Munch cycle [continued]

Rob Woodard

[Munch cycle]



Separation (The Blonde Girl)

A semblance of spring arising—
   Ice cracking above rivulets
making their way to the sea
Green waves
Snow capped fjords
Taciturn silence in the villages
like there could never
have been any Viking rumblings
of French and Britannia rape
let alone Vineland across
ice-choked seas,
past "green" land doomed
to failure …

You a Knut Hamsun of paint?
(No he a Munch of words)
What can we do but claim a love
of our own?—longing for our true home,
our birthright,
even if it's nothing more than a cold box
in the cold ground …

See the blonde girl who will
not love me—hair like
spun platinum
she can only
see past this almost spring
to summer: short quick lovers,
eyes of blue
and hearts flickering tangerine
matching the brief
Nordland warmth
on bare arms
tingling …

How can I make her understand
that such a summer can only
be preserved in a heart as dark
and deep as mine?

I paint thee as this summer:
an explosion of hope aborted,
like a patch of small flowers
between the edge of the path
and the dense pines,
while standing to one side
in romantic rejection,
checking to see if my heart
has bled thru my shirt
once again …

You are young and fickle, which makes
you that much more precious in a landscape
always tending toward introspection
and words of necessity only

Dance with me on the canvas
as you dance in my heart:
away from my grasp
into the next
short dream
of morning

I miss you
already


© Rob Woodard 2008

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rob Woodard was born in Anaheim, California and lives in nearby Long Beach. He is the author of the novels Heaping Stones -- named one of the best fiction books of 2006 by Ottawa Xpress -- and What Love Is, to be published in 2007. Burning Shore Press will be bringing out his first volume of poetry, King Of Long Beach, in 2008. He is currently at work on a third novel, tentatively titled Backwaters of Beauty. He blogs at King of Long Beach.