MOMA - A Poem (From "Speaking to the Darkness")

Cezanne - Still Life with Apples

The sun
kindles the sky

I dodge the New
York suits
the anthill scramble
of lunchtime,

pay the speckled lady
in the white, wide lobby
to broach the mazes
of these boxed halls,

the din of school kids
directionless
    spins then falls,

Gauguin - Still Life with Three Puppies

up the aligned
escalators we go,
lovers and others,
like me, alone, stroll

at the top, Marina
Abramovic --
B&W films roll
suspended,

within a few steps
post-war tension

jiggling breasts
one feminine
face, aghast
     upended

mid-scream
     extended --

Picasso's Wives & Lovers

I retreat to spaces
less impeding --
the calm and familiar
floors beneath:

Still Life with Apples,
Cezanne,
stippled, deep landscapes,
Renoir,
plumes of color,
Matisse,
Still Life with Three Pupplies,
Gauguin,
     But
why does Picasso's
Wives and Lovers
sadden me so?

I leave burdened
by their loss
of color, their heavy
lined faces
that have yet
to grieve

Until she bids me
stay --

The Girl Behind 
a Mirror with her
bright gestured
wave

with so much to say

like Christina 
from her World*
reaching, reaching,
     Come back for me...

I cannot leave
     yet
with one still to see,
Roulin**,

a tourist
videotapes
him, spright,
proud,
always a
showman

his beard
blaring from
behind the glass

What a precocious
     fellow:
Always a flirt.


By Mary E. Lohan


*Christina's World - Wyeth
**Portrait of Joseph Roulin - Van Gogh

MOMA - Museum of Modern Art

The Year of Tawana* - A Poem (from "Speaking to the Darkness")

How much of her story
was true?

Tawana found
in the trash,
abused

how much was fiction?

I walk down 8th Avenue
at midnight,
summer in the city
that never sleeps
return to my
rented studio
in Hell's Kitchen

only there's a
homeless man
passed out
in the dark, narrow
stairwell

Too afraid, I return
to the street
call my roommate
from a payphone
on the avenue
in full view

six black males
approach loudly,
but I look past
unaware as my call
goes to voicemail

one is chanting

only when they are
within feet,
do I hear the crazed one
chanting --

"Revenge for Tawana!" --
while looking straight
at me
his frenzied face
alive with a fire

I catch the eyes
of his friend, who sees me,
and pushes him
onward and away

I run into a bodega
and amidst stacked cans
of rice and beans
pray.

Note: *For more info on Tawana, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tawana_Brawley_rape_allegations