Some of these poems first appeared in Hanging Loose #13, 1971.
A blue pyramid.
Moon and stars.
Silence.
Multi-colored spectators.
Sand.
Blue
roof,
orange moon.
Invention:
with the Eagle.
Below:
Bird
Drama.
Several
multi-eyed,
winged creatures
sprouting teats
discuss
Godot
and look askance.
Drawing for Plants:
a proposal.
Perhaps you'd like to look like this.
Twittering Machine.
A wheat-straw roach,
4 birds' mouths
a crank.
Turn it and hear them twitter.
A man with insect
eyes
wears a coolie hat.
The bull looks like a piano.
It is a 6 step
mountain
but he floats above it
and seems to be plucking his ribs
as if they were
strings.
Goodbye,
at Bull Mountain.
A
little girl with curly hair,
her torso shaped like a heart,
drawn on a blackboard with
colored
chalk
waves hello.
Puppet Show.
Hello,
hello.
I am a pink cubist
pig
full of birds
and frogs
and fish.
My mouthpiece,
an eel,
swims
beside
the crooked board
on which I float
away.
The Seafarer.
A hearty soul.
A hump-backed
fish;
one impaled already
on his spear;
another,
seal-like,
waits
patiently.
His helmet has fallen over his eyes.
What a courageous man!
Upon the sea
in his blue
cathedral.
Fish Magic!
Ah, you cunning
devil,
you have not bewitched
the man with the heart-shaped mouth.
He
indicates the blue vase
with an upraised,
pink-gloved hand.
Though you
smile,
fat red one,
you are premature
with your smugness.
You should have
patience;
it takes time
for fish magic
to
work.
Moons and ferns,
moons and
ferns,
a sitting for a self-portrait;
pines.
Do not be deceived;
he sees you
well,
even though your face is misshapen.
Designs for a city
within walls.
Floor plans
for
4 different houses.
Automobiles pass through
leaving no mark.
It is too
vacuous!
Substance,
we crave substance!
Give us a barbecue pit!
Give us
3 words.
3 words.
That's all we need.
Any 3.
With them we will
build a logic
of symbols;
an unspoken language.
With it
I restructure your
thinking
so that you know what I want
before I do
and have it ready.
How thoughtful of me
to have made you
that way,
and with such
economy.
Of course, I do not speak
of you.
I refer to you
as
mine.
I confess,
I do think
I'm above
you.
You!
Strange bird
in the red
swamp,
get out of the sun!
That yellow sky
will put both your eyes
on the
same side of your head.
Alas,
I see it has
already
happened.
Old one,
I sympathize with your lines,
but I can't stand your hat.
Clown,
your displaced,
chartreuse
hat
saddens me.
Your fractured face
with two profiles,
one pink,
one
brown,
brings me near tears.
Yet you are not the typical "sad clown".
You
are
watchful.
You don't expect me
to
believe these hieroglyphs
do you?
I'm sorry,
I speak to no one
until
they have given me
their code.
I have already given you mine:
a few fish,
a
smiling white man,
the piano music of Erik Satie,
a few lines
and plenty of
arrows.
If I made it clearer
would you find it more interesting?
I have blue,
alarazin crimson,
yellow ochre, and cadmium red;
perhaps they'll help.
Violet
sunflowers,
moons and ferns,
a red sun:
stick figures
awaiting
Godot.
Only the most intense take shape.
The others,
pastel,
disappear
into the smog.
I felt as
if
my hair
had turned to
words.
My eyes,
my
ears:
words
poured from them.
I
dissolved
into
words.
But
only for a moment.
I had them
all at hand;
they were
all
available to me.
This is called:
"Having the
Gift of
the
Word".
But only
for a
moment.
I would make you see a new possibility.
All I offer are
various ways.
As Don Juan says,
They all
lead nowhere.
However,
it is necessary to be on one.
Only you can
decide
that your path has heart.
Have you considered this one:
"Klee's art
was so closely bound up
with his everyday life and reality
that he could dare to search
for
their ultimate meaning."
John Ezra Fowler was born in Florence, Missouri in 1938. Ever since he has been an admirer of Paul Klee.
These poems were composed in 1969 in Lawrence, Kansas where Mr. Fowler, and his wife, Sara, owned and operated the Abington Book Shop and published GRIST magazine.
He is now a resident of New York City.
The composition of these poems was inspired by the reading of Jerome Rothenberg's "Gorky Poems".
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