by Frankie Saxx
"I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your own associations with flowers on my flower" — Georgia O'Keeffe
The first impression is the overwhelming color of it all. Delicate shell pink, expected. Sun-bleached russets, expected. Bone white, expected. Expected are the bruised purples emerging from pale lavender, sudden yellow stripes amid a tangle of pastels, and blues like early morning fog and robin's eggs, October skies and faded flags.
Unexpected is the menstrual tide of red: fiery scarlet, seething ruby, deep velvet carmine, all the way to a maroon so dark it might be mistaken for black in some light.
It is not the golden ratio of spiral shells that draws the eye first, nor the angularities of city skylines, not even the familiar popular images of coy and virginal calla lilies or lewd irises, but the bloody explosions of the poppies and the snap dragons and the cannas.
"I am often amazed at the spoken and written word telling me what I have painted." — Georgia O'Keeffe
Paintings hang on long white walls, a gallery of Rorschach portraiture—
Here, death in the barren expanse of a sun-baked desert; in the hard, precise lines of a horse's skull; in the blind bone arch of a pelvis. Azure sky viewed through the eye of the obdurator canal seems to say, when you are all gone to dust and bone, sand and stone and sky will remain.
There, female sensuality in the unrepentant fecundity of the flowers.
"You have written your dream picture of me—and I am not that way at all." — Georgia O'Keeffe
The nub of the stigma nestles in a luxurious profusion of brilliant petals. Organic curves, captured by the sweep of a brush, and deepening shades draw the eye inward. Hidden in the lush folds of petal are the style, the ovary, the ovule—the secret places of the flower, present only by inference. Stamens, when they appear at all, gather in the background, their thin filaments and anthers a decorative afterthought.
Sometimes a flower is just a flower.
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Inspired by a prompt & the work of Georgia O'Keeffe
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Brilliant!
**gasp** ****
I love this. It's smart and witty and imaginative. *
*, Frankie. Excellent work.
Thank you Gary! (You have some stellar work up yourself. :)
Thank you, Matt.
Thank you, John.
Thank you, David.
:)
I cut the last line:
'Sometimes a flower is just a flower.'
I'm undecided on whether it's weaker or stronger without it. I went with it initially because of the pervasive Freudian interpretations O'Keeffe's work was (is) subject to.
But maybe it's too pat. Or too pat as a final line. But it feels unfinished without it. I don't know.
I liked it. I might not have awarded a **gasp** without it. But I agree completely with John that it's "smart, witty and imaginative."
"when you are all gone to dust and bone, sand and stone and sky will remain."
I missed your work.*
Always great to read your work, Frankie.
I don't think your original closing line is a problem. It sits well in the because of O'Keeffe's work and words as backdrop. As well the image of body and plant.
Even if you don't use the line there, something is needed- at least from ny point of view.
Strong piece. Solid flow and form. Big like. *
Thanks Matt.
Thanks, Sam. Yeah, it definitely needs a little more after the second to last paragraph to feel finished--but I'm stymied on other ideas. (I put it back while I consider further.)
Thank you, Amanda! :)
Reminds me of standing in the Art Institute of Chicago years ago in galleries full of O'Keeffe paintings and missing the pheromones. Good strong piece.*
This could be much a better poem if it was more restrained and scaled back. It contains a lot of redundancies with good images scattered here and there.
"I am often amazed at the spoken and written word telling me what I have painted." — Georgia O'Keeffe
***
One thing to bear in mind is the echo back to "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Considering the topic, that could be the perfect ironic tag--were irony appropriate here.
Beautiful, and beautifully put together, a loving embrace.
Great ending. Riffing on Freud — now *there's* a light touch! Maybe now we can all be ourselves. Keep on rockin', Frankie & Georgia.
*
The form of this is so cool and I love the journey you've taken us on. Really good work, Frankie!
***
" All writing is descriptive," said T.E. Hulme, who must have been anticipating this.
Why are feminist "writers" so obsessed with their vaginas?