The Risen One

 

 

The Risen One

 

Quaint, familiar

Breaking like any other day

No premonitions of what it would bring

 

No heralding to the new king

 

In the sleepy town of Le Cateau-Cambresis

Located on the far tip of France just near the Belgian border

 

New Years Eve 1869

Birth was given to the new world order

 

Freedom, Expression

Fauvism’

Art

 

He tore the doctrine of their stolid regime apart

 

In Morocco they say Matisse painted the Sun

He gave colour to the Moon

 

Ethereal

No; human

Crayon coloured light

Bold contrasts of Reds, yellows & whites

Ones filled with violet, orange, lilac, green & cerise

Paint me a new world Henri Matisse

A landscape filled with colours

Stark, shocking, and innocent

You make things beautiful

The ordinary wonderful

The droll magnificent

 

A perspective built on perception, of burning glowing light, of vitality

He understands what the canvas longs for, what it doesn’t need

The necessity; its’ organs, the colours it yearns to bleed

 

He feels

He simplifies

With intuition, emotion

He reduces form to a line

He strips it bare, back past bone

Back to its essence; then he dazzles us with his brilliance

His effervescent shining light, the singularity of his vision

 

The significance of his heart

 

 “Without Passion, there is no art…” * Henri Matisse (1949)

 

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I despise being contained by rules & regulations when it comes to my poetry.

Don’t get me wrong…I don’t dislike structured forms of poetry. Sometimes I love writing like that. I actually have quite a thing for Iambic pentameter, Shakespearean Sonnets & Spondee’s. 

 

It’s not the structure I have a problem with, it’s the mindset…

 

I was once told by an English teacher that poetry was just a particular amount of syllables arranged in a particular way & the art of it all was making something new out of them. Nothing more!

 

It made absolutely no sense to me. I felt she had missed the point of poetry & thrown the baby out with the bath water. To me, that’s the talk of a lion that’s lived far too long in the zoo.

 

To her I say, “There’s life outside the bars! Welcome to the jungle, Sister!!

 

The first ever poet didn’t know of rules. There were none. They wrote simply because something divine was singing in their heart. This is poetry: that spark, that essence of something intangible. Something invisible. A poet’s heart should never be defined unless they lose that most fragile of all essences – Passion!!

 

Imagine if you will a magic spell. Is it the form and structure of a spell that is important or is it the power of the magic it creates. Some people would tell you it’s the rules.

 

I tell you it’s the magic.

 

a classically trained poet with a university degree. a broken hearted teenager warding off thoughts of suicide. a parent expressing unbearable grief at the loss of a child. Shakespeare whispering words of wisdom or honeyed love. It doesn’t matter who wields these words or in what format. If they speak them with honesty & genuine emotion they will always resonate true. Beauty is found in its most poignant form when accompanied by an honest and innocent heart.

 

No mathematical equation relating to words will ever disguise this. The essence of poetry is what matters…nothing else!

 

Some people may call me a beast for this, but I say that puts me in good company.

 

Henri Matisse & his ‘Fauves’ are a great inspiration of mine. Roughly translated ‘Fauves’ means the wild beasts. The name came about because of a remark from an art critic. At the first showing of their work a Parisian art critic pointed to a sculpture by the great Donatello nearby & was overheard to say, “Donatello au milieu des fauves!” which meant “Donatello among the wild beasts!” The group of artists took the slight & turned it into a badge of honour & proudly called themselves ‘The Fauves”.

 

I love the fact that they did what they wanted. They defied the establishment, lived life on the edge & set their own rules. They dared to paint things the colours they wanted. For eg: grass could be red, the sky could be purple, the clouds orange, etc… It was all about intuition & freedom & up until then it was unheard of. The establishment hated it. It was brilliant & outrageous. & So Very Very Cool!

 

I adore Matisse. I love his work. He dazzles my eyes with his colours. He was so bold…he painted with his heart. He coloured this world with the brilliance of his soul.

 

I guess what I am saying is this:

 

Listen to that voice that dwells within your heart. Follow it! Fight for it!

 

Paint the skies purple even if the rest of the world tells you that they are blue!

 

& To Yourself Be True!