Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Saturday, August 24, 2019

Painter

image by Ali Falik
She is the painter with the borrowed style,
squinting as if every thing and person were the sun.
On canvas, her stars struggle.
Here is her garret, on stilts, shifting in the wind.

She is the painter with a surgeon's skill.
Her models go home with acquired malaise.
In space, she paints solar flairs as ruined starlets,
already seen, grasping, scorn in every stroke of her brush.

She is the painter with one set of supplies,
mail ordering locks from ghosts with discontinued accounts.
Galleries are cruel, declining her work before she creates it,
claiming they know as well as she does the grays of cats in the dark.
______

for Sunday Muse #70






13 comments:

  1. I love the strugģling stars, the garret on stilts, and those closing lines about gray cats in the dark. A wonderful read.

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  2. Wow "On canvas her stars struggle" and "mail ordering locks from ghosts with discontinued accounts" these lines are amazing Shay! It really captures the real struggle of being an artist in a greedily blind world. This is one of my new favorites of yours!

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  3. Yikes, sending her models home each with a custom malaise is a striking image. On the first read, misread "galaxies" for "Galleries" in the last stanza. What sort of universe is she disarranging?

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  4. You ended with a zinger ... love this.

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  5. "She is the painter with one set of supplies, mail ordering locks from ghosts with discontinued accounts." Oh, I so adore this whole poem, but this line stood out for me. Awesome as always!

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  6. On canvas, her stars struggle.

    I love that.

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  7. It's gorgeous, but so sad, and kind of mean. I have a feeling I would love her work, even if everyone else hated it.

    It's such a good poem, but it makes me feel awful. I want to hug her and encourage her to stay in that attic by herself and splatter it with her work, never showing any of it to another soul who doesn't appreciate her.

    I really like this image: "Here is her garret, on stilts, shifting in the wind."

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  8. I love "her garrett on stilts" and "mail ordering locks from ghosts with discontinued accounts"
    Great take on this!

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  9. When every other line of your poem is quoted in the comments, you know it's good. I don't see it as mean, just precise and truthful, with a real poet's truth, one that sees artifice and 'acquired malaise" for exactly the booshwah it is. Your poems are never without sympathy, because they echo your heart.

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  10. I want to go home with acquired malaise! Beautiful poem.

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Spirit, what do you wish to tell us?