Solicited Poems by Joneve McCormick

Back to the sea

I want to go back to the sea
where light and dark are one,
where I come from.

Back to sea waits and wiggles
where the will to be
(not greed) trumps right and wrong.

I would be a tiny fish, alive one marvelous moment
or a big one, snapping up the little.
The sea sings, ‘the one who doesn't know me is an orphan.'

I will go to the deepest space I can find
and listen to OM -- I want to fly
where my wings first formed.


Who are you?

You, behind the dark and light forms flowing near,
Behind the mirrors and doors,
Behind the angels and the demons,

Behind this versus that,
Behind thoughts and their frames,
Behind desires and fears...

Who are you
Who teaches that the less there is between us,
The higher I fly on my own wings​


Regarding Van Gogh's Advice
Not to Be Afraid and Not to Try
to Make a Painting Pretty

It takes courage not to try
to make a painting pretty.
Few souls can resist,
the desire to please requiring
that ugliness be hidden.

Tell it like it is,
beautiful and ugly,
the best you are able -
serve no other master!
Was that commandment made for man
who has so much to worship, and forget?

A Van Gogh baby is big,
drooling, eternal -
a fat promise
held by a vigilant mother,
her apron wrapped tightly
over simian bones like a second skin,
strings hanging like tails.

It is in related gestures too -
their straight backs,
a jutting hip,
a small leg dangling
and hands ready to reach -
that love and attitude
raise immortal heads.

Bionote

Joneve McCormick’s poems have been published in a wide variety of hard copy and online literary and art periodicals and in several poetry anthologies.  She has two solo collections: Small Bird Bones and The Visitor. Joneve hosts the international online poetry journals, Poets International, Poetry Soul to Soul and The Peregrine Muse.

[Posted on 19 November 2012]