Martin Willitts Jr has had
publications in Big City Lit,
Hurricane Blues (anthology),
Bent Pin, Slow Trains, Primal
Sanities (anthology),
Qarrtsiluni, Ibbetson Street,
Allegheny River Anthology, and
others. He has a print
chapbook "Falling In and Out
of Love" (Pudding House
Publications, 2005), an online
chapbook "Farewell--the
journey now begins" on (www.
languageandculture.net 2006,
in archives), a full length
book of poems with his art
"The Secret Language of the
Universe" (March Street Press,
2006), print chapbook
“Lowering Nets of Light”
(Pudding House Publications,
2007), online chapbook “News
from the Front” (www.
slowtrains.com, 2007), edited
a poetry anthology about
cancer, “Alternatives to
Surrender” (Plain View Press,
2007), and an online chapbook
of haiku with his artwork,
“Words & Paper”
(www.threelightsgallery.com
2008).
Martin Willitts,Jr.

Art and Censorship

Based on the painting, The Medical Inspection,
Toulouse-Lautrec, 1894







There is an art to acceptance and rejection.

It is the struggle to create.

It is the desire to be recognized.

An artist should be unable to breathe without art.



I knew a poet that admits to using self-censorship

by wondering what his mother might think  

if she read his poems.

It never occurred to him that she might like them.

Perhaps she had posed nude to a begging painter;

or she could have taught a Jazz musician

how to blow a trumpet to keep the neighbors up.

She might have secretly wanted a tiny rose tattoo on her left
shoulder.

Her pulse may be a river of paint.



Perhaps he is right.

She might titter & disown him.



Or maybe she would buy a copy of his book,

read it at night under the small light above her head.

Later she would stash it in a secret drawer

like it was forbidden as chocolate-covered cherries.

She would feel warm after reading it,

warm as a comforter, warm knowing it was her son

who wrote as if his heart was a flaming river of words.



There is an art to knowing sometimes Art is forbidden.



It is an uncomfortable voice no one wants to hear.



















Two Landscapes





“The Climbing Path, L’Hermitage, Pontoise”, Camille Pissarro,
1875


There was an art to climbing a steep path

to avoid being breathless

& out of breath.

It is a matter of concentration.



If you forget about the climbing,

there will be the absence of an incline,

the heart will not feel exhausted & struggling,

and if you try hard enough

you can imagine that you are going downhill instead

until you feel yourself descending.



Pissarro wanted to ascend

to where he thought his student was.

When he arrived at the vantage point,

Cezanne was already somewhere else.



So Pissarro went back

to the cottage of earth tones.

Cezanne was restless

as light he saw inside the foliage.

He lit a candle.



Cezanne was not in the room. He was not

forcing darkness into paint. Nor

was he in the apple;

nor in the closed shutters.



Cezanne was always somewhere else.



He had left a pallet knife behind.

It smelled like his beard of burnt sienna sundown.



Pissarro could only dream of being so elusive,

if only he could dream

instead of grounded in reality

like a cottage with an empty chair,

waiting for the artist to return

with dusk in their pocket.



Pissarro would never catch up.

He would always be behind.

He was the master with a student

who mastered him.



It was hard to accept;

but there it was

already gone like Cezanne.



Pissarro would always chase

the streaks of color; the decades

of being further behind,

leaving him like a sprinter

gasping for breath during a race,

stomach tightening

like two trees twisting into one.



Cezanne would be somewhere else

in a foreign, personal landscape,

painting what only he could see

so others could see it

if they wanted;

if they understood.



There is an art to the climbing,

facing the impossible

like it was nothing.



& when you are at the summit

looking into the distance

where things blur into mistakes,



there will be Cezanne

already going over another hill

where we cannot see.




The Village of Gardanne, Cezanne, 1885.



Every once in a while, even I need to rest.



I want to learn the nature of nature.

It will explain things

then it will say it does not explain anything.



I understand what is not understood.



There is a grid-work of land,

fitting my idea of what should be.

I know this like I know women.



There is no use to understanding women.



I believe they prefer to be misinterpreted

just like nature does not want to give away

all of its secrets.



There some things no one understands.



Other places do not have color

like I know they should,

like a person denying the truth they see.



I know what is unknown.

.

Here, houses stack up a vertical hill

to the fort-like cathedral

searching for divine inspiration.



Knowledge belongs to only a few.



I will not bother to complete this,

creating tension, filling out the void

in your head, so it makes sense.



There is an invisible arch between a juggler’s hands.



Art will always go forward and I will go ahead.

You can follow if you can keep up.

I am already gone before you notice I am not here.








Changing the Composition

Based on the painting, Paysage L’ile De La Grande-Jatte,
George Seurat, 1864





There is an art to making a landscape

look like it is anywhere.

It is familiar of feeling

you have been there before.

It takes a certain artist to let you know his source

and still make it appear it could be anywhere.



This landscape could be any shore.

The mystery is to think

it was not composed,

so there is no division line between the two

and you begin to wonder when it had changed.



Seurat totted his large canvases,

dragging the dawn light as an anchor.

He moved through nuances of time

solid, as raindrops.

He wanted the unspoiled day crawling over the horizon.

He did not want spectators interfering with his view.

People would change the composition

by disturbing the shadows, or

lifting a shell and depositing it elsewhere

like a letter they no longer wanted to deliver.



This is how he painted---

like all painters paint,

like swimmers doing long strokes.








The Pont des Arts, by Renoir, 1867





There is an art to a river.

It changes like convention.

It replaces itself with something moving and different

while appearing the same. This is why art

is always at question.



The seemingly straightforward iron footbridge

is not so simple. It connects the Louvre

with the Institut de France, like poetry connects images.

The Louvre was where artists would copy the great masters.

Renoir was one of those artists.

This is why he chose this particular bridge.

This is why it had significance to him over all other bridges.

This is why a bridge can be more than a bridge.



Without the placement of the river,

there would be no need for this bridge.

Without the bridge, there would be no need to cross

or paint something so ordinary, yet so extraordinary.



By painting this bridge, it was a matter of principle.

He was rejecting the closed-mindedness of the Salon.

He did not paint this bridge in another angle

ignoring it on purpose. The Pails de l’Industrie

located a short distance down the river

is where the Salon had laughed at his art.



The laughter rippled in his painting.



In this simple painting, there is nothing simple.

He was creating a debate out of art.

His colors were a discussion of the division

between the old ways and the construction of the new.

The lines on the painting became visual metaphors

for the replacement of the narrow streets

with wide open lit streets, begging for people to visit.

His paint was tearing down dilapidated houses

replacing them with exciting adventures and possibilities.



He framed the Pont between the twin theaters

recently constructed at place du Catelet

and the 17th-century Insitut, bridging history

with his art. His excitement in his brushstroke

was the heartbeat after making love.



The water’s edge had been widened by Haussmann.

It is suggested by shadows in the foreground

just like Renoir’s rejection of the Salon

would be the first of this new art

soon to be called Impressionism,

soon to be accepted and admired as the new Paris

until what was new becomes old

to be challenged someday.



There are some people strolling on that edge

across the pont du Carrousel behind him.  

A sightseeing boat has passengers entering and leaving

like all things in passing. There is no end to life.

Things continue to change, whether we like it or not.



There are some people that argue against this change,

remaining steadfast and un-moveable as stilled water.

These people are always present and always left behind.



There are some people, who will embrace the change,

thinking of change is like getting new clothes

or acknowledging the fact weather is fluid and fickle.

There will be some people, like Renoir, who study

and record this moment for generations to see,

knowing that some things must move forward, and know

some things move as a river without patience.



Not long after this painting was rejected,

it became embraced.

It did not reduce Renoir’s financial hardships.

He only made a few francs in an auction in 1875.



Not long after this painting, the access to the river changed

from an embankment into a flight of stairs

opposite the rue Bonaparte, replacing the stone ramp.

This change is the way of all things.



There is an art to change, and a change to art.













Rowing

Based on the paintings, “Girl in a Boat with Geese” (1889) and
“Young Woman with a Straw Hat” (1884), by Berthe Morisot

---For Linda







She is rowing across the wings of the harbor

at Lorient, wearing a white straw hat

with a red ribbon, the color of goose eyes.



Geese at the shoreline watch the oars dip

into water like they were feeding like geese do.

Her arms ache like twisted paint tubes.



She is rowing towards me. She can take as long

as she needs, as long as she rows towards me.

As long as I untie her ribbon and loosen her hair



like geese standing at the water’s edge. As long

as I am the one waiting. As long as good things

are worth waiting for; I wait.









Creating

Based on the painting, “Boulevard des Italiens, Morning,
Sunlight”, by Camille Pissarro, 1897







I opened the window to yell to the traffic below

to stop being so colorful. I need to sleep.

I need to absorb what I needed to create,

when I notice everyone is rushing.



This is why art is busy and is never finished.

It is a woman waking up with a morning-satisfied smile.



There was so much happening below,

I am tempted to join it.



My hands are birds wanting to fly above the crowd.



I saw you among the rapid movement,

a woman assured of her direction.

A woman knowing the kind of lover she wants---



---then you were gone.



Maybe you are ascending the stairs,

a woman not in a rush. Maybe

you are about to knock. Like art knocks

on an artist’s door, slowly, determined.



I will open the door like a man opens a blouse.



I will take you into my arms

and carry you like my artwork, into the bedroom.