This selection of poems and companion paintings is from a larger collaboration, Each Scar a Broken Arc, forthcoming as a fine art book from Egress Studio Press (Bellingham, WA). The figurative oil paintings are from Suzanne Brooker's recent Seattle show, "Portraits of Men, Metaphors of Wood." Each of these visual works combines realistic, anonymous portraiture and gestural metaphor to depict various characteristics of the human condition (with painting titles such as Caprice, Subtlety, Reticence, Guilt, Subterfuge, Innocence, Doubt, Judgment, etc.). Taking slides of the paintings with him into the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area of the Snoqualmie National Forest, Craig Van Riper wrote this series of poems in response to Brooker's work (and the corresponding human characteristics depicted in each painting) during two summers serving as Poet-in-Residence at Goldmyer Hotsprings. The companion poems are not meant to be traditional ekphrastic pieces per se, but language sculptures themselves, with their power to work alone only amplified by the visual influence of the paintings. In this way, the true collaboration is not between poet and painter, but between reader, poem and painting.
Guile
COOL IN THE SHADE
Ol' Missi'ppi meandering
Mudflats of gravity like
Some national anthem
Each scar a broken arc
Of the past the person
I am doesn't matter
Out here I make myself big
Stare into the lion's glare
But always blink first
There was a time a place
A motive a trace that knew
No alibi no saving face
But when was that?
Where? Don't ask
That jay or crow
They don't know
Why I'm here not
Looking for a purpose
My broke-down jalopy
Deep in the ditch
The consequences merely
An afterthought before
The feeling sinks in grace
Period clearly over
Revelation
REVELARE
Suddenly it came
To me the cosmic
Glove box emptied
Into a paper bag
All that is known
All that is
Unknown fleeting
Down through the clouds
Through the forest canopy
Targeting me like some butterfly
Bomb I open myself
To catch such astonishing
Disclosure all history
The future revealed
Enlightening divine truth
I don't believe in
Tenacity
THE WORD IS NOT THE THING
Don't say too much don't talk
Too much that's what I say
It's a matter of principle
All I strive for to know
The pool of clarity that exists
Only in illusion I forget
Nothing hold my ground work
The land teaches me all
I need to know how to
Stay alive or die trying
To avoid clichι
Use no words at all
A quiet language of deafening
Gesture I don't believe in
Belief in naming names
Just keep a firm grip on
The reins of my horse
Pick teeth clean of stubborn
Opposition a face carved
Under a sun that will not go away
Here I stand unwilling
To admit defeat
Anticipation
KEATS MAKING ME WAIT
Why pipe to the spirit
Ditties of no tone when so
Soon it will be over code
On a Grecian cup cracked
That look in your eyes
No saccharine just
Give it to me plain
Give it to me now
Or not at all even
Odd isn't it? Acorn tattoo!
What man or god is this?
What bad hair daze dost
Tease me out of thought?
I'll be the last to know
In the meantime suffer
The enjoyment in advance
What glad pursuit!
Code of no tone
Piped to the spirit ditties
A moment's dissonance
Foresees each succeeding
Chord or forestalls it all
Together More happy love!
More happy, happy love!
That look in your eyes
It's coming it's there
Forever before that
It's just me here
Till hell glazes over
Patience
THE PATIENT
Right now I'm
Stumped but bear
With me
I'll get there
Suffer such trial
Without
Complaint will get you
Nowhere just wait
Out the strain
Repel all
Provocation & know
No haste no
Impetuous need
I can't take the time
Out for later
As good as now
The curtain final