Poem From & to An Kim 1977

A Poem from An Kim & A Poem for An Kim,  circa 1977

epistle to st. james

the largo from xerxes I

has been performed

again, admirably, by symphony

where are those ducks?

water ducklings meet

themselves crossing

a john hancock sky

don’t let yr heart

crouched close to the liver

(as we know) lose heart.

don’t forget you are made

a little lower than

angels

not my words, kid

but the movies

bought the book.

and probable.  don’t forget the ducks

wh had no babies

this summer anywhere in the green.

remember the park.

remember the largo caught

on the time zone radio

before your next final

exam.  you have to do

something else now.

keep both oars

in the water.  hate your fingers

for a few months.

and adore your hands.

                                                                             --An Kim

Poem of the Waxing Summer

                 

                                for An Kim

We speak of nacre nights

w/moon no higher than the nape of the neck

the city imposed upon herself

violent water in closed jar

the outer  hovelling of fire

warmth positing herself

complete, upon a shelf

a gold & blue globe

                                                I am a bellows

full with blowing

winds that ne'er crept across the floor

to flute the child’s naked brown lashes

the busting of vessels

& the clothing of hawks

the shatter of her laugh

against wood aimlessly light

the sky pale & taunt

moves a blue persimmon.

                                                                jmf-w  30 mar 77

No Longer Here

"No!" watercolor j.m.frase-white 1973

No Longer Here

Grief festers

Bites at moments unexpected

Aches on the breeze

on a day without wind

Befuddles, rides

on the back

a rodeo of pain,

 longing

                                            Lost

Memory dances

on a day with a gentle airs

Kissing of their presence

their aura fills the room

music of the mind

of the heart

inside closed eyes

Grief is the dream of

mortal wishes for eternity

loss, with hope on the edge

waves rippling on the shore

of consciousness

(With thoughts of John Robert Peters, Jr.

And so many more, this hot stilted July Sunday, the 21^st  in 2019 )

 "Farewell"  watercolor, j.m. frase-white 1973

Not Yellow Brick

A poem, left behind, from last year, a little Sunday School prayer

Mary Cassatt  The Boating Party

Paving the Way

The admonition echoed

in footsteps leading astray

walking through the hell of segregated piety

of the garden, picking  grapes with god

the forbidden fruit just that

needed and heartfelt

Another mother, casting anchor close to home

Assailed her darling doting daughter

With a wind of words, a chanty

“I don’t want to take the wind out of your sails.”

Oh, Hades road was paved

with bloods and colors not like ours

from faraway lands, exotic

or local, convenient right next door

Not hidden in the deep dark woods,

a witch, a wolf

to seduce our basket of goodies

All you/we needed was a nudge,

A hug, affection strong

A simple “I love you”

Admonition seized the day

The devil of the lord

Keeping your angel far, far away

9/5/18, revised 7/20/2019 ©James M. Frase White

Intangibles

A note flies on my wall, a reminder daily.  It was written by my friend, the poet Ann Kim, after she had caught a feather floating down the stairwell, as she walked the five flights up to my South Russell Street apartment.  In my studio I was at the easel, working on this painting.  Entering, Ann quipped, holding the feather, "Did your model just leave?"

St. Russell St. Angel, circa 1974

The note sent a few days later & typed below:

Dear James,

     The intangibles, the tangibles

 are not separate things but

manifestations of the same light.

     Friendship is why the angels,

who have no bodies or earthly

goals continue to concern

themselves with us.

                       Love,

                                Ann

I'd had a dream this morning of two artists vying for attention, one was a seagull upon a sandy shore, the other a vulture, with its graceful wingspan soaring high above the sand, looking, searching.  I'm presently working on a 2 party exhibit, and it seems there is a communication going on (both are positive, read not ire into the revelry).  Here us the influential wall to my right as I lie in bed:

On that note, Sing, Sing, Sing the international day of Song & Our Summer in the Northern Hemisphere begins today!

Marmoset Revisits the Seaside

    On Saturday past I recalled the joy of watching a Marmoset frolicing about the foliage at  a jungle river, complete with manatee so graceful in the water  beneath a little bridge in a special animal house at the zoo in Pittsburgh, PA.  Words came bouncing out and I began to write a poem.  They blending into memory of a work by Dorian McGowan of Edward Lear's poem (see below).

It resulted in a card including the poem I wrote, with a marmoset, flashing paint brushes for Dorian who is recovering from a broken hip, a nasty trick of hidden ice of that deceptive season of Winter).  The Poem follows in a a more readable form.  Do know that as in all fantasy, you can be me,  a monkey, a tree, where today is tomorrow & tomorrow is yesterday . . .

A diddly poem for the artist owl, a graceful angel and a sacred yellow cat

O dear dear cuddly marmoset

So fun to watch your merman dance

Tumbling rumbling in the sea

Holding, boiling, roiling laughter back

to keep the fish at bay

Spitting suds and bubbles

Jumping upon the cockleshells

Angry barnacles breathed back

Sticking out their feathery tongues

Begging, yelling with watery spleen

“N’er err to dare come back!”

seething seashell venom

in twisted greenly crackly wrack

They sailed off in briny oyster shell

With oar of runcible spoon

An owl and cat in primate gowns

Pretending dreams of silvery moons

Laughing gulls and crooning loons

A day, a night a wild cold tale

A chocolate bar of joy to share

in champagne bath of glee

Invincible we think all hope

Forever and a day

For Dorian, © j.m.frase-white 5/2019

A Rift on Edward's Lear's the Owl & the Pussycat

by Dorian McGowan

from the exhibit Poetry Made Visible,  which I curated, Feb-March 2016

Northeast Kingdom Artisans Guild

This is the Woman

Joan R., Baltimore, 1967

This is the woman who

drained her toilet dry

 painting butterflies in enamel

spiraling ‘round the bowl

to dance in every flush

This is the woman who

pushed all her bedroom furniture

together to create

a bower tower  bird nest

beneath the deep blue ceiling

she’d painted and covered

with luminescent stars

this is the woman who

was driven to paint wildly

a strange abstract work

she brought for us to see:

black zigzagging, sliding

scaring the blood  red ground

halted by a  grand orange X

We gazed bedazzled

Colors, lines screaming  out to us

and Joan,  as if waking with a cry

 muttered

“of god, this is where . . .

he died”

This is the woman

Who drove the VW bug

that skidded and killed

the man we all called Angel

The perfect blue-eyed hippie

All in love, but not lovers like Joan

Brazenly mapped before us

now

forever

the pain scarring scaring her mind

(middle of the night meditation/poem)

 3/26/19  jmf-w

TBT: School of Fish Revisited

Paper coming unglued, colors fading.  I just made anew, an old work, of shifting name, the latest "A Flight for Unity".  Now redone, fish on new acrylic painted canvas paper, the base a patina of resin, to keep the watercolor from fading and blue painters tape drying, she now comes with a new poem.  For Carolyn.  A bit past black history month, but perfect for also for women's history month.

For Carolyn Greer, NCHS Class of 1965

Sometimes we walk among giants

Heroes, whom we call by other names

With venom or salacious smile, jigaboo or nigger

Or if polite or kind, colored girl or negro,

Rarely, which some still refuse to do

Call her by her name

We can blame the age, we can blame our teenage

Society or religion, but we can denote

That beneath those guises

humanity sometimes arises

She was a first

The first, a negro in our class

among the tribe of teens 

classes by social status

athlete or scornfully academic

by wealth or poverty

by town, and there by side of the tracts

farm, town or family ties

secure in our supreme color

until Carolyn broke the mold

That was her, the giant, quiet, and respectful

not haughty, proud or pretty

just a gentle, smiling without malice

alarmingly without façade

Car-o-lyn, her one assertive gesture

discreet, affirmative

She broke us, this quiet lady

the mold those centuries had built

Jim Crowe and malice had constructed

She swam against the current

To break the bondage of slavery

Not quite lost, grits upon the teem

colonial coronels  and southern belles

confederate fiction believed as gospel true

Tara and Rhett Butler, the antebellum froth

glued the savage whites together

In hypothetic piety, in the Lord’s whitewashed house

Out of our teenage innocence,

Clothed in ignorance

Humanity wrapped in garments

Violently sealed in evangelical words

Carolyn helped us take the baby steps

into the sunlight of the possible heaven

the dream of colorblindness

of unity and honor,

and oh, yes, truth, justice and a maybe

to quote the Superman, the true American way

14 March 2019; Women’s Month