Klimt Moment

We’ll sit where we sat before, above the stream,

watching the golden eels of sunlight dart and shimmy

above bronze coloured stones to the sound of water searching

out all the possible solutions to the conundrum of strewn rocks

while somewhere beneath us a hollow-sounding tock tock

drums our time away.

Let us weave time and stream into a cloak, a Klimt creation:

magnificent flowing, yet enveloping us in a precise moment

of pleasure. Let us hold it in our eyes so we may see it, wear it

when times are harder, these moments scarcer and the glint

of gold more precious.

Poetic Imagery in Art

The photographs pinned up in Francis Bacon’s studio re-emerged in some form in his paintings, The grotesque mouth in the still from the Battleship Potemkin (above) appeared more than once.

It helps in poetry to have images all around, to know the artists and images that will inspire. For me it’s Bacon, Hopper,Goya, Bosch among others. Among Irish artists, Le Brocquy, and Martin Gail’s work in particular inspires me. In this way, I believe that the process of writing poetry, in my case at least, is very similar to that of painting.

In Klimt’s “The Kiss”, the splendour of the enwrapping mantle expresses all that needs to be expressed about their love, it is so marvellously poetic. Andrew Wyeth, an artist I enjoy very much : his knowledge of countryside in his rendering of colour and textures is special. I find his eye for the poetic in rural settings moves me. In Snow Hill, he has his past subjects dance in a space
cleared by the snow’s whiteness that leaves plenty of room for poetic musings.