I cannot tell anyone that I am a poet per se, but these were the words that spilled right out of me. I’m also not an editor for sure you will see……..that. Even if a word or line,I hope to inspire the way I’ve been inspired. Thank you so much🙏🙏🙏
Thanks for sharing the beautiful poems and prompts. Ash, I identify with your line about choosing to live another day for the world knocking at my door! And yet I have seen those where it all became too much as your poem alludes to, where the sorrow tore them apart faster than the world could heal them, over and over. It scars my soul and yet I was glad to have been part of their lives. Here is my poem called Anchors: https://substack.com/@christophermadden1/note/c-265665951?r=1xola3&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
10yrs ago, i stood just a breath away from this magnificent work in the VG museum; silent tears began to fall. It was as if all the emotions that he had felt still lingered above the paint - waiting for someone to hold them. Thankyou for reminding of that powerful moment 🙏
Here's my response, with a gentle nod to Mary Oliver..
*In Passing...*
I stand
A modern soul in front of a timeless work
The air between my nose and the canvas crackles
In that void, I can hear the sussuration of the wheat, the melancholy of the birds in flight
Gentle tears flow as the energy engulfs me
You stood
A troubled soul in an ancient field
The air crackled with meaning as you chose to capture the energy.
What void did you see?
What beckoned you in that golden light so full of darkness?
What a beautiful poem Ash, you capture Van Gogh’s devotion, yearning, and surrender to light!
Your poem is so full of warmth and light. You manage to capture both the beauty and the sadness so well.
Longing
The fields of gold
Those, in the one light
Swaying in tune with harmony
He sees them
He feels them, can almost touch them
And yet
When his body moves towards that transcendence
He crashes through the rotting floor boards
Landing in the sewage
Of his despair and unmet longings.
There was no clapping for him
To keep his wings hovering above that place
Long enough
For him to catch the gentle breeze
Of mercy, gentle mercy.
But, my friend,
At an unsustainable cost,
For he could find no other way,
He put himself into that painting,
Into that dream of being held
In eternally tender joy.
Sweet jesus, held at last.
And that was, for him
The only way
To arrive at the divine moment,
In the light
The gold running through his veins.
He was home
Home at last.
"How could I not choose to live another day when a world this beautiful keeps
knocking at my door?" Yes. This. The light and beauty that sustains life in the midst of darkness and despair. Thank you, Ash.
Thanks for another great prompt to keep me moving, thinking, creating...even if it's only once in a while for now:
https://jb12323904.substack.com/p/the-golden-hour-through-van-goghs?r=7lbz9o&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true
Love this line: A seed carries us forward
through sorrow
and through
beauty.
Ash, this is beautiful! I also really love this format that you do. It's so engaging!
You
A swirling Capulet
Culled by the Angels of your Artistic nature
Handled and hushed
With the blending of time, and Hue
And wakefulness
You carried misgivings
Wide awake
Before woke was even a hassle
The brilliant symmetry
Of moments taken
In noonday admiration
Soft and fleshed as pillows
Of amazement
You press and bake
The painters bread
Sustenance to the dreaming poets
Feeding the starving artists
One day, I shall to tell you
I saw you
In the tender mercy of 12
In the longing of 20
And the grievous grief
Of your final hours
In everything you transcribed
you became more alive than alive
In each brush stroke passing through time
This wasn’t the end
But the beginning
You saw
As we all see
Through a parcel dimly
Creating cheerfully
Balance in the shadowed expanse
I pray you are healing from the loss of romance
With love and honor I thank you
………………..
I cannot tell anyone that I am a poet per se, but these were the words that spilled right out of me. I’m also not an editor for sure you will see……..that. Even if a word or line,I hope to inspire the way I’ve been inspired. Thank you so much🙏🙏🙏
Van Gogh Poem
No doubt he felt things far too much
& paid attention always.
No doubt he knew that painting was another kind of speaking
Another kind of sense.
He had x-ray vision
& saw lights appearing
where they didn't seem to be.
He was open to the world
Like a snail without a shell
But that was not what hurt him.
What he couldn't bear
Was his lonely way of knowing-
& the world's way of dismissing-
The things he understood:
How a purple could be yellow
& a yellow green.
Thanks for sharing the beautiful poems and prompts. Ash, I identify with your line about choosing to live another day for the world knocking at my door! And yet I have seen those where it all became too much as your poem alludes to, where the sorrow tore them apart faster than the world could heal them, over and over. It scars my soul and yet I was glad to have been part of their lives. Here is my poem called Anchors: https://substack.com/@christophermadden1/note/c-265665951?r=1xola3&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
My heart is aching and breaking for those seers and healers of our pain.
This is off-topic, but please allow me to link to mine. 🙏
https://grnplanet.substack.com/p/27th-may?r=69lepi&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer
For me, there are no solid lines,
no edges, no shapes even.
The yellow field a wave of burnt water pulling down at the sky. How
to explain that in the end when you can feel how all of it, all of it
is connected, that it is not tragic to die. But an echo, a gunshot, a big
bang showing us the beauty, the wound of the world.
Here is my poem!
What did you think when you
stood in that wheat field
did you see it all
the beauty of life the darkness
it brings
did you startle with the
crows
did you long to fly
away
away from this place
away from its pain
did their exit settle like
lead into your lonely
bones
Where do they go
the crows when they fly
away
and where did you go
so far into the despair of your mind that you could not be
reached
I want to tell you look
down from the crows and
their pesky omens
run your hand through the golden
wheat and know what it is
to live to shine
in light of the moon to
push up from the darkness of the
ground and live a second life
on and on and on
Salvation
By @offramptobravespaces
How many paths before you cut
hopeful green swaths
through this golden field, aiming
at a horizon where
baby blue clouds tried
to hide a too-large storm
Why you
Why anyone
should seek this harsh
salvation
among the sharp, cutting blades
when the light goes out
What called you to the wheat fields
when the sun had gone out?
Etching your paths through
fighting grass, the effort evident,
each stroke heavy
like footsteps, dragging
even as you lifted your brushes
in one last reprisal
Conflicted by memories of
starry nights whose comfort
never carried past morning
This time something stopped
The wheat fields lost their hue
The paths cease mid-field
Why this field, Why this time?
Your brush strokes,
bold as ever,
belied the tortuous journey
too far for any man
to travel alone
-Written in response to the prompt about Vincent Van Gogh's Wheat Fields
I didn’t feel I had anything on this prompt and I was just going to skip it. Then a few words came and it became this: https://breadandsilence.substack.com/p/of-sorrow-and-beauty?r=28qv75&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
10yrs ago, i stood just a breath away from this magnificent work in the VG museum; silent tears began to fall. It was as if all the emotions that he had felt still lingered above the paint - waiting for someone to hold them. Thankyou for reminding of that powerful moment 🙏
Here's my response, with a gentle nod to Mary Oliver..
*In Passing...*
I stand
A modern soul in front of a timeless work
The air between my nose and the canvas crackles
In that void, I can hear the sussuration of the wheat, the melancholy of the birds in flight
Gentle tears flow as the energy engulfs me
You stood
A troubled soul in an ancient field
The air crackled with meaning as you chose to capture the energy.
What void did you see?
What beckoned you in that golden light so full of darkness?
Across time, the crows cry for you
This feels like everything