Poetry
The Poets St
oryRon Villejo
I have a PhD in clinical psychology, but transitioned into management consulting years ago. I'm an Entrepreneur|Poet|Consultant. I'm smart|confident|friendly.
Collaborations are at the heart of my art. I aim to explore, interpret, and ultimately forge new boundaries across genres of art - in a multimedia framework. e.g., As a poet, I want to collaborate with visual, musical, dramatic, dance, digital etc. artists to create artistic expressions never seen before!
THE POETRY OF DREAMS (Part 1)
Part 1: The Prelude
I live inside this painting of a dream.
I live its metaphors for vibrancy,
As far away from quite the usual stream
Of all that is the left-brain tyranny.
For much of life I live is in this red –
The raw of breath and pulse, of move and still,
Of try to look away, because the dread
Is never so removed from where I will
Come face-to-face with it for sure in time.
For Hamlet came to life, like night to dawn,
When providence exposed the uncle’s crime
And then the act to which it spurred him on.
There is a prompting for the dream I’m in.
There is a readiness now to begin.
NOTES
The Prelude captures my first reactions on seeing Sylvia’s painting. It took a little longer than usual for me to get started with this poem, as I was sorting out what it meant for me to ‘live in the red’ – one metaphor I use to represent non-rational thinking (i.e., right-brain thinking). This is where, I believe, life can be lived vibrantly. This is where I live.
The form is a classic Shakespearean sonnet – its rhyme scheme, iambic pentameter, and progression. The first line is a ‘take off’ from the first line of the Michael Franks’ song “A Walk in the Rain” – “I lived in a painting by Renoir.”
Ron Villejo
THE POETRY OF DREAMS (Part 2)
Part 2: The Sestina Symphony
The genesis of dream is in the day
Before, the stuff we know as residue.
For Freud was never inattentive to
The casual phrase, the gems of the mundane
(Such as receipts I turned to poetry)
Where life is mostly lived and dream is found.
The doors as ‘invites’ to what may be found –
These stretch into infinities of day.
The dream has opened them like poetry
Which says so much more than its residue
Of words – the ghostly, timid and mundane
Have wondered long when we were coming to.
The irony – the ghost itself seeks to
Escape the room, inside of which it’s found
Itself becoming pale, as if mundane
Were its eternal, unforgiving day.
It is personifying residue.
It is the life that gives us poetry.
It is another brand of poetry –
The sex and the aggression leaning to
The secret wind inside the residue.
Oh, how we know they will in time be found.
They have a way of making night of day.
Their consummation is in the mundane.
The dream is quite a genius with mundane –
The Freudian trio can be poetry
Of battle worn and sadly, tattered day.
The unacceptable is walking to
The door and banking on the symbols found
Acceptable as common residue.
But victory of dream in residue
Is never fully won, despite mundane
And ingenuity and goodness found.
Sometimes we dream of florid poetry –
There is no metaphor for dropping to
And burning from the torrid red of day.
Still, residue emerges from mundane.
The dream is found and known in poetry.
There is a turning to – and from – the day.
NOTES
The Sestina Symphony is my poetic treatise on dreams. I draw on Freudian theory, because the insights that came out of his seminal study “The Interpretation of Dreams” is nothing short of tectonic. But besides this, it is Sylvia’s painting that holds compelling meaning. I use my psychological insight and poetic license to draw it all out as best as I can.
A sestina is a wonderfully complex structure. It was invented by Arnaut Daniel, a French troubadour, in the late 12th century. There is no rhyming here, but, as you see, the same six words that end each line are repeated from stanza to stanza. They are repeated in a very specific order, which is what’s challenging – but, you know, I love a challenge! As I began to write this part, I knew fairly quickly that it had to be written in a sestina to mirror the complexity of this subject.
Ron Villejo
THE POETRY OF DREAMS (Part 3)
Part 3: The Coda
The angel soft
And holy light
Are side by side
The sinister
Of shadow and
Its flaming doors.
There is no step
To take outside,
No saving grace
That we may turn
For miracles.
The miracles
Shall come as they
Are wont to do,
Without our wish
Or prayer or hope.
For this is of
Another realm –
The pivotal
And fierce face-off
Which we have seen
Only in art
Is going on
This moment now.
The threshold of
The open door
Is where they stand
Like sentinels
Alert and poised
To shut the door.
This painting of
It all and more
Illuminates –
So we at least
May understand
The mysteries
And guarded stance
Of good and bad,
So we at least
May know they’re there
And who is whom,
When rooms are dark
And daylight blinds.
NOTES
After spending a few days figuring out how to write this poem, then a few hours writing the first two parts of it – and struggling a bit – The Coda came pouring out of me, as if from nowhere that I can imagine. I honestly don’t know where this came from, except from some divine intervention that tapped its hand on my forehead. There is no classic poetic structure I draw from, except that it’s in iambic di-meter. It falls under the umbrella of ‘blank verse’ – non-rhyming metered verse.
The Coda is, of course, about good and evil. We don’t really see these, except through our choices and actions and those of others. It is art, I believe, that helps us best to understand these – that illuminates the ‘fierce face-off’ between the two. If you, my dear friends, can subscribe to the idea that I’ve just written a musical score here – hence, the terms ‘prelude,’ ‘symphony’ and ‘coda’ – then another musical process comes to mind, i.e., ‘crescendo.’ Everything builds up to this last part – The Coda!
Ron Villejo
Sandra Banks, lives in Manchester, England, in a small town called Clayton. She is a single mother of four girls, whom is currently enrolled in college to pursue a career in artitic design. She has many interest that include poetry, fine arts, and sculpture. Sandra, has always felt the need to express herself not only through art, but through her poetic writing, to express her creative nature.
The Old tree
Dig up the roots of that old tree
look down into the tunnel, I left behind
you will see the chains, where I broke free
Look very hard and you may find
my life, my story, that is untold
a crumbling life, full of decay and mold
but I clawed my way through the dirt and grime
through the stench and mud, towards another time
with hands reaching out through the shoots
new life is now growing from its roots
Its growth had now been regenerated
the life before, is no more, had been incinerated
and out if its ashes a phoenix flew
with wings outstretched, to start anew
with eyes that are now, opened wide
the life before, is no more, has died
although my past is there for all to see
buried deep underneath the roots, of that
Old Tree!
Dig up the roots of that old tree
look down into the tunnel, I left behind
you will see the chains, where I broke free
Look very hard and you may find
my life, my story, that is untold
a crumbling life, full of decay and mold
but I clawed my way through the dirt and grime
through the stench and mud, towards another time
with hands reaching out through the shoots
new life is now growing from its roots
Its growth had now been regenerated
the life before, is no more, had been incinerated
and out if its ashes a phoenix flew
with wings outstretched, to start anew
with eyes that are now, opened wide
the life before, is no more, has died
although my past is there for all to see
buried deep underneath the roots, of that
Old Tree!
Poetry by
Sandra Banks
copyrighted property© 2009
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The Wind Of Change (Poem & Art)
The wind of change has begun, in this land of the golden sun. The gossip shall blow, out of control in this town of glitter and gold.Who shall take hold, of these demanding polls, the young or the old?
Claims foretell of many whispering tails, of the contender being the pretender.
There will be one winner, who will not surrender The Tonight Show Splendor. So let the games unfold, one will be knocked out cold, and the winner shall take hold. Thick is the skin of those who dare to be so bold, in this town of Oscar gold.
Poem & Art
by Sylvia Pekarek
copyrighted property© 2010
(conan obrien & jay leno)
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Marc Doutherd is a modern day renaissance artist, and poet. A master of all visual art forms. He started creating images on outside surfaces at the age of 5, using charcoal on concrete. Marc can render an image on any surface, with any medium, from photo realism, free hand, to abstract. There seems to be no limitation in terms of his creative ability. His artistic disciplines include Lithography, illustration, painting, graphic design, leather work, jewelry making, tanning, sculpture, glass blowing, musical instrument making, and music writing and composition. Marc has recieved notoriety for his art. He has participated in several International Art Competitions. Marc is Seminole Indian, and is currently working on advocacy work on behalf of Native American concerns, finishing on a Jazz cd, which he produced wrote and performs all instruments, and he is also finishing 23 very large paintings for a show to be presented to the world in Paris, France.
In Pursuit Of....
In pursuit of heavenly place,
I forsake all that would cause me,
The benefits of what is normal,
To endure a constant chaos.
In pursuit of divine perfection,
I give up any chance of sanity,
Walking through true hardships,
Self inflicted insanity surrounds me.
In pursuit of Master's peace,
I weep, and beg for the timeless sleep
I am held on the course,destiny
of sleepless days and endless nights, I weep.
In pursuit of the Eternal Honor,
Bringing to light and into view
These pieces of Art that speak,
A truth undeniable, and without voice,
A thought so loud it shatter's ignorance, Lies, and falsehood.
Beautiful is the truth of a bullet,
To the head,
Lights out, of an artist's truth,
Never before held in view,
Tell a Truth,
Thats what I do.
By Marc Doutherd
Copyright© 2009 All Rights Reserved
The Magic GlobeStep into a world of a shaken blizzard.
In this globe you will feel the magic of the wizard.
He set's this world apart from the frantic..
You will find a world of the romantic.
A world of such magic, it will surge in your veins, can it make you insane?
Through the travel in your veins, might this cause you some pain, to reach your brain.
You ponder into this platform of thought, will you feel caught?
You will feel your heart grow, how does anyone really know, when you feel this flow.
The story goes, together you and I are locked in this land of snow.
To discover the meaning of what makes the heart aglow.
So we wait for the winter storm to be gone.
Soon it will be dawn, will this lingering magic be gone?
We imagine the future to be here, in a land that seems so unclear.
We follow the flow in this land of snow.
We continue the path to follow what is true.
The unrealistic moment will not do.
If we falter, it can cause our destiny to be altered.
This decision will make us hollow, and we will feel so deeply sallow.
In this globe you will feel the magic of the wizard.
He set's this world apart from the frantic..
You will find a world of the romantic.
A world of such magic, it will surge in your veins, can it make you insane?
Through the travel in your veins, might this cause you some pain, to reach your brain.
You ponder into this platform of thought, will you feel caught?
You will feel your heart grow, how does anyone really know, when you feel this flow.
The story goes, together you and I are locked in this land of snow.
To discover the meaning of what makes the heart aglow.
So we wait for the winter storm to be gone.
Soon it will be dawn, will this lingering magic be gone?
We imagine the future to be here, in a land that seems so unclear.
We follow the flow in this land of snow.
We continue the path to follow what is true.
The unrealistic moment will not do.
If we falter, it can cause our destiny to be altered.
This decision will make us hollow, and we will feel so deeply sallow.
Poem & art
by Sylvia Pekarek
copyrighted property© 2009