Lady Of Fayum
Do you know
you are about to die?
Did you know
you were about to die?
Was this naturalistic
painted portrait
upon choice wooden panel
commissioned veritable
painted prior
to encroaching death?
Prestigious portrait
face covering inserted
brilliant colours bright
in far gaze farewell
in height of Roman fashion
in hair styles clothes jewelry
in lifelike rank status realistic
loving verisimilitude memory
attached to cloth
embalming mummy
bandages as funeral
custom dictated.
Noble fee paid portrait
beautifully painted
in encaustic veneer upon
previously prepared
coated receptive surface
contains rich beeswax
mixed with pigments
to retain colour intensity.
Shoulders life beat breast
in pose three-quarter view
head almost fully frontal
slightly tilted far sight left.
No melancholy serene pallor
wrinkleless yet no lip telling
tragedy confessed contempt
in tribute commissioned artist
a youthful time typical death
bitterly felt sorrow not shown
upon contemplated impending
parting agony approaching death.
Bitter fruit to mourn loss saviour
seen is no putrid plaintive flesh.
Admire a long fine chiseled
aristocratic white cosmetic face
framed beauty dark hair taken
up in allure neck display bun.
Face dominated
by large black eyes
dark stencil eyelids
black eyebrows.
Light brush strokes
visible on life neck
highlights on one side
of admire depicted face.
An undeceived mouth
underscores soliloquy dialogue
innocent antique visage
denounces harboured melancholy.
Jewelery adorned fine clothing
chosen mayhap for social status
rendered bold sure brushstrokes
culminates in an enlivened effigy.
Masterpiece impression mesmerizes
one attenuating successful naturalism
attests this painter well these passions
imparted upon a lifeless wooden panel.
Portrait tells no adieu valediction
to those you mannequin leave
who you may yearn for fear for
lovingly cherished throbbed for?
Now framed soul you are stripped
of life animated regenerating passion.
Across an age sands fallen bygone
you reader of these words stare upon...
despair maestro melodrama encapsulated
voyeurs of pathos pain vessel distilled.
Impossible to embrace or smile comfort
locked within a gaze lost in far antiquity.
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Related quotes
Grim Reaper Creeping
melancholy serene pallor
wrinkle-less sour lip
telling complete tragedy
confessed contempt
who commissioned artist
a youthful death accepted
or bitterly pierce felt sorrow
shadow death contemplated
impending parting agony
approaching death steals
souls taken in youth blood
life pulse short struck down
life acts play short lived
final curtain scene haunts
bitter fruit to savour
is putrid plaintive flesh
Copyright © Terence George Craddock
Written in 2nd February 1996.
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Poem Title
A face painted to the eye
A portrait offered to the heart
Builds a feeling built to climb
Touching skies overhead
Amidst high heavens rising
A poem without a title
The ode to loves beginning
Speaks of all that’s seen
And all that’s felt within
In the eye the face painted
Beautiful and pure
Soft skin and petal lips
A look holds gazing
Perfectly framed with hair
Woven tresses curl
Breath taken to silence
Words wait to be written
A ode to loves beginning
A face painted to the eye
A poem without a title
poem by Matthew Holloway
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Painting From Memory
what could be more noble
than a son to paint a canvas
a portrait painted with years
of love heartfelt appreciation
a portrait of a beloved mother
lines of deep love appreciation
beauty bestowed upon mother
her face eternally young loving
you were extremely blessed
to have the love and discipline
of a wonderful caring mother
a mother among all mothers
radiant smile smiling as you smile
holding comforting ever loving
good fortune is having such a mother
a great blessing wonderful wise
a love like this is comfort blessing
during all the lived days of our life
poem by Terence George Craddock
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
The gallery of my heart
The gallery of my heart
~
Like a portrait hung
In the gallery of my heart
A girl of undoubted beauty
Breathtaking and full of wonder
Holds my gaze completely
I find my words flowing
In a river of adoration
I dedicate her my soul
There is a girl of beauty
Beyond which none compare
Painted to a memory
In the gallery of my heart
The softness of her eyes
A warmth to her lips
Fair skin and cascading hair
What love may imagine
When looking upon
A girl in portrait hung
In the gallery of my heart
poem by Matthew Holloway
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter.
Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
Vote! | Copy!
Night and Day
I painted a picture of the day
Nature in her sweet tranquil
Her beauty was dazzling in every way
By her sun upon the hill!
I made her grasses the color green
Blue the color of the sea
In pink and red her flowers sheen
In brown, her rocks sit solitary
I painted a picture of the night
But nature has lost her spark
I colored her beauty in black and white
What glory is there in the dark?
I made her sky with dotted light
Of stars in their endless space
But there was no color to make her bright
But the moon with her golden face
I placed both pictures side by side
Media of dark and light
The night to nature, a time to hide
The day her sweet delight
Were i to vote between these two
I will give all to the day
I will paint in her a perfect view
I will have her all the way!
But wait! There is more than meet the eyes
For things are not all we see
For all stuffs are made of good and ills
Beyond our phylosophy
The day i painted with color bright
Is marred with worries and woes
And just a covering with colors and light
Of all beneath her throes.
Now, the night in her dreaded sight
When half the world is asleep
Is an illusion, a passage of day to night
Whereon i sleep free and deep
Free from all worldly pain indeed
That by day plagued every soul
And away from mortals lust and greed
Is a man's life long goal
I cannot choose one, the other bid farewell
In both, all things are one
So i kept the day, and the night as well
For both made me a man! !
poem by Okonkwo Osamedua. Allen
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Paint It
I see a red door and I want it painted black
No colors anymore, I want them to turn black
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes
I see a line of cars and they are painted black
With flowers and my love both never to come back
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away
Like a new born baby it just happens every day
I look inside myself and see my heart is black
I see my red door and its heading into black
Maybe then Ill fade away and not have to face the facts
Its not easy facing up when your whole world is black
I wanna see it painted painted, painted black, oh baby
I wanna see it painted painted, painted black, oh baby
No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue
I could not foresee this thing happening to you
If I look hard enough into the setting sun
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes
I wanna see it painted, painted black, oh
Black as night, black as coal
I wanna see the sun blotted from the sky
Painted, painted, painted black oh baby
Painted painted, painted black
song performed by by Vanessa Carlton
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Black And White
He painted a picture all white and black
because in his life all color did he lack.
He lacked the yellow of the sun each day
for the sun had never come his way.
He lacked the green of fresh green grass
for the cement of the city he couldn't get past.
He lacked the blue of the sky above
for no one had ever shown him love.
He lacked the red that the rose did give
for no roses grew where he did live.
He lacked all color from his sight.
All he knew was black and white.
The picture he painted could never tell
of how his life became a living hell.
He'd lost his sight when he was three
and the colors were a lost memory.
His sole memory was of dark and light,
night being dark, day being white.
And now he created art to define
everything that was in his mind.
But beauty came from the paint he used.
The black and white became infused
with the extracted senses of who he was,
a man filled with passion for what he does.
poem by Edwina Reizer
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
It is not likely that posterity will fall in love with us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathize; so a man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a portrait of his face.
quote by Robert Louis Stevenson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Madonna portrait
I saw you painting,
not a sideways glance
of a elephant head
with deep creases showing,
or the neck of a giraffe,
not a Tuscan scene
with tables with white table clothes,
neither an abstract scene
in blue, green and gold.
A portrait unfolded before my eyes,
not a half naked nymph,
or wood fairy
but a Madonna without child
pregnant and serene
looking utterly holy
with olive skin
and great big innocent eyes
against dark colours
in a ruby red cloak.
Your fingers mixed colours expertly
on the palette
to the right exact hue
and blazing lights
lit the canvas
on the easel
and the painting
became an old world masterpiece
with stroke after little stroke
adding depth and meaning
and somewhere in the distance
a midnight-black dragon appeared
with a open mouth
as if drawing nearer
truly alive
detailed to the smallest respect
and evil in every way.
poem by Gert Strydom
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Welcome To My Hometown
Has anyone ever tried,
To tell you the kind of childhood you had?
Or the environment you spent,
Your yourthful days in...
As if you were on on tour,
And they were explaining it?
Has anyone ever told you,
About those grade schools you attended.
With an embelishment done,
As if you were on the sidelines...
Looking on for fun.
And they attempted to tell you,
About those teachers who taught...
And you seldom saw them in a classroom at all?
Welcome to my hometown.
Where any visitor who comes,
Would think what took place...
Was straight from a portrait painted,
By Normon Rockwell.
Welcome to my hometown.
Where actual events can be erased,
With a replacing of the truth...
To conveniently be mentally innovated,
For the sake of giving it a different face.
I had been often told how my parents were,
When they were raising me.
What they did and how I responded.
As if I had lost all memory.
I even had been told what I did with friends.
And what apartments they lived in.
While as a child growing up in the projects...
I would listen to these tales,
And wondered where I was when the teller of this...
Spent most their time locked up in jail.
Welcome to my hometown.
Where actual events can be erased,
With a replacing of the truth...
To conveniently be mentally innovated,
For the sake of giving it a different face.
Welcome to my hometown.
Where any visitor who comes,
Would think what took place...
Was straight from a portrait painted,
By Normon Rockwell.
And back then...
Anyone looking like Normon,
Would have been chased out of the neighborhood...
I lived in!
With no time to sit, sketch...
Or paint a portrait from a 'hand-me-down' myth.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Christmas Eve
Oh sharp diamond, my mother!
I could not count the cost
of all your faces, your moods-
that present that I lost.
Sweet girl, my deathbed,
my jewel-fingered lady,
your portrait flickered all night
by the bulbs of the tree.
Your face as calm as the moon
over a mannered sea,
presided at the family reunion,
the twelve grandchildren
you used to wear on your wrist,
a three-months-old baby,
a fat check you never wrote,
the red-haired toddler who danced the twist,
your aging daughters, each one a wife,
each one talking to the family cook,
each one avoiding your portrait,
each one aping your life.
Later, after the party,
after the house went to bed,
I sat up drinking the Christmas brandy,
watching your picture,
letting the tree move in and out of focus.
The bulbs vibrated.
They were a halo over your forehead.
Then they were a beehive,
blue, yellow, green, red;
each with its own juice, each hot and alive
stinging your face. But you did not move.
I continued to watch, forcing myself,
waiting, inexhaustible, thirty-five.
I wanted your eyes, like the shadows
of two small birds, to change.
But they did not age.
The smile that gathered me in, all wit,
all charm, was invincible.
Hour after hour I looked at your face
but I could not pull the roots out of it.
Then I watched how the sun hit your red sweater, your withered neck,
your badly painted flesh-pink skin.
You who led me by the nose, I saw you as you were.
Then I thought of your body
as one thinks of murder-
Then I said Mary-
Mary, Mary, forgive me
and then I touched a present for the child,
the last I bred before your death;
and then I touched my breast
and then I touched the floor
and then my breast again as if,
somehow, it were one of yours.
poem by Anne Sexton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
White And Black
He painted a picture all white and black
because in his life all color did he lack.
He lacked the yellow of the sun each day
for the sun had never come his way.
He lacked the green of fresh green grass
for the cement of the city he couldn't get past.
He lacked the blue of the sky above
for no one had ever showed him love.
He lacked the red that the rose did give
for no roses grew where he did live.
He lacked all color from his sight.
All he knew was black and white.
The picture he painted could never tell
of how his life was a living hell.
He'd lost his sight when he was three
and the colors were a lost memory.
His sole memory was of dark and light,
night being dark, day being white.
And now he created art to define
everything that was in his mind.
But beauty came from the paint he used.
The black and white became infused
with the extracted senses of who he was,
a man filled with passion for what he does.
poem by Edwina Reizer
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Nothing Natural About It At All
That portrait painted,
Hangs much too low,
The light from it appears to be shaded.
Where did the gleeming smiles,
And the brightness go?
Those sloping lush hills,
Seemed so green just yesterday.
Even when the clouds and rain came near...
None of it on this portrait showed.
The rays of the Sun,
Were then so clear.
Wasn't the Sunrise on the horizon,
Full of vivid promises free of duels?
And who came to smear a tinge of darkness upon it?
That had to have been just after noon.
The peaks of mountains,
Snowcapped and strong?
There is something about it,
That will not be prolonged.
The melting of snow,
Seems to have gone.
What 'is' this?
Something about it,
Has to be stopped.
I can see in its future,
This portrait is going to be forgotten.
Snatched off the wall.
And its presence remembered...
From memories dropped.
That can not be the same portrait!
Seen now to hang so pitifully.
Tilted, in a lopsidedness.
That brings not a hint of joy to me.
Is this someone's idea,
Of a joke to provoke?
My atmosphere...
Is not a place to invite tears?
The sweeping of the strokes...
Has abandoned its meaning.
To another scene in a secret elope.
That portrait painted,
Hangs much too low,
The light from it appears to be shaded.
Where did the smiles,
And the brightness go?
HELLO!
...hello...hello...hello...
Even the echos once heard from the valleys,
Aren't responding with a clarity.
Rich and reflective.
This is not an original.
This one is absolutely faked.
Who is trying to exhibit this image?
To pass it as something great?
Take it away from this place.
Get rid of it.
And tear down that wall.
It makes me sick.
It has become too common.
It blocks out all that's right.
There's nothing natural about it at all.
It conflicts with the ambiance.
And this ambiance...
Does not invite blight!
Get rid of it now!
More light is what I wish.
Take that piece of trash and burn it.
After its been dumped,
To cover the fumes...
In a dirt covered ditch!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Marx Ernst, The Ghost In The Abstractions Of Kandinsky
an old man leaning on a black pole,
a nude plump woman of the renaissance
inside a stomach,
a man with a big fan as face
his hands mere sketches of helplessness
pointing to the culprit on both sides
a black bird flies away
like a comma of a poem
they form a stress of a family portrait.
a hand is cut. the old man has no foot.
i shifted from the eyes of marx ernst
his eyes are shadows his hair clouds
his face a misty mountain
moving on to kandinsky he finished
life with the strokes of bright colors
and he titles it Fugue, a Black Mountain
to an Unknown Voice.
my first time to see them both.
i am stricken with the beautiful colors of happiness.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Paint It Black
I see a red door and I want it painted black,
No colors anymore I want them to turn black.
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes,
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes.
I see a line of cars and they're all painted black,
With flowers and my love, both never to come back.
I see people turn their heads and quickly look away,
Like a new born baby it just happens ev'ry day.
I look inside myself and see my heart is black,
I see my red door and I want it painted black.
Maybe then I'll fade away and not have to face the facts,
It's not easy facing up when your whole world is black.
No more will my green sea go turn a deeper blue,
I could not forsee this thing happening to you.
If I look hard enough into the setting sun,
My love will laugh with me before the morning comes.
I see a red door and I want it painted black,
No colors anymore I want them to turn black.
I see the girls walk by dressed in their summer clothes,
I have to turn my head until my darkness goes.
I wanna see your face painted black, black as night.
Don't wanna see the sun flyin' high in the sky.
I wanna see it painted, painted, painted, painted black, yeah!
song performed by by Deep Purple
Submitted by Lucian Velea
Vote! | Copy!
Portrait
As I gaze blink-less
At the bare beauty of your persona
Behind the thin satin coat
Your portrait steps out alive
Out of the golden frame.
Your portrait generates
A multitude of elemental emotions,
Some romantically elusive like fluttering butterflies,
Others tangible like love-making,
Yet some others audible like the dying cadence
Of a stringed music played on my lyre.
Am churned by the immaculate portrait
Like the ocean
And I deliver nectar and parijat
From the dark womb of my private secrecy.
I owe it to your portrait timeless,
As I take the yet-to-be christened
Eleventh incarnation of Indian pantheon
Embodying love and truth
With an assured confidence.
Toward Sky
my eyes always see
toward sky
always i have
in my mind
await for clouds
when black and thunder clouds
acquire entire sky
it is a vamp scene
when black coverlet
covered sun light
the same trend repeated
in my mind
when a dust storm
from desert of mind
blow with velocity
a puff rise from
my willing
and covers whole sky
of mind
my eyes starting on raining
a lukewarm water begin to fall
this water wash your obscure portrait
and i can see you properly
face to face
for some minutes
in this holy time
i exchange some dialect with you
through your portrait
when i want to meet with you
i rise my head toward sky
poem by Jatinder Singh Aulakh
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
To A Portrait Of
IN THE ATHENIEUM GALLERY
IT may be so,--perhaps thou hast
A warm and loving heart;
I will not blame thee for thy face,
Poor devil as thou art.
That thing thou fondly deem'st a nose,
Unsightly though it be,--
In spite of all the cold world's scorn,
It may be much to thee.
Those eyes,--among thine elder friends
Perhaps they pass for blue,--
No matter,--if a man can see,
What more have eyes to do?
Thy mouth,--that fissure in thy face,
By something like a chin,--
May be a very useful place
To put thy victual in.
I know thou hast a wife at home,
I know thou hast a child,
By that subdued, domestic smile
Upon thy features mild.
That wife sits fearless by thy side,
That cherub on thy knee;
They do not shudder at thy looks,
They do not shrink from thee.
Above thy mantel is a hook,--
A portrait once was there;
It was thine only ornament,--
Alas! that hook is bare.
She begged thee not to let it go,
She begged thee all in vain;
She wept,--and breathed a trembling prayer
To meet it safe again.
It was a bitter sight to see
That picture torn away;
It was a solemn thought to think
What all her friends would say!
And often in her calmer hours,
And in her happy dreams,
Upon its long-deserted hook
The absent portrait seems.
Thy wretched infant turns his head
In melancholy wise,
And looks to meet the placid stare
Of those unbending eyes.
I never saw thee, lovely one,--
Perchance I never may;
It is not often that we cross
Such people in our way;
But if we meet in distant years,
Or on some foreign shore,
Sure I can take my Bible oath,
I've seen that face before.
poem by Oliver Wendell Holmes
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!
Portrait of a heart
Portrait of a heart
~
A portrait piece by piece
built through the heart
presents a romantic world
memories tell a moving tale
the full beauty of a loving heart
where the artist knows no end
and feels the strain of pride
still the picture takes its shape
to present a landscape of a life
touched by the words of love
scarred by the losses felt
the heart speaks and draws
from the uncharted depths
there in the eye of its picture
a romance reveals
a portrait of a world
built through the heart
poem by Matthew Holloway
Submitted by Poetry Lover
Vote! | Copy!