Chasing Visions

[ctalerico]

Ancient castle ruins
This light that fades in memory
While others live in wasted lands
Seduce with clinches, mundane laughter,
Cry cathartic tears, quote Shakespeare,
Mutter like motions in a storm
Transgress through transparent thoughts:
Where does the silence begin?

Shadows fall upon the Artist's soul
In hushed children's dialogue with self
Enchanter, bending ordinary perceptions
Court jester, drawing bridges across vast moats
Mad crusader, crossing an ageless abyss
Traversing all that we are in myths
Descending dark catacombs,
Great dungeon caverns,
Searching for the muse, chasing visions
In sepia, flickering faltering candlelight,
Dance through gray fogs of
Collective consciousness through gauzy mists
Gossamer truths beyond love's wasted youth
An Artist's way of seeing melts boundaries
Illuminates ghostly labyrinth chambers
Wherein a glimpse is caught--
Visions pirouette, ascend spiral staircases
In darkened isolated tower
Into nebulous mist leaving alone to cower
The Artist, deprived of divine union
With vertigo, denied Her power
Wantonly awaits germinating seed to flower.

Meanwhile...

Others of his society
Lacking visitations yet with such great piety
Criticize the Artist's singularly focused intent
Utter banal remarks with utter contempt
As -- through primal caves he draws art out,
Attempting to discover what it's all about;
From pastoral paintings through odes of joy
To afternoons of fauns
Through celestial cathedrals
To overwhelming melodies, muted sensations:
Flute notes played on pipes of Pan
Hylas back among the nymphs again
Through Fellini films and Road Runner cartoons
Through Blake, Byron, and Dylan Thomas
To Wordsworth, Shelley, and Keats
Through centuries past to future ages,
Through multiple cultures
Through all seven stages -- the Artist searches
Quite alone, frantically avoiding
Ring... ring... ringing of the phone.
Friends, relatives, solicitors, collectors
Tug, pull in cacophony drone
While on sacrificial alter he lies prone
Chiaroscuro, delicate balances, light and shade
Strange, obscured... profound betrayals
Inner visions lost, daily chaos near psychotic
Addicted is the Artist to the nectar narcotic
Pentimento, the Artist half-spent repents
In Gothic shadows of self-doubt while
Fleeting visions haunt him--still--
Taunt, flirt, bend his will without compassion
Through long winding corridors of distraction
Whores, daily mundane chores gain satisfaction
Inhibiting the magical synthesis of
Meaningful metaphors fashioned
Artist denied, visions he cannot resist
Noblesse oblige, noble passions persist
Chasing visions reveal rapturous art
In whispered silences
Quite apart (at last) from main-stream clamor,
Rhetorical grammar
Exclusive of all else, the Artist's vision
Is driven through nightmarish dreams beyond
What reality seems to worlds, thoughts,
Other welcomed realms
To Plato, Nietzsche, Satre, Kierkegaard, Camus
To satyr plays, mythologies, opera, haiku,
Too few issues of the Saturday Review
Still -- the visions remain elusive...

'Til least expected, greatly needed
She comes resurrected, neither swallowtail
Nor monarch, though regal she reigns
Somewhere over the spectrum of all
Creative kingdoms -- As sovereign ruler,
Whose subjects' pleas oft go unheeded
Sown what another time was seeded
Gradually, shy, revealing grandeur of self
Distant, through sheer veils
Magnificent gossamer
Lovely lingerie clings flowing formless
Tissue wings transparent spread leisurely
Flutter in breezes, kissed by sunlit magic.

Artist's will beckons cautiously near
Sought sensuous sights soft sighing
Still, without net, a glimpse is but caught--
Beauty too rich for use, for earth too dear!
Yet Beauty beheld long after She flees flying
On Zephyrus' breathe spring flowers--
Her freedom shared, banality diminished
Work unfinished demands fantasy flight
Finality willed enigmatic metaphors unravel
Alchemy delight diaphanous overlays
Ideas rush, travel the speed of light
Dazed is the Artist, ancient ageless druid;
Amazed orgasmic creative might
In whispered hush says She, I'll bring you to it.

Artists share life's essential fluid
For in secret truth that's what art is--
Blood red semen white O'Keeffe rose is
Thorn's delight to bud blush petals tight
Goddess penetrated, virgin deflowered
Before ideas dissipate sweetly soured
Imprisoned images in translucent cocoon
Revealed beneath bleeding pigment refraction
Organic reality infused as in
Jack-in-the-Pulpit vulva abstraction
Fragrant tendril trails of Her perfume
Muse amused in time's labored contraction
Ideas form in thundering storm crush
Time, hours, days! of incubation
Artist works with wild wanton passion
Past Eureka! preoccupation
Afraid visiting visions will fade
Woefully fearing reality's crash-in
Time with Her unfairly rationed
Having seen Her but a glimpse
Strives for magic synthesis fusion
Before holy images eclipse
Before life's sanctimonious intrusion
Before his break with salvation's illusion--
Used by the Muse then left abused
Artist now is less confused
Too soon fled but for a moment wed
In creativity's wild embrace
Her wings fluttered caressed his face
Fickle She flits to flirt another place
What remains is insubstantial trace
Of metamorphic beauty's treasure--
From such pain O! such pleasure.
Gone, Her mysteries gloriously displayed
With every work an Artist has ever made.

Now, having glimpsed Her glory, the Artist
Walks in beauty, in life's triumph an a Adonis
For an hour, amid the splendor in the grass
Having smelled the flower with silent tears
Faces boldly his secret fears knowing least
Time, the hour, when light may cease,
He works renewed, focused upon life's
Momentary end, fired radiance of sight
Ceaselessly working morn through night
Reborn Phoenix rejuvenated anew
Passion flames fueled through hours too few
Steel will unbending against time's anvil,
With tyger's strength and lamb's heart
Forging the symmetry of his art
Aware of neither time nor place,
Foe nor friend, transfixed in space:
Artists face the sun with songs unsung
'Til work's climaxed completion...

By-product
secondary to process
called art by all but
Artists
who know it's
love consummated with the Muse
until the work's completed--

When nothing but climatic ash remains
Courting dance chase begins again.


copyright 1994 Carl Talerico

[Leabhar]

Excellent, long poem. An ode to art? Why has no one commented on this yet? This is amazing poetry.

[ctalerico]

Thank you. As do all artists with respect to their works, I owe it all to Her. Artists who have consummated their love with Her surely know the bliss of which Joseph Campbell so eloquently spoke. All I did was follow my bliss. I wish the same for you.



Excellent, long poem. An ode to art? Why has no one commented on this yet? This is amazing poetry.

[goldenrod]

A massive "tour de force", except I read it in segments to enhance its flavour!

goldenrod.

[ctalerico]

Thanks! I wrote it that way as well.


A massive "tour de force", except I read it in segments to enhance its flavour!

goldenrod.

[blazeofglory]

This is a long poem yet no line goes without enthralling us.

[alakungfu]

Now I know to a certainty that I no longer walk the cliffs of inspiration alone.

Thank you for the poem.

[ctalerico]

This is a long poem yet no line goes without enthralling us.

You humble me, sir. Thank you for taking time to share my moment of vision.

[ctalerico]

Now I know to a certainty that I no longer walk the cliffs of inspiration alone.

Thank you for the poem.


We scale those cliffs together and cross bridged moats with fear and joy united as we are with all artists past present and future who dare(d) contemplate the unimaginable and made it real through their imagination with the inspiration of the Muse and their undying devotional love to their art.

[ctalerico]

There have been nearly 200 hits here, presumably to read Chasing Visions yet only a few people have been kind enough to post comments.

Does anyone have suggestions how I might stimulate discussion of the poem?

I'm wonder if most simply don't like it, don't understand it, find it difficult or inaccessible, or are turned off by its length and didn't bother to finish reading it?

Of course it's always gratifying to receive compliments and learn that others have enjoyed one's creative efforts but one learns more, I believe, from honest and reasoned criticisms. So I encourage anyone who reads Chasing Visions to post comments. I'm genuinely interested in your reactions though, of course, I reserve the right not to necessarily agree.

I'm willing to answer questions about the poem and, for those less knowledgeable about poetry, perhaps we can use the poem as adjunct to helping broaden your knowledge?

[Leabhar]

Do you have a site or something where we can read more of your poetry?

[ctalerico]

Do you have a site or something where we can read more of your poetry?

No, I no longer have a web site. I was entertaining the idea of creating a blog here on LN for that purpose but I don't know the details for having a blog here. I have wanted to post a few other poems but according to the rules I guess it's best not to post poems too often in order to give others a chance.

I appreciate your interest in my work though.

I'd like to use a few of my poems as springboards to help others less confident about poetry to perhaps gain some insights toward greater appreciation of poetry in general. I'd use my own poetry since, as the poet, I know what I meant when I wrote it. Usually artists (myself included) are not quick to explain their work--once it's completed it should speak for itself. But for those who are shy and less knowledgeable of poetry I thought it might be a good opportunity. Still, I fear sounding or appearing pompous and I don't know if a blog here would be appropriate for that purpose.

What do you think? I'd appreciate your input and that of any others reading this.