His Summer Poems
A Selection of Poems by Ryan Wildstar
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“He couldn’t go on. He couldn’t write his summer poem.”
A line delivered by the character Violet Venable, played by the venerable Katharine Hepburn, to her co-stars Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift from the film Suddenly, Last Summer, adapted from the play by Tennessee Williams with a screenplay by Gore Vidal based on the life of the poet Hart Crane. One of my favorite films of all time!
So, in that spirit, here are some summer poems that I did complete, which I’ve chosen to pair with the exquisite, breathtaking paintings of Séraphine de Senlis, one of my favorite painters of all time!
Committed
by Ryan Wildstar
Did you see two figures colliding?
A falling flower to the ground
Unbending limbs bloom in the damp morning air
Awaiting an end to desperation and thankless solitude
Committed to risking it all for life
Committed
Shall they never see me again?
Branch reaching out purple skin
A scented shower of psychosis and aluminum nightmares
Never dreaming
I am awake
Spring flower drops upon the wrinkled waters of centuries
Committed to risk
Two figures bend
Broken limbs like branches cling
Clinging to the wind
Just look inside for details of blossoms
True accounts of miracles are there
We call them weeds and relocate life to synthetic terrain
I am committed
What do you ever risk?
After blooming
A fallen flower underfoot
These Theories Leave Leaves on the Tree
by Ryan Wildstar
My bowl is always empty
Because my eyes are always in the stars…
I feast on the birth of a moment
Not the wealth of a nation
Notion, never nation
Creation, never patriation
Leave these concerns to the concerned
What one wants most is want –
Find it and you shall find the one
And regarding the ONE,
There is no “the” in one, but many “ifs”
A river is an extension of the sea
An extension of the sky
An extension of endless skies
An extension whose line is always occupied
With streams of consciousness
Flowing to-and-fro, through the miasma of dimensional thrust
And, if you must, I shall quell the inquisition
Into endless queries of position that never settle
Against the needling of time
These theories leave leaves on the tree
Sublime, they sway with the grace of celestial rhyme
To find the bell that is never sounding
In the heart or mind
That chime,
That “OHM,” that never ends inside the soul.
Quinta Essentia by Ryan Wildstar Moss-covered movement through lush-laden mountainscape To the top of rocky breath To the edge of sea-swept death This is the quinta essentia of life Crushed lichen limbs webbing over womby nuclear ferns And exploding, ancient sap-spawned husks, I inhale for the first time in decades I breathe I see I feel The swell of the universe all around me Within me, The connection is luscious, telluric, fundamental The sinew of serpentine tree spine, The nettle nascence of upper sky time This ascent, this submersion into the highest conversion of arboreal alchemy Under. Standing. Tree Is liquid gold to a sapling, me. Ascending to the look-out, The vision is above mention Ingestion of the journey Beyond its quest-filled intention Only the bracken, the piney-haired spines of infinite gossamer Know what is known to these descendants So breathe… Breathe in the air… This flight is not one way, It is a roundtrip trip through passages of pectinous green consciousness, Vermillion vibrations and lapideous offerings Where the velvety voice of the grove Speaks to me in algaeic melodies, Its peat mossy messages woven within a latticework of Cascadian semantics Open yourself to me, sapling And relieve yourself from previous pursuits You are a slip of a leaf upon the wings of time This forest floor is every arcana, It is the golden syrup in your veins, It is the craggy luminescence of transcendent life, A plush underbrush of loamy ground Sub-astral trails to precognitive sound, It is the quinta essentia, unbound. (8/24/11 [My birthday])
For more about the life and art of the incredible Séraphine de Senlis (1864 – 1942), check out our recent podcast which featured her artwork and watch the amazing biopic about her life, Séraphine, starring the amazing Yolande Moreau.
I ❤️❤️ it! "Branch reaching out purple skin" BLOOM! Bloom! Gorgeous paintings from Séraphine de Senlis. The Tree of Paradise ... wow. THANK YOU!
Listening to your poems brings them to life. Beautiful.