A Particular Arrangement For Thornton Willis
Frederick Bauman
Word count: 147
Paragraphs: 3
Some years ago, I wrote a poem inspired by Thornton’s painting A Particular Arrangement. At his wife’s request I read it at the memorial for Thornton at the Greenwich Funeral Home. The poem was published in a collection called “Enneagrammatic Improvisations” which was published by Codhill Press of New Palz, NY in 2007. The frontispiece of the book was a color reproduction of the painting.
Sliding down
Colors flip flop dimensionally
Sustained stained-glass-like
In sullied perfection
Plagued by gray
Ego alter ego circumscribe May pole
From androgynous gene pool
A man whirling into being
As if this alone matters
Aching for tentative resolution
Simultaneous shutter flutter
On flat dead canvas
Crucified angularity
Proclaiming new dimension
Here disingenuous shades of peach
Surrender to color’s spectrum
Everything contained in nothing
You stop along your path
Arrange this painting
Pack paints, brushes – move along
Leaving this marker
This sign of struggle
One man inching toward what?
Toward this single moment
When colors stand out in forms
Cascading in ourselves
Frederick Bauman has been involved in the poetry scene in New York since the Seventies when he ran a much publicized poetry reading series at Chumley's in Greenwich Village. Other volumes of his poetry published by Codhill Press of New Palz are "Feral Idylls", "Song of myself and Other Poems" and "Mandalas." There is also a novel, "Periwinkle". He currently lives in the Catskill region of New York State.