A Poem for Wednesday, and a New Painting..."What Lies Beneath"

"What Lies Beneath"
24" x 36"
Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas
The original painting is for sale and prints are also available on Etsy.


Feeling a little somber today...maybe it's the cold.  Snowed in for the fifth day in 2 weeks, I pulled out some sketch books from high school and found this Sylvia Plath poem on one of the first pages.  Yes, going back to my teen-angst-ridden, Plath-quoting days is always an interesting place to revisit. Despite all the years that passed when I first stumbled across her poetry, the words are still so powerful to me. The poem spoke through my new work and let me see it in a new light.

"Elm"

I know the bottom, she says. I know it with my great tap root; 

It is what you fear. 

I do not fear it: I have been there. 

Is it the sea you hear in me,

Its dissatisfactions? 

Or the voice of nothing, that was you madness? 

Love is a shadow. 

How you lie and cry after it. 

Listen: these are its hooves: it has gone off, like a horse. 

All night I shall gallup thus, impetuously,

Till your head is a stone, your pillow a little turf, 

Echoing, echoing. 

Or shall I bring you the sound of poisons? 

This is rain now, the big hush. 

And this is the fruit of it: tin white, like arsenic. 

I have suffered the atrocity of sunsets. 

Scorched to the root 

My red filaments burn and stand,a hand of wires. 

Now I break up in pieces that fly about like clubs. 

A wind of such violence 

Will tolerate no bystanding: I must shriek. 

The moon, also, is merciless: she would drag me 

Cruelly, being barren. 

Her radience scathes me. Or perhaps I have caught her. 

I let her go. I let her go 

Diminished and flat, as after radical surgery. 

How your bad dreams possess and endow me. 

I am inhabited by a cry. 

Nightly it flaps out 

Looking, with its hooks, for something to love. 

I am terrified by this dark thing 

That sleeps in me; 

All day I feel its soft, feathery turnings, its malignity. 

Clouds pass and disperse. 

Are those the faces of love, those pale irretrievables? 

Is it for such I agitate my heart? 

I am incapable of more knowledge. 

What is this, this face 

So murderous in its strangle of branches?-- 

Its snaky acids kiss. 

It petrifies the will. These are the isolate, slow faults 

That kill, that kill, that kill.

A Poem for Wednesday: The Child Angel

"Just Like Heaven"

The Child Angel

Let your life come amongst them like a flame of light, my child,

unflickering and pure, and delight them into silence.

They are cruel in their greed and their envy,

their words are like hidden knives thirsting for blood.

Go and stand amidst their scowling hearts, my child,

and let your gentle eyes fall upon them like the

forgiving peace of the evening over the strife of the day.

Let them see your face, my child, and thus know the

meaning of all things, let them love you and love each other.

Come and take your seat in the bosom of the limitless, my child.

At sunrise open and raise your heart like a blossoming flower,

and at sunset bend your head and in silence

complete the worship of the day.

By: Rabindranath Tagore

Love Grows

8" x 10"
Acrylic and Mixed on Canvas


“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” - Albert Einstein


This new little painting is now on display at The Blues Jean Bar in Snider Plaza. I always love to be reminded that my outlook on life is a choice. Here's to choosing to live today like it's a miracle.