What My Artist Says (new poem)

 

What My Artist Says

by Tim Kavi

there won't be any stopping me now

the words are flowing

the lamps are burning oil

the afterfires are burning

and it won't matter to me

because the fire is burning 

purging the blues away

no matter what time of day

what matters is the work

the flowing words that drop

like paint on a blank page

that bring a meaning I never observed

that brings happy memories

joyful sad juxtapositions of place

in the black-shrouded dropcloth

of space, there is only me in the void

can I bravely create?

no shrinking back? no holding back!

until the words are done

the colors set

destroyed by Siva

sands wiped by monk sweeps

in the morning of my next

existence, I will keep saying

words of the artist

painting painting painting painting

I don't care what you think

let me just throw paint!

damnit, help me

or get out of the way 

can't you see my tears 

are starting to flow?

to the spaces, and creases

I don't want to go

but when the work is finished

is it a work on me?

or something I needed to say

to help society?

I don't know, I just want to throw

to hurl paint

at the whispering wind

the canvas of Nature

catches it, as it is expressed

in my deepest heart!

and around the next bend

the curtain is pulled back

revealed for what the deeper 

purpose has wrought

until the sands of time

move someone else to say it again

and again, fooling transcendence

but never cheating the permanent void

there is the going, the turning

the burning nights, the glorious sights

of Her reveal, muses eternal

proclaiming what is to be read

because on Her lips it has already

been said, across the ancient skies

since time has been born

down below her hips

the birthing of all that is

in countless stories told, 

pages worn, heartbreaks torn

in the light of history's torch

frames of flickering images

burn my sand burned eyes now

tell more stories, with much 

more disguise, but still

flickering shadows reveal 

the cave wall, of artists' 

inspiration, in a great reveal

there it is! There it is!

now showing

no hiding what has been done

just the completed picture

until tomorrow's sun.

Obscurity (new poem)

 

Obscurity (new poem)
by Tim Kavi

a message in a bottle

swam the darkened sea

landed on a sandy shore

the contents therein

hopelessly dated

a voice, daring to speak

in a galaxy of voices

an atom sparked in a shell

uncertainty making

no exact measurements possible

yet I shall speak

I shall still dare to exist

making choices no others can make,

quaking in fear, daring to utter

but only fading

how much does obscurity

diminish what the artist says,

screeching like a bat out of hell,

pronouncing like an angel,

scrolls of holy writ,

will there be no hearers?

will there be no readers?

yet I speak, are my words not worthy?

paragraphs, but only monologue?

I want dialogue!

So, I pray draw closer

as my voice withers with whispers

my throat is parched,

I long  for the smooth drinking

of words uttered "well" enough

prose that gets your attention

you dare to deem it so worthy?

based only on who or what you think?

of who I am, or what I have said,

but we are completely only human,

transfixed and far apart,

knowing now, that our lives

are so valuable, wanting meaning

to be seen again, we search

for one another (post-pandemic)

let us turn to the Other,

speaking gentle words of esteem

even kindness and affinity

for all others, we come with

sure words of a brave love.

I only hope we hear, we read,

we esteem each other!

speech acts of sincere meaning

lost in nighttime's dark scheming,

longing for the light,

we can find each other

we can build again

darkened corners of unlit

cityscapes, reduced to rubble

avoiding death, and other trouble,

we will dance again

you shall see in the light

shaking the dust off

we will go to school again

and enjoy the fruits of our labors,

the happiness of each other

finding that obscurity 

was only an illusion

a feigned sense of all that was

into the unmistakable joy of what is.

brushes on canvas; (a work is done) (poem)

brushes on canvas; (a work is done)

by Tim Kavi

canvas on fire

with rainbows

of fantastic colors

lending a dark surprise

to misbegotten eyes

across fractured time

hypnotized

as lasting songs

fed by passion's grind

cathartic desires unfurled

as dueling arrangements

juxtaposed in symbolic 

fires of mind

intertwined and hurled

tossed and thrown

gobs of paint

by artists sublime

in heartbroken rages

of mystical verses

spoken at altars

where eagles climb

as universal cosmology

points to infinite points

across starried skies

where mountains flowed

down to the seas

where purple waves

drowned in ecstatic cries.

A-musing Wisecracks Across the Mind (poem)

A-musing Wisecracks Across the Mind (poem)

by Tim Kavi

watching out eight ways to beat

up around the bend

the shuffling of feet

Terpsichore moves so sweet

moving in dialectical ways

hegel and Marx wink wink

Linehan too; what's my storied days

basking in Clio's sunny rays

what's the rub; long tales at night

Ode to all longly said

grinning, bringing the light

Calliope eats a cantaloupe; such a sight

consuming me; love's sting

staying awake is no worry

linger long, no hurry, ring ring

with Eratos, love's the thing

A-musing laughing goddesses

dance across gardens

bulls in China shop hippotamuses

advocate very deep hypotheses (sic)

incorporating movements of verse

song and dance; cutting glass

poetry in planetary motions reverse

fading history finds it all the worse

until she dabs my feverish head.

Artist John Stuart Berger by Tim Kavi (Article)

Tim Kavi has had an online article published at:

http://soulfulpen.com/Imagine/?page_id=216

Title:  John Stuart Berger 
by Tim Kavi

Publication:  Imagine Magazine (Art Magazine); July 2009

This is an article on John Stuart Berger, an artist from the Sacramento California area.

Update:  The link above no longer works (as of 2013), so I have reproduced the article below in its entirety.  (I do retain authorial copyright).  Hope you enjoy it! ~~TK

John Stuart Berger

By Tim Kavi

Sacramento artist John Stuart Berger has no problem taking his inspiration from a plethora of creatures that fly, swim, or crawl, as he puts it.  Berger, who as a youngster caught the creatures and played in the woods near the house where he grew up started drawing them at an early age.     Far from being a budding entomologist or aspiring bird lover like other kids interested in creepy crawlies or feathered friends, Berger grew up to become an artist with a delightful and creative yen for the creatures that he observed and  studied. 

By growing up in the rural area of Danville, Berger had plenty of opportunities to reflect on the creatures as he played near the creek, and studied Audubon-like Field Guides for inspiration.  This inspiration has led him to draw and sketch the creatures, and after developing a basic drawing, he would play with them, exaggerating their features, or changing their characteristics. (This was on paper and not as a genetic engineer).   Although the result of this process seems at times to take on an animated quality, or a cartoon quality, Berger says that the Field Handbooks and old Biology textbooks have been more of an influence on his style, than the slight exposure he had to comic books as a kid.  Berger has called this process of drawing additional features as ‘mutating’ them.   Once this happens, Berger took his creative process a step further, where he found that his art could not only mutate the creatures but morph them into different colors and new kinds of emotional lives.

By deconstructing and reshaping them as newly morphed beings that delight young and old, fascinate the curious, and overall, brings great interest among onlookers, Berger has given us alternative creatures that inspire and fascinate us and reminds us that the forces of Natural Selection could have come up with something entirely different if they only had the shaping skills that Berger has.

Berger's artistic vision certainly depicts the new creatures in a manner that adds emotional life, color, and plenty of room for mutated identities in interesting habitats that delights the imagination.  If only evolution were concerned with aesthetics and meaning rather that bare survival.  How much more interesting creatures could be, and Berger’s work certainly reminds us of that.  Gone are the dull blacks, and grays, and other shades that Natural Selection has selected for in the past, and added are much brighter colors that would surely make such creatures much more interesting in the natural world amongst landscapes of colorful habitat.  One wonders how they might avoid predators, but perhaps in their new worlds they are avoiding them.  Or at least, in Berger’s scheme, the new creatures have not gone unprotected, for they have acquired teeth and a bite that their ancestors might never have dreamed of!

Painting in a style that some might call pop surrealistic, and others have certainly seen as surrealism, Berger’s work has been featured at a number of shows as an up and coming artist.  Berger has done his work mostly in acrylics, but has done interesting work in ceramics, and some of his other paintings feature shapes and human figures rather than the creatures morphed and mutated from his youth.  John Stuart Berger is certainly an interesting talent, well worth the attention he gets, and even more so, his original and innovative work should be considered an interesting object of acquisition among serious art collectors.  

Artist: John Stuart Berger

http://www.johnstuartberger.com/
http://www.johnstuartberger.com/about/

About the author:  Tim Kavi is a poet from Portland, Oregon. Kavi’s first collection will be published shortly by Tilu Press.  “Emerging Goddess” is a collection of poetry that many see as love poems, others see as poetry that worships the sacred goddess in her many forms, and others say describes a longing for connection and dialogue with strong existential themes.  You can see some of his poetry at: http://www.timkavi.blogspot.com .

John Stuart Berger, Artist 

Fresh Ceiling Paint (Poem with Brief Poet Comment)

Fresh Ceiling Paint by Tim Kavi

Each day's hues
danced in the flickering
candle light
as the lover
of his creation
fell asleep in the
gathering night

intricate eyes
for detail
had guided
artistic hands
in complex
patterns of reaching
across clouded skies

perfected in
the craft
of a master
with a facial grin

until the beauty
was seen
through the windows
a peaceful sheen

calling to ascend
the lonesome artist
painted through
winter's wind.

Brief Poet Comment: This poem is about perseverance in the artistic process. As I was writing it I visualized Michelangelo working on the ceiling at the Sistine chapel. The backbreaking work (literally lying flat on scaffolding), the dogged determination, the sacred art, left for the world to enjoy many years hence. Hence, it is : 'Fresh Ceiling Paint'.--T.K