Melissa is hosting Poetics Tuesday ~ Picasso and Summertime are the theme.
Picasso ~ "Figures at the Seaside" ~ 1931
It's Sunday at the seashore
the beach is all elbows and angles
Helen adjusts her swimsuit
[held together by sheer optimism]
her breasts now located somewhere
in the vicinity of her left knee
Benjy sunburned in hexagons
poses like an abstract god
one knee jutting east
his elbow forming a perfect
right angle to nowhere
[he says it helps with arthritis]
Picasso would have loved them
bodies like broken furniture
rearranged for joy
laughing, snorting, wheezing
a symphony of age and sunscreen
and for a moment they are
angles and light, perfect subjects
in an imperfect world
sunburned, silly, entirely alive
I hope I get to be a frolicking octogenarian Helen. I love so much about this poem, especially the beach that is ‘all elbows and angles’, the swimsuit ‘held together by sheer optimism’, and the ‘bodies like broken furniture rearranged for joy’. Yes, Picasso would have loved them as ‘angles and light, perfect subjects in an imperfect world’. There’s a lot to be said for being ‘sunburned, silly, entirely alive’.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely love your poem, Helen!
ReplyDeleteYvette M Calleiro :-)
http://yvettemcalleiro.blogspot.com
this was a new Picasso for me (thank you!!) ... and your poem, so fresh!! went so well together-- like milk & cookies!
ReplyDeleteThis was a bloody awesome piece of writing
ReplyDeleteThis poem makes me smile.
ReplyDeleteYour poem made me chuckle!
ReplyDeleteI love it, Helen! You really captured the essence of the painting. Sex on the beach at our age! What a hoot! Then again you never know!! I love this line...
ReplyDeletebodies like broken furniture
rearranged for joy
Fabulous and fun, Helen!
ReplyDeleteEw and go for it, grandpa Lowballs, grandma Kneeboob! Perspective is wasted on the young, for sure.
ReplyDeleteSounds so much like a great day at the beach which is for everyone. I had a lot of fun reading it as I thin Picasso would have too.
ReplyDeleteWell...I hope you had asuch fun writing it as reading it gives! Great lines, great tone, endearing,
ReplyDeleteThis is wonderful, and funny. Picasso would agree.
ReplyDeleteI love how your paint a word painting for us and show us the living side of art (and thank you for your kind words at mine) Jae
ReplyDeleteI absolutely appreciate your attentiveness to the directions. You paint a nostalgic summertime with a bit of whimsy. I love that “the beach is all elbows and angles”, “a symphony of age and sunscreen”, and especially the last stanza. Thanks, Helen!
ReplyDelete