Tag: reproductions
“Blurtso is inspired by his second assignment”
Giotto di Bondone, better known as Giotto, was an Italian painter and architect from Florence in the late Middle Ages. Considered the first in a line of great artists who contributed to the Italian Renaissance, his paintings and frescos glorify God and the Roman Catholic Church…
“Bonny and Ditto share some quality time” (IX)
For Paul Cézanne, a landscape was a collection of geometrical shapes.
Excellent! said Bonny.
“Bonny and Ditto share some quality time” (VIII)
Abstract paintings generally emphasize rhythm, shape and color.
Excellent! said Bonny.
“Blurtso listens to the wind”
“Blurtso takes a trip” (XXII)
What did I see
when I first stepped up
to Paris from the metro at Montmartre?
What moved
in the light among the shadows
in the columns of Saint Peter’s?
What whispered
in the light of Interlaken
when crossing the Brienzersee?
Why so many miles?
Why the discomfort
and tedious lines that thinned
until I was alone
on a rock shattering the Mediterranean?
Why so many conductors
recording the course of my name?
Why so much motion
when my hooves were content to remain slippered
and cuddled on the couch?
A donkey crossed a dirt road
behind a church in Segovia.
His hooves and snout
were the color of the land.
He was laden with stones,
and was completely content.
In Paris the sun
woke a jenny asleep
beneath a bridge on the Seine.
She was happy.
She had no place to go.
She stopped to ask questions
no one has time to ask.
She took me to see her friends
gathered on the bank,
and we laughed
and lamented the sadness of change.
From the gypsies in Venice
I expected to hear the same,
but they didn’t want to talk.
They offered to read my future,
and I offered to read theirs.
I wanted to see
how they all fit inside me.
I wanted to see
what my hooves had created
with different hopes and dreams.
I walked and I walked and I walked,
and did what the natives did.
I wonder what I have learned?
Was the answer spelled
in a pattern of bubbles
splashed on a sidewalk in Rome?
Was it whispered
in the song
of a fountain in Seville?
At times a voice will call.
It is an image or an echo
rising from a night in Namur,
lingering on a street in Siena,
or whistling in the wind at Cérbère.
And though I go home now,
a part of me still waits
at an interminable light in Madrid,
or continues in the rain,
stepping through the past
on the stones of Mycenae.
“Blurtso takes a trip” (XVIII)
Doo dee doo dee doo, dee dee dee dee dee,
following my nose, walking by the sea.
“Blurtso takes a trip” (XVII)
“Ce n’est que votre main, Madame, sur quoi j’ose poser,
gage d’amour certain, Madame, vos doigts de blanc satin.
Il faut m’en excuser, Madame, doo doo dee doo dee doo dee,
j’ai mis dans le baiser mon âme, doo doo dee doo dee doo dee.”
“Ma main?” dit-elle. “Mais, je n’ai pas de main.”
“Blurtso takes a trip” (XII)
Dear Harlan,
I trust you are well. I am at a café in Arles. It is fourteen past twelve, the streets are empty, and the café is closed. The waiter has filled my glass before leaving to clean up. My journey is half through, and I am years from home. I have made friends along the way. And lost friends along the way. I have seen beautiful things. Faces, sights, scenery. I wonder at the value of traveling alone. A single gentleman walks up a shadowed street. Watching him from the café, I sip my wine and go along. I return to the teacup and chair at his table, and the bed where he sleeps, ‘til I wake to the morning sounds at his window. I sit on the terrace and live the life of the waiter, wiping tables and stacking chairs, sweeping, mopping the floor, washing glasses, and sorting silver. And then the waiter is gone and the man is gone. And there is only the sound of the buzz of the lights, and the silence of the stars. The silent stars, filling the canopy of the raven-colored night.
Your friend,
Blurtso
“Blurtso takes a trip” (XI)
