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Title of Poem: "Cubist Nightmare"
Author: Gary Lehmann
Source: Public Lives & Private Secrets (2005) p. 11
Rating: 4.7 out of 5 laurels.
Gary Lehmann's poem "Cubist Nightmare" is a free verse poem about a famous painter Pablo Picasso.
The poem does not have a regular meter. The stanza is a triad. There are 8 stanzas and one line at the end of the poem..
The poetic structure is what I call a "cascade" because the poetic lines are arranged like a stairs. I have never used such poetic structure in my life.
The poem is set in 1914 during the time of World War 1. Picasso avoids a military draft service while his friends joined the madness of war.
But his old apartment house seemed empty and dreary
His buddies Georges Braque and Andre Derain
deserted him to join the madmen in the trenches.
The poem also reveals an incident in Picasso's life where his linen is stolen by a thief.
He returned to Montrouge to discover that a thief had
stolen a bolt of linen cloth he had not yet stretched.
The insult hit him like machine gun bullet.
The poem is nominated "Best Poem of Year 2005 for the 2nd Muses Prize" for its interesting vignette on a famous person and unique poetic structure.
Poet from New York
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C. Poems of Gary Lehmann , (New York)
Cubist Nightmare
(Paris 1914)
by Gary Lehmann
Source: Public Lives & Private Secrets (2005), p. 17
Picasso returned from Spain
his arms loaded with cubist canvases,
the best he ever painted.
He filled his apartment on rue Shoelcher,
relishing walls that shouted out a new vocabulary
that explained the way people really live.
But his old apartment house seemed empty and dreary
His buddies Georges Braque and Andre Derain
deserted him to join the madmen in the trenches.
As if this weren't enough, his only remaining friend,
Guillaume Apollinaire, joined up too.
The season of emptiness descended.
Picasso moved to Montrouge
where there was at least some life
in the cabarets and coffee houses.
He skulked about like an old man
sipping cognac and coffee into the late night
and brooding on the masques of war.
He returned to Montrouge to discover that a thief had
stolen a bolt of linen cloth he had not yet stretched.
The insult hit him like machine gun bullet.
The world it seemed stood so upside down
that it could not differentiate a cubist painting
that explained the whole impending disaster
from a blank bolt of linen cloth.
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This poem is nominated Best Poem of Year 2005 for 2nd Muses Prize.
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Published with permission of the author.
Copyright belongs to author.
Title of Poem: "Albert Einstein Sails"
Author: Gary Lehmann
Source: Public Lives & Private Secrets (2005) p.37
Rating: 4.7 out of 5 laurels.
Complete review available in print version of Muses Review.
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This poem is nominated Best Poem of Year 2005 for 2nd Muses Prize.
All rights reserved.