LANDSCAPE
for Sandro Zendralli
Chill early morning autumn 2013 looking out from a window
onto the small courtyard
Hotel tout confort Lugano
chambre
petit déjeuner
chambre
petit déjeuner
The clouds are moving eastward
"a series of pictures one upon another"
to the indifference of a clear fleur de lis blue sky
halfway into Switzerland where they stop to rest
jumbo cottonballs among the Alps
Then to follow after Hannibal and Bonaparte down onto the plains of Lombardy
where foreign clouds wed native fog
Across from the window
latticework crosshatching ivy green and crinolated
to let the gaze go
beyond adjacent wrought-iron balcony balustrades arabesque kittycorner to the coiled garden hose
Sundial
emblem of painters and of poets
fluctuat nec mergitur
then back to the ivy overlaying shadowed latticework
in simultaneous visual cognition
inevitable geranium on window ledge
The arcana of the painting
explained at last
like a string of beads lapis-lazuli
while hands demonstrate cubistic signals
SCRIPTIONS
JARGONS
GRIBOUILLIS
KRITZELTRIEB
An elevator shaft meets up with a ventilator duct
What poets learn from painters is an open question
Gautier
Baudelaire
Laforgue
Verlaine
Apollinaire
"Cavalry Crossing a Ford" a small canvas painted by Walt Whitman
Mallarmé chez Manet and the blue-grey skein of smoke still meanders from his cigar
the Metro the "allarme" is missing an M
Ezra Pound at El Prado
to memorize eyes
Robert Creeley nightwatch with Franz Kline
at Black Mountain College
The clouds are moving east
over the broken geometry of the lakeside town
the clouds from Spleen of Paris
Then look down:
On the skylight's irregular reflection
the clouds are moving in the opposite direction
Over the rectangular patch of glass
reminiscent of a painting by Zendralli
BREGAGLIA
CALANCA
MESOLCINA
POSCHIAVO
the clouds are moving
like open hands
below the smudged charcoal
the ivy and the latticework
grid of windows and elevator shaft
The vertical oval porthole
of the third floor latrine
the arabesques of balcony
and the coiled garden hose
pendulum of cuckoo-clock and corridor
of mirrors and lithographs
cubistic handsignals at face-level
Loin des oiseaux, des troupeaux, des villageoises
PRO
GRIGIONI
ITALIANO
c/o Semiramis
What poets learn from painters
Igor Stravinsky en bicyclette
Tzara Picabia Giacometti Arp
Herman Hesse above Lugano
What painters know
and what poets if they're lucky
come to learn
ut pictura poesis
The painter at Lascaux chatting
with magicians and musicians
"Language invented..." Willem De Kooning saying "in order to
sit around all day talking about art"
and there are worse ways for mankind to spend their hours and their years
"La rue Saint Jacques..." (Pierre Soulages) "...when they dug it up
was found to be full of tusks
of the mastodons who once lived
on Mont Sainte Geneviève..."
The rue Saint Jacques first trampled down by thirsty mastodons
then by painters and their poet friends
coming down to drink in the evening
A rain of hands washed across the canvas
Renoir's willows
at the sacred helicoptered waters
of lakes |
