Join the Neopoet online poetry workshop and community to improve as a writer, meet fellow poets, and showcase your work. Sign up, submit your poetry, and get started.

Still life flowers in a blue jug

Submitted by vandiemenspeak on Sun, 2017-05-07 09:52

Still life flowers in a blue jug

William Buelow Gould, Oil on canvas 1840

Rotund and royal blue jug,
preposterous, suspended
held up by ghostly
hand for all to see
In antique world, and absence
of gravity.

Above an impossibility of blurred marble
smoothed, filled, plush sculpted paint,
Roses? Agapanthus?
Mother in Laws tongue?

I don't know - what over-spills
your bursting jug of longing?
What stamens taper down
in tears fresh picked;

plucked, fleshed out
jammed in, then
artfully stretched, from
thin true forms sketched

Whose earth brown drab wall,
moving into shadow
lingers in the back,
at least in this retina scene?

Whose house was this,
when you rendered such
expensive vision, when
visions bold, were so forbidden?

Or, is this some Plato's Cave,
a floor of blood red outback earth,
a dream called up from convict hell
deep mouthed, like fish thought ‘dark
salty walled, in your prison cell ?

Was this, wrack wrenched up through
sea cold, damp cracked rock dearth of sight,
here given light,
in our imagination,

as it was in yours
to escape this Island frame
this unseen prison,
this harboured earth

Tell us oh Billy boy,
what was it all worth,
did your fish swim,
did your flowers flourish forth?

Style / type: 
Free verse
Review Request (Intensity): 
I want the raw truth, feel free to knock me on my back
Last few words: 
I did a re-write of this, for the 1000 words contest, as I thought it appropriate, enjoy "Silly Billy" William Buelow Gould, was a forger, painter, some say subversive painter of the UNESCO protected "Book of Fish" some think hi hid messages in his pictures about life as a convict artist (no one noticed that one of his fish had it scales painted purposefully backwards until just recently) in a time, when to offend might mean the cat or worse - transported from Liverpool in the early 1800's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Buelow_Gould https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Still_life,_flowers_in_a_blue_jug_-_William_Buelow_Gould_c1840.jpg His book of fish is worth looking for.. he make up his colours as I mix up mine.
Editing stage: 
Editing - polished draft
Contest: 
1000 words can paint a picture

Comments

Esker

Sun, 2017-05-14 04:12

Esker's picture

coffee..grounds like locusts on the slough...
cigarette scraping out the years
but the poisons satisfying
checked out 'Billy'
a proficient artist
knowing his history now from your
suggest
I particularly am fond of the Landlord
and the use of words then as were the
rage from the illustrated London News
etc..Punch...eerily similar to the modern
cut paste memes....similar to the selfies
now of subjects as tasteful and meme ful
there were photo albums of my grandmother
on my fathers side..born late eighteen
hundreds with the script in white on the
black paper..corner tabs....sometimes
humor like the previous decades..
the wit of the creative...
his works are subtle
merging from the trade of forger
blurry enough to not be fastidiously
'too good'
but extracted in detail...and regardless
a painter....
I like the moment in which you write
'color'
and previous condition
which to a poet would be similar to
dsylexia...
obviously the brilliance in his wit
is evidence of the creative fires
and lifestyle
definite connection to water based
down to the bread and water of the
times of incarceration
the jovial wish of water being the freedom
could be the matter...
the wit in itself is the mad expressionism

thank U

vandiemenspeak

Sun, 2017-05-14 08:07

vandiemenspeak's picture
Volunteer badge

Connection here is crapping out, bits of data trickling though like tadpoles, life on a remote hill - it occurred to me when I looked at a map of the world recently (Anglocentric one) that Tasmania really is at the bottom of the world, tucked out of the way by the old colonial empire, the new Jerusalem was built, in the image of it's creator, the green and pleasant land, by the hands of many...forgers, handkerchief thief that were bell-smiths, men of the cloth, tub-thumping bible black, fishermen, carpenters, master masons (and Mason masters) waterlily ladies of leisure, at the watercolours, and the oils, crates full of tightly packed, military grade, functional - yet tasteful furniture, all the comforts of home, in the bright new land, all built by the hands of the convict, all tallied, numbered, listed and stored in bond, all accounted for. They had a plan, they always had some design, just turned out a little differently down here.
I look at the map and see our little dot of an island, then look up at the little island that I came from, the immensity of time and the tyranny of distance, sends a shock jolt of dislocation through me sometimes, I can be driving down a road with old hawthorn hedgerows, (an art in itself, planting a hedge, once a craft) these hedges are 180 years old, and I am subject to a cerebral temporal shock of dislocation, and I'm transported back to Nottingham countryside windy roads in the 80s . I imagined how he felt, others felt, it's part of the obsession of my process.

No one picked up that he was hiding these little pointers in his paintings, such as the subversive reversal of the scales, in the first fish in the book:

https://linctas.ent.sirsidynix.net.au/client/en_AU/library/search/detail...$002f$002fSD_ILS$002f0$002fSD_ILS:80818/one

Thanks to you for your observations!

Cheers.
Chris.

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

author comment

Esker

Sun, 2017-05-14 13:57

Esker's picture

we had hawthorns..elms..the scoured granite in the basement
of the little yellow house..
grandparents had an old square log hut the pigs lived in
nothing wasted then..large garden..wood stove
porch on a two story eighteen eighties home
victorian style garden out front...
a cow in my sisters time for fresh milk
and chickens to the end
grandfather a fierce spooky eyed character
the last.woodstove...
in our line..home cooked meals
visits to them in their rocking chairs
etc.....but our house just a walk up the
roadway on a hill facing west was pleasant
and in winters blast or summer for shade
and cutting the wind the rows would work
wonders...the channel like a river ..a canyon
of comfort..

scales for upstream..the rebel minded creative
vend...

the little island...I visited outposts and islands
in my days of work..travel
there is a marvel in the staid simplicity and charms
of the craft of those people
as Ive written i worked for older people restoring the
old retired and working resorts....
aged structures of bygone motoring eras
tiredly falling into disrepair
but the memories forever locked into people
who would return with misted eyes
for the memories...

summer camp..another story time..for rich in algonquin
as maintenance man...
skipped college..to expensive
worked forever
like tomorrow...
a ground pounder chum
in and out of jails
just enough schooling
his woman a little scrapper
we go and work for an ailing
aged wealthy..putting in a dock
for a few hours..
right now sitting in leisure wear
skull pirate shirt..those jamie pants
the north americans like
they have replaced track pants
more comfortable but i liked that
swishy sound....
a shopping list for walmart
a half mile straight run
for sustenance..no diff then the
market in the old times

i met wealthy at a coffee shoppe
pharmacy owner....family inheritance
wealth man....something to do with
business...a simple little car...nothing
extravagant about his clothes..
and a stock boy...old bohemians
but dug into the capital of the aristocrasy
of their existance...
they liked me cause i knew the hollywood
actor from the silent era..a comedian
harold loyd or something like it
and buster keaton
in the mall where i sit
alone but not lonely like van gogh
poor..but dressed pleasant enough
he would sit and talk about his paris
days seventies..

in me maybe they saw the musings
the indomitable survivor instinct
shinning through like tough traveller
wear...

still poor..eeking out the squeak of
life hearing the bell and whistle still
like those endeared to its service

got a buddy to help..a fifty foot section
of dock....man work..buddy day..
sisters galore these chaps...
no brothers..
i had both...

i have to get back painting...my daughter
is trying to get healthy...mentally
and off the coping stuff..
the jail boys wrote poetry
their dedicated women dressed to the nines
jail house groupies
their careful poetry and love letters
i read inspired me to read
their drawings of tatoos and creations
time ..effort shone through

swimming upstream

a good line...great point
Billy was an excellent artist
his landlord...prolly only
drawing portrait he got
why it survived...a treasure
like writings of 'color'
and mixture here!

thanks Chris..
thanks brother

Esker!

Barbara Writes

Mon, 2017-07-10 21:59

Barbara Writes's picture
Volunteer badge

Profound description of the flowering jug drama inside

*Collaborative Poetry Workshop* American Version of Japanese Poetry ~ Renga ~ Haiku, Senyru, Tanka.

Neopoet Community

vandiemenspeak

Tue, 2017-07-11 02:29

vandiemenspeak's picture
Volunteer badge

Yes, it's very vivid on the wall. I t certainly speaks volumes to me, bing in a gallery close to work. his history is that of struggle, and overcoming difficulty, yet with the little equipment and time he had - created such things. i'm left in awe.

thanks.

Chris.

Chris Hall - Tasmania

Grossbooted draymen rolled barrels dullthudding out of Prince's stores and bumped them up on the brewery float. On the brewery float bumped dullthudding barrels rolled by grossbooted draymen out of Prince's stores.

author comment

Barbara Writes

Wed, 2017-07-12 01:40

Barbara Writes's picture
Volunteer badge

Glad to meet you

*Collaborative Poetry Workshop* American Version of Japanese Poetry ~ Renga ~ Haiku, Senyru, Tanka.

Neopoet Community

(c) Neopoet.com. No copyright is claimed by Neopoet to original member content.