We revel in the artist's gaze.
See us, artist, we say.
Scale us in the geometry of your sight.
Objectify us, break us down
To our vital light,
The zero shade of being,
Our essential black and white.

But what if the figure becomes the ground?
Does the artist’s vision ever come to rest?
Does she halt the eye’s restless turning,
Instead hunger to be seen?  Fathomed?  Expressed
In basic hues, simplified, resolved,
Into the object deconstructed, the mystery solved?

Spotlight and camouflage,
Revelation and disguise:
The chiaroscuro of the artist’s eyes.
Then where does beauty reside?
In our eyes, beholders,
Invited in yet held outside?
Or in the starlight, sunlight,
Lamplight as it plays  
On the seer seen in beauty’s gaze?

Why do poets and photographers love fleeting things?
Angled shafts of sunlight piercing a mass
of clouds. A rainbow flashing from dragonfly wings.
Water drops beading like shards of glass.

The fluttering shape of a sycamore’s shade.
The sun sinking into its reflection
In a purple bay.  Smoke’s shadow. The rayed
Curve of a finger reaching for perfection.

Whatever churns, bursts, rocks, flies,
Foams, flickers, roils, evades
In pigments of impermanent dyes
We try to fix before it fades

Once I mourned the endless dying  
Of here and now, the present always past
Elegized each moment, sighing
Beauty is loss and can never last.

But now I think I had it wrong.  In fact
(I learned this from an artist’s eye)
Fleeting beauty reappears faster than we react,
At the speed of a daydream flashing by.

All around, light coalesces into form,
Form explodes into light,
And we live lavishly inside this storm
If we can learn to see it right.

Beauty multiplies, tapering, swelling:
Reshaping, reforming, now familiar, now strange.
This gaudy blur in which we’re dwelling
Is the permanence of change.

Hatred is a poison that fills your body. It becomes impossible to think of anything else but the object of your hatred. Sometimes if you don't encounter the object of your hatred for a length of time, the hatred may dissipate throughout your body. You may be under the impression that the feeling is gone. The truth is that is has spread like a cancer. It is very important if possible to tell the person who you are angry with how you feel. If this is not possible it might be helpful to discuss your feelings with others. In any case do not let this hatred sit and poison your body.

Id gladly please would not like no more strange messages sent to me I am new here and don't need no more pervertidos writing me
Gracias
Angelina Lopez ¢>

I've racked my brain,
Buckled with strain
Got sweat beading 'bout my eyes.
I'm working to write
The One Word Poem,
Master it
Before I die.

I'v got two words
That work quite well,
Two words that have
A story to tell.

You see,
The problem with
A one word line,
I'll never get
The poem to rhyme.

My father talking to an irate neighbor after a football landed in his flower bed(circa 1947):

" Your grass, and your flowers, will grow back. The children  grow only once. Let them play!"

copyright: richard riddle: July 21, 2015