Avoidance
by: Billy Collins
When I saw him
walking toward me in the city,
I stopped and looked in the window
of a store that had closed.
Turned out, it was only
someone who looked like him,
but all the way home, I wondered
where in the world he could possibly be.
I understand what Collins is doing in this poem. There are times when I simply do not have the energy for human interaction. I call them my introvert days. (Believe it or not, I am an introvert. While I can and do socialize with large groups of people, I am usually drained to silence by such interactions. I have to hibernate for a while afterward.)
I had an introvert day today. Pretty much, I holed up in my office at the library and worked on my computer for about nine or ten hours, with a few breaks to chat with good friends who stopped by. I needed to recharge my peopling battery. Now, I'm sitting in my dark living room, typing this post, enjoying the silence.
One of my recent guilty pleasures is watching a British show called Portrait Artist of the Year at night. Basically, every episode consists of nine amateur and/or professional artists who paint famous peoples' portraits for four hours. After they are done painting, three judges tear their work apart and choose a winner. I watch this show alone because my wife thinks it's as dull as . . . well, watching paint dry, and my son is gaming online with his friends. So it's another way for me simply to be still and enjoy myself.
DIGRESSION: In a lot of ways, I think painting and writing poetry are very similar. It's all about creating or arresting moments in time. Artists do it with paints and pencils and pastels. Poets do it with words. Perhaps that's why I enjoy this show so much--I get to witness the creation of something artistically beautiful. And I've been a amateur art enthusiast most of my life, Andrew Wyeth, Claude Monet, and Vincent van Gogh being my three favorite painters.
Hopefully, by tomorrow, Saint Marty will be ready to rejoin humanity. Until then, it's British painters and darkness.
Expressionism
by: Martin Achatz
My uncle never sold
any of his landscapes,
gave them away as
birthday and wedding gifts
instead. As far as I know,
he also never shaved off
his ear to give my aunt
on their anniversary.
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