Triangle Dreams

by Basil King

1)

A Triangle dreams
Of having a tail
A striped tail
Like a sergeant
It walks a straight
Line

2)

When he was a young man Walt Whitman had a short beard.
In the Civil War Whitman has a long beard and he fed pie
to the wounded. Whitman’s Leaves of Grass stings America’s
being, its worth and its person. America learns to live and
die.

3)

Triangle 2

There is no poem
In these triangles
There is heat
And a heart
Beat
That will not
Destruct

Three angles
Go up
Three sides
Come down

4.

Oh Black Mountain, wonderful place,
desperate place. I was blown to
where light abstracts the smallest thing,
into the core of a vernacular, into
the heart of the abstract. No wind but the
stillness blows me, no reason; no
existence blows the shapes that have lost
their edges. Oh, Black Mountain,
wonderful place, desperate place. Blow your
feathers and your worms. Your
mulch protrudes the surface. Your bravery
blows forgiveness. Your anger
blows freedom. Oh, Black Mountain,
wonderful place, desperate place. I
was blown to where light abstracts the
smallest thing, into the core of a
vernacular, into the heart of the abstract.
No wind but the stillness blows
me, no reason; no existence blows the
shapes that have lost their edges

5.

Give

Before there was charcoal
There was fire
And naked bodies
Are heard
Give me a home
And something to eat
Give me water
Give me sex
Give me before you
Give
Give me a painting
With four corners
And a center
To keep me warm

6.

Necklace

Pride being true
To what is said
Can only be said
On land
Stretch the canvas
And
Size the Atlantic

My mother’s eyes are the
Necklace of my childhood
And I wear
Pride being true
To what is said
Can only be said
On land
Stretch canvas
And
Size the Atlantic

7.

Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson made it very clear to her family. She was
not interested in the King’s English.

With language I am me — without it I am yours — and that
can never be. Verbs, nouns and articles, Emily Dickinson
conjugated a language that became the furniture in her
bedroom. With language I am me — without it I am yours —
and that can never be.

8.

Drawing

Inside
The Red bricks
Of Bruges
Modigliani
Found
Africa
In Paris
He spoke French
Was he never paid

In Paris
He coughed
And spoke
To
A bird’s eye
A nipple full of
Honey is a shawl
For
The desert heat
Remember
She too
Is inside
The Red bricks
of Bruges

9.

Dinner for Two

When Dante
Saw Beatrice
He told her
They would have
Breakfast in New York
Lunch in London
Dinner in Paris

Important Notes:

All these poems (except for #2 and #4) were published in Afterthought /Paintings and Poems, a special limited edition of only 20 copies facing reproductions of Basil King’s paintings published by Granary Press in 2022. The copies now reside in specialty libraries in the U.S. For more information, visit the Granary Press website.

#2 Walt Whitman was deleted from the Granary edition due to technical problems with the image.

#4 This poem was part of Basil King’s narration in the BAM production of Richard Reed Parry and Bruce Dessner’s Black Mountain Songs in 2014. Baz was not used as The Narrator when this production was later presented in England or at Black Mountain College. It was first published as a poem in Learning to Draw /A History, UK: Skylight Press, 2011, in Part II of “The Real Thing Has Four Parts.”

#7 Emily Dickinson was published as a stand–alone in Talisman Journal in 2022.

Basil thanks editors Steve Clay, the developers of Black Mountain Songs, Daniel Staniforth, and Ed Foster for their support of his work.