June 2020 Voicing Art Poetry Reading + Poems

[inspired by ‘Red House and Spruces’, 1927
by edvard munch]

I remember a time of joy, music, art, and wonder.
I remember a time of energies moving with motion and melody.
I remember a time when colors collided and the stars aligned.
I remember a time when we would curl up on the couch together and be still as the magic of the moment unfolded.

Ah, yes! It was that time….
…..of joy and beauty, and joining colors.
It was that time that I came home. 

[inspired by ‘The Scream’, 1893
by edvard munch]

above below center
accept refuse center
afraid brave center
against for center
arrival departure center
asleep awake center
careful careless center
changeable constant center
cloudy sunny center
dark light center
dust dawn center
far near center
finish begin center
freeze melt center
hopeful hopeless center
inside outside center
interrupt continue center

[inspired by ‘Madonna’, color lithograph, 1895-1902
by edvard munch]

How would we be different
if we reckoned Death as a beautiful woman
skin of radiant light and nocturnal hair
liberator and warrior of the spirit
with the gentle kiss of belladonna lips
releasing us into the slipstream of continuous being?

How would we be different
if we knew Death as the Angel
banishing the creeping hood –
and the bony joint –
and the shadowed scythe reducing us to wheat
to be cut down –
not raging into an encroaching night
but walking tall and elegant into dawning day?

How would we be different
towards the most gentle companion of the radiant hand
walking with us tenderly –
the one sure presence
as we walk the sacred ground
towards our hidden home
that some of us remember –
who knew us before
and will know us again,
whose living credo is, ‘do no harm’,
as the maternal guide
into the hallowed halls
the omnipresent Beauty
of the dawning Morning Star
and Mother of the World?

How would we be different
if we walked our ground,
collecting the gems of experience
to eagerly share with our Constant Companion
upon completion of mission
and return to home base,
filling the communal basket
with a life full-lived?

[inspired by JC’s poem. ‘Munch’s Madonna’, and turning things on their head]

death’s radiant hand
gems collected mission complete
trek across time ends

[inspired by the art that inspired the other Voicing Art poets]

Woman, too calm, 
With a quadruple line aura wave.

The house is kept cool,
Like the wood covered in a freeze.

Both are lit,
Collecting stillness in the cold. 

[inspired by ‘Red House and Spruces’, 1927
by edvard munch as shared by Heather in her poem, ‘joy’]

I imagine 9 years on
from the prowling shadow that
had padded on silent paws
through the darks of your northern forest,
that that spot of red
striated with nocturnal cobalt
might have seemed like a single
drop of glimmering blood
broadcasting from the glaring white-blue
of snow.

I imagine just 9 years on
from the hot fire of burning lungs,
your soulful being sought solace
in the cooling reaches of a winter scene,
where perhaps the memories
were held at bay
by the safety of the icy containment.

I imagine 9 years on
from the loss of a certain innocence
through battery and chemistry,
that you sought refuge
in a childhood home
where the only thing
lurking in the inky corners
was a patient spider in a web
who simply sets about rebuilding
when its home is swept away