Double Team
Enamel paint on panel (2005)
Tom Burckhardt
American
Tom Burckhardt's Double Team represents his signature style-an abstract composition of energetic patterns and bright colors interwoven with passages of realism. In the lower register of Double Team, the large square of warm beige doubles as an abstract element and construction material. Burckhardt manipulates scale and spatial relationships, representing diminutive workmen with caps and tool belts, who labor to construct the composition of the work of art in which they are depicted. The postmodern Double Team borrows freely from earlier styles-zigzagging lines and stripes from Pattern & Decoration and Op Art, squares of color from Hans Hofmann and the vertical format of Chinese landscape painting. The red calligraphic line recalls Abstract Expressionism except that here the stylized gesture is a carefully planned, formulaic drip.
The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
― Theodore Roethke, The Collected Poems
Every tree and plant in the meadow seemed to be dancing,
those which average eyes would see as fixed and still.
~ Rumi ~
“If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So like children, we begin again…
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.”
Rainer Maria Rilke
(Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God)
“Beauty exists, even in unlikely places. The key isn’t to open your eyes but to open your heart.”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
“I believe in the uncommon, the unusual and unlikely, even the miraculous.
I believe in nearly all things except impossibilities. That I can’t fathom. ”
― Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
Song of the Flower
I am a kind word uttered and repeated
By the voice of Nature;
I am a star fallen from the
Blue tent upon the green carpet.
I am the daughter of the elements
With whom Winter conceived;
To whom Spring gave birth; I was
Reared in the lap of Summer and I
Slept in the bed of Autumn.
At dawn I unite with the breeze
To announce the coming of light;
At eventide I join the birds
In bidding the light farewell.
The plains are decorated with
My beautiful colors, and the air
Is scented with my fragrance.
As I embrace Slumber the eyes of
Night watch over me, and as I
Awaken I stare at the sun, which is
The only eye of the day.
I drink dew for wine, and hearken to
The voices of the birds, and dance
To the rhythmic swaying of the grass.
I am the lover’s gift; I am the wedding wreath;
I am the memory of a moment of happiness;
I am the last gift of the living to the dead;
I am a part of joy and a part of sorrow.
But I look up high to see only the light,
And never look down to see my shadow.
This is wisdom which man must learn.
Labor as a Tulip
Karen Volkman
Labor as a tulip
arrays its flame, nu
form, as the bulb-star,
interred, divines its ore
surging the gulf
rooting it into
appalled memento
pulsing will.
Leaf-blades score the heap.
Other wounds—penetralia—
other worlds, cries, far.
Filaments, simples
emblazoning the rei,
rebus of grief.
Unslumbering terra
premising her kill.
Woman in Red Armchair, Oil on canvas, 1929.
Tired Sick
Pablo Picasso
When you don’t have something that is what is everyone craves,
Then the trouble begins in waves.’
The clock loudly and soundly does tick
While you get tired sick.
You go do something that depends on others
Better do quick lest disagree your mothers.
Rhyme does you no then good,
Seems like that something is the only food.
The world beats around in their newly acquired fun
While you sit alone there, one and only one.
The clock loudly does tick
making you sick; really really sick
Tired of the fun, you go sit one,
While the music subsides and leaves you then,
With what you want.
The clock does tick,
Making you tired sick.
Child of War
Photograph by Eugene Richards
Beirut, Lebanon (1982)
Children of War
By William Sutherland
The Children of War are like little flowers trampled,
Young and innocent, fragile and helpless,
Surrounded by violence and rampant destruction-
Their faces are filled with doubts and fear.
The Children of War, so precious and dear,
Stripped of their childhood years, their youth stolen away
Are little Saints for human failing through no fault of their own.
The Children of War, their lives lost and scarred,
Are the world’s hopes and future wasted;
They are the cures never found, inventions never made,
Dreams unfulfilled, thoughts and ideas forever gone —
An irrational tragedy, no justification to be found.
Maverick Mist 