Technical difficulties and creative exhaustion led to the untimely demise of Haiku Sunday this week. To celebrate the 33 views of my blog that day (the lowest total since January) I am offering a glimpse into my last week. Haiku Tuesday is about my still life in Denver while enjoying the genius artworks of Clyfford Still, perhaps the most important Abstract Expressionist painter. Mr Still’s work along with Jackson Pollock and my favorite modern painter Mark Rothko changed the way we look at art today and possibly even our views of the world.
I cried on and off throughout my day in the Clyfford Still Museum on Sunday because the paintings reminded me why I am out here trying to create which to me is just the way I want to live and so frequently do not.
Texture is not false
it is what keeps us reaching
again for the touch
walking hallways are
so much longer than I had
known or hoped I find
I saw his face in
the vague distance between art
and the idea
viewed in their true light
images from our past are
not always honest
she alone may know
my enveloping angst
with photography
awkward glances at
myself reflecting the change
I know must happen
seeing a street as
something of an appendage
to access my heart
I push the glass up
and know for a few moments
I know it all
About Michael Housewright
its never easy
and the best minds suffer most
we met, I love you
this is the best Haiku I have read in months Mike. You are dialed in my friend and if this is meant for me I am honored beyond words.
Who else would it be meant for?
I try and not take such things for granted. sometimes a poem is just a poem
Thank you!
These thoughts are lovely and gut-wrenching and universal. Send me an email.
George
George, often what I feel when I write has little to do with my state of being. I almost went back today and added commentary to the Haiku so I could let people know that I am not in some miserable state of despair and that I find melancholy often to be beautiful and truth revealing. Coming from my background in theater it is about moving images, stories, and actions. I am sometimes just observing and yes the thoughts are often gut wrenching and universal, so I share them seeking the commonality. Does this make sense? I sometimes, like Viktor Frankl suggests, find the beauty and in this case the bliss from the common suffering we share as human beings. It is cyclical, it changes, and I like sharing it. Yes, the big stories, the fiction, the Top 25 lists are all part of what I want to share. I am guessing though, that there are readers out there that identity much more with my investigation of the morose than my cheerful representations of meals and journeys to the unknown. All in all, I am provoked to think and to consider the responsibility in writing. It has been a powerful day
Beautiful paintings, I am a great fan of abstract expressionist.
Me too Marianne! It moves me much more now than when I was younger. I think I can stay still longer now and see the beauty in the themes more clearly
Love the artworks!
Thank you very much my friend and for visiting the site today
That is cool that they allow photos in their museum. Beautiful photos and haiku.
You should bring this link to my Use Me and Abuse Me party today!
Susie, so long as you use no flash and do not intend commercial gain from the photos they are cool. I am coming over to your site now, but I am bringing a more positive piece that had only a few views.
Beautiful photos created.
Why do you despair?
How many views
Do not matter
Angeline, I love your support. I let the page views dog me too much and thank you for reminding me of this.
Thank you for sharing what you saw and felt. I admire abstract art also. Sometimes creating for yourself is sufficient.
I agree, and I am learning that I don’t always need to have the reads. Thank you for the encouragement
You are such a creative soul, I admire but also envy that talent especially your way with words and for me, 33 views is a good day
You know, it was likely pretty selfish of me to post those totals. I have been so busy and simply have not put the work into this to earn the views I am accustomed to getting. The reasons I do this blog are not so commercial as my words make them seem and I am so grateful to followers like you who simply enjoy what I say. It is an honor to be read by people across the planet and I need to remind myself of this more regularly. Thank you so much for being so supportive
Great paintings! Rothko and Pollock are old favorites – so this was a great addition.
And nice to see you stopping by on some Italy pics today
Hope you’re well and happy!
Had I not read the comments I would have mistakenly, like George, believed you were suffering something macabre and soul-stiffening. I am glad to have read them, discovering that you are not in fact miserable, but just expressing yourself through the picture to word modem. These photos and their haikus are lovely.
Be well,
~ Cara
I think those closest to me, like you and George are apt to read in much more to my posts and God bless you all for it. At the same time, I do not feel the impetus for the literal always and I do tend to work as observer and also without judgement (sometimes). I am well, just experiencing the trappings of this life after 16 years in another and it won’t always come easy for me. I feel things dramatically and I like it that way. Joy, and pain are what move me to tell any kind of story. When life gets slow and I am most near Zen, that’s when I get nervous
I am very glad to have such compassion in my readers and friends Cara. You rock!
It’s amazing how you do this so well. Lovely as always
I am so glad you like this post. It was a very rich and introspective day for me. Cheers to Poets!
I’m not a modern art fan, it always struck me as a bit of a con job, but I think your haikus make the best argument for it yet
I believed exactly as you did till I saw the Mark Rothko paintings in the Louvre. Something about the fields of red and the dynamic way in which my eyes kept scanning feeding my mind, altering the place where I was the moment, and simply being incapable of labeling the feeling was the closest I felt to the bright color dreams that fueled my childhood imagination. I am still not really a Pollock guy, but Rothko and now Still have me hooked
thank you so much for sharing…I was just as touched by some of the responses here. A privilege to know and read you, my friend
thank you for this! This was a very important piece as it let the world in a bit on what I am attempting. I think in today’s society the morose and the fearful are hidden behind veils and we are so shocked when someone shares something painful and we wonder what might be wrong with them. Pain has made me a better person than joy ever could. I am glad you got it