Failure to be erudite,
failure to be clear,
to be sane,
to be worth it.
Failure to be sublime,
to say the right thing,
to do the right thing, to
live.
We live with our failures
and die with them complete.
The great ones count their failures as stepping stones
or so they say.
These poems are failures
stepping carefully on the
stones,
falling in the
water and floating downstream
like leaves.
david michael jackson May 16, 2012 editors@artvilla.com
Poems
I look at the briefcase with my
brother’s poems
I look at my manuscript
lying on the table,
alone.
and I think of other manuscripts
in closets somewhere.
Like faded flowers
in a drawer they contain
an essence of what was there.
Like faded flowers
pressed between the finger and the thumb
pressed between memory and
sensation, memory and
hope and if my fellow man were to say
“greatness, this is”
would that make the paper less
faded
***
Strange
word to start with, don’t
go there you say, don’t carry the
world on your
shoulders waiting for
something so nebulous as a
word taking you
to a rose
to a
willow tree beside the
stream of thinking.
You had something to
say,
something that mattered
in the morning of
dew covered
coolness,
melting into
silence and
birds
***
They called it Naive art, these paintings by the cleaning lady. It is quite a story
Oh Séraphine
All artists should know you
for you painted for you
after scrubbing the dirty clothes
after being the help, the servant
after your hands were rough
you painted for you
and for your lady Madonna
and because your God
told you to
and
it drove you mad,
and you never knew anything but the work
followed by the paint on your hands, for
the artist’s hands are
always beautiful
when the painting is
finished.
You got there
you made it
you can’t hear me
can you?
So artist out there
paint when no one wants it,
paint with no one but you to see
paint when no one cares
paint when you know for sure
that the art will rot
in some forgotten attic.
Thank you
Séraphine Louis
for the art
lesson.
The movie
david michael jackson April 5, 2012 editors@artvilla.com