© R.H. Peat 2/20/2008 — 5:12 PM
(Beauty And The Beast II)
From: La Bella Y La Bestia II
a pastel painting by Larry Rivers:
1975 179.5 x 196 cm/
Collection Harry Horn, Nairobi
with the added poetic allusion
to Marilyn Monroe's untimely death.
Form: 4 quatrains, 16 lines
Metaphor: Dreams are a secret language.
La Bella Y La Bestia II /(Beauty And The Beast II)
La Bella Y La Bestia II
(Beauty And The Beast II)
She is coyly wearing her eager red lipstick
smudged about her pursed and poised lips,
she creeps calm and cozy into the pale
umber frame of her endless tilted dream.
There at the river a hungry crocodile laughs
like a loose clip in her fluent blonde hair;
outstretched, a giraffe’s spotted neck slips
through her wavy tresses like a comb.
But it is the heavy trumpeting elephants
that bring her eyelids to a peaked slit;
they trudge off her jungle edge where
she slips away to begin her dark slumber
Bereft, she poses a fading photograph smile
while two cheetahs chase a gnu across
her cheek and forehead where she drifts
into the deep wilderness of ghostly sleep.
© R.H. Peat 2/20/2008
A creative interpretation and impressive poetic description. You have a great imagination to have been able to incorporate the animals in such a meaningful way.
Beautiful image this reflects! Cat
RON , I can visualise the painting through your well written verse ! -Raj
Who says real old men can't still conjure delicate imagery? I don't. Ron, this beautiful poem beats out the painter's own artistry.