`Blue' in Art Nouveau Setting
by Lesley Anne Ivory
[Image is copyrighted by Lesley Anne Ivory; this painting inspired the poem below.]
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`Blue' in Art Nouveau Settingby Lesley Anne Ivory [Image is copyrighted by Lesley Anne Ivory; this painting inspired the poem below.] |
Exotic lilies sway in the hot sun over head.
The pulsing garden lies beyond
The flat carpet sand.
If the heat and scents flood your senses,
You can retreat behind the trellised arch
To more mundane charcoal cats.
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[On July 14, 2003, I corrected an obvious typo on one of my other poetry pages. I then read over the version of this poem on the web up to that point (see below). I was unhappy with the poem because tulips aren't Turkish--carpets are, so the Turkish tulips were just weird. Then what's up with the woods--these images don't seem logical if you look at the painting. Also the whole last three lines don't really make sense--the branches look like pre-bloom flowers that then die before blooming and are in shadows or mist? Hmmm ... It doesn't work. So I revised as seen above.
Come into the sacred garden of the Krishna-colored cats
Between Turkish tulips, blue-grey cats stalk
Purple song birds.
Exotic lilies sway in the hot sun over head
The pulsing garden lies beyond
The flat carpet sand.
In the woods the twisting branches
Recall the garden's curving stems
And shadow-misted stalks
That vanish ere they bloom. ]