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John F. Buckley: On Kandinsky’s Open Green 1923

June 12, 2014 by PBQ

Absolute green is the most peaceful color there is: it does not move in any direction, has no overtones of joy or sorrow or passion, demands nothing, calls out to no one.

-Vasily Kandinsky, Complete Writings on Art

 

Beside the monochromatic road streaming past modernity’s big top,
beneath the arcing of eyebrows and the catapulting of car wheels,
untouched by the toppling of stained-glass skyscraper,
behind pocked mountains, milky moon-lens and litmus,
between sky-lava and fruitstripe electromagnetism,
beyond verdant — verdant misses the cooled-brow outcome —
mute equilibrium lies infinitely penned on the picture plane
and promises further, alternate resources
without burning, without drowning,
without limp plastic pharmacopia.
You let me breathe easily through my skin
despite the busy, ragged
commotion of natural or mechanical
shot-clock interventions.
You are the antidote to incessant vicissitudes
and you sit composed before me, beyond me,
behind glass that would slice me if I tried
to steer the ship of my hand
toward the haven of your Fiddler’s Green.

Filed Under: Contributors 89, Issue 89, Poetry, Poetry 89 Tagged With: Contributors 89, John F. Buckley, Poetry, Poetry 89

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