture
That had beauty beyond my reach

To hear your voice and laughter
Full of grace and persuasion

Your words had excitement
They refresh my look on life

In that time slowed moment
I tried to take you in

To remember you for always
To let destiny take its place.

Broken Wings

Vaguely sinister imagery
White towers in empty rooms
Wondering who will call
The informed and raucous rabble

Black ties and golden gowns
Paint by numbers, who will win
Decades of ignorance, hours of light
Expressions off the past

Deformed faces recorded as they appear
A new vision about to unfold
Another reality about to expose
Casting their mold

Deciding which way to go
Precision and detail with uncanny care
Appears gradually from nothing
Neglecting the waste, as God closely watches

A new work is brought to life
They sterilize and wash with endless debate
Whether it has singularity or form
Poetic composition not based on the norm

Rhythms to answers of remarkable style
Facial features reveal all they know
Articles cover the landscape
Explains what it means

A redefinition of history
Merely suggesting greatness
Rigorous interpretation expands the boundaries
Including the unknown

Attempts to convey aesthetic traditions
Impulses neutralized about the times
Profoundly inspired, breaking down culture
With typical strategy of unknown attire

A brief definition of a theory gone askew
A puzzle of originality
A calibration of our time
A fascination with conception

An engagement with attire
Anticipating the path of a culture laid bare
Cast-iron will force recognition
Preliminary impressions of style and technique

Compelling color infused with symbols
Visual glory raised to a new height
Harsh evaluations of a destiny gone wrong
Applied with rage and method apart

Eliminating the non essentials
Introducing clarity intangible to the unlearned
Despite instability, the integrity shows through
Distortions rest comfortably

Horizons projected to change the course
Belief is made known
Experience exposed
Obscurity made observable

Powerful proclamations of felt emotions
Suggesting unconventional composition
Fragmentation of form and color
Arbitrary appearance of scandalized acts

The music intensifies the abstract design
Logic preserved, tradition gone wrong
Fragmenting into sections
Of impenetrable belief

A love of the merging figures
A background of defiance
A quirky shift, a muted song
Personal visions pushed to the limit

Declaring their value, fragmenting the times
Society sacrificed, humans reborn
Distorted identity heighten anxiety
Human anatomy loses its way

Freed from instructions
Alienation reborn
Sadness specified, but not easily understood
Symbolized essence of texture and shape

Acute awareness of postmodern divide
Meaningless ridicule, bankrupt minds
Prefabrication of everyday desire
Originality gone functional

A new title at risk
Balancing the forces
Blurring the edges
Of a vision fulfilled.

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