Five themed poems by Tom Brady

Five poems
by Tom Brady

Portrait of a Nude
(Manet's The Picnic in the Grass)

He lay naked on the rock
stretched vulnerable
He said, "Fill me up".

Her hand flicked
at the tall flowers
her eyes upon the green valley,
"its too cold," she said and shivered.

...the paint begins to run and smear
nothing was any longer clear.
the sun was weak.

In the valley below
tables would be piled high with honey
and with mead,

there were gleaming goblets
in which dreams resided.
Buddha threw dice with DaDa
but the children laughed with scorn:
the birthright of young night
sprinkled with gleaming stars..

Such sleight of hand is easy
compared to the sullen day
scratched, torn
by the sundial dissecting.

"it's a while to Vespers",
she said with a sigh
smoothing her rough robe
unaware of sides and angles.

"mother will light the candles
for the salon. All the painters
will be there," he said.

The music is born
in tall flowers
and the small talk
of a lovers song,

often,
it is left unfinished
like a summer storm.

====================

Manet on the Caspian Sea

The room was the same,
muted
the fleur de lis in the wallpaper frayed,
the floorboards coarse and warped.
Victorine in loose robe bored,
the laughter in the streets below
disconnected
from the longing in his soul
where the color whirled & pooled.
a violent sea in a strange place
where the landscape trailed away
in the curve of the world.

peddlars hawk stick figures on the stairs,
On the streets the whores sell their used wares
their blank stares a remnant of their humanity
as when they were children and tended flowers
blooming on the shores. The ones
that she brought up to the room
are wilted in the gloom, was it not fear
that brushed her naked form
there by the side of the pool
where the darkness gathered
{ "A veil of madness lies over the vision"
or Ilmarinen, from Lonnrot in the Kalevala,
of which...Oinas wrote that great deeds were accomplished
by the power of words and incantations. }
each Spring small birds fall from the trees,
freedom is not an easy thing to learn
or to dream
and the past waits for the changes to come
uneasy as the old buildings crumble
tumbling after a moment of flight.

At the edge of the canvas
reality returns with a rush
to the tenement room.

++++++++++++++++++++

The Factory
1971
(Andy Warhol's Brooklyn Bridge)

and now young man,
beware, the old priest said
actually living there,
the glare cast by a yellow orb
while music played invisibly
fair,
the air was lemon,

which is what he knew not I
a bitter word, ancestor,
beware, he spoke,
cast not sorrow on the wind-
Were you not awake
at The Sermon On The Mount,
and at the Salem’s witches’ trial
bible in your fist
your face red with lust?
ah, dust.

abruptly he leaves
and I am left alone,
Spam & squash.

--------------------



Anonymous Baltimore, 1895
(Winslow Homer's Northeaster)

Berthe Morisot dies at Paris March 2 at age 54.

The work has taken Rodin 11 years
Calais should be pleased
with the results of his soul.
It is the birth of poets
we crave even here
on the streets of Baltimore
where they dare not
venture forth.

Only Whitman rises out of the mire,
Sir; defiant.
his scrolls held aloft
departing on a clipper ship.
as if we could exist so,
selfishly
devilishly
devouring the words;
Sailing thru the mists for the bridge.

********************


The Tragedy of Leaves
(Fantin-LaTour's Charles Baudelaire, Emile Deroy's Charles Baudelaire,
and Manet's Baudelaire's Mistress Reclining)

The sweet smell of my own piss
running into my shoes
as I walk to the cafe to write a poem,
the masturbation of the words
in the foul scent of myself--

a baby blackbird had fallen from the nest
at the edge of the boulevard,
there was nothing I could do
but listen to its cries,
i turned to go
i hurried on
pensive with hot words
opening ancient wounds.

A True Beauty!
Not the jeanne that owns my soul
nor the blackness
round my swollen sagging flesh,

the flower and the breast
that sway
in slightly different ways
scepters of various lengths
specters that close the grand gate,
sunlit fields
carved in dark mahogany,
the cafe,
the smoke, the table
my pen and the poem.

Author bio:

T.E. Brady is an american poet on skid row. His most recent publication was a poem, Death in Manhattan, in the October 2007 issue of The Cerebral Catalyst. Additionally, his science fiction work will be included in Aowife's Kiss in spring 2008. Prior to that he has appeared in various magazines since he started writing, back before Time. He resides in New England, now.