Four Women: A New Poem

This poem is the second poem I have written while David and I have been at a museum. Each time we travel, we take trips to local museums. So far, we have taken in the Walker Art Museum, the Met, the Ft. Lauderdale Museum of Art, and the Walter Museum. Our next poetry book joint project will be us traveling to different museums around the world. David will create art inspired by the collections, and I will craft poetry from the experiences. I can't wait. We will be heading to Bali, Shanghai, and Bangkok this summer to kick it off.

This poem was inspired by three statues and a painting by Carlos Luna at the Ft. Lauderdale Museum.

Four Women

She sits in cherry wood
iron back telling wide hipped stories
of constant longings
each desire guided by the tilt of her head
the specific degrees of her sadness
caught in red grains
hand smoothed by a masterful artist

and this one bare chested dreaming
of flights over the sun
art deco fantasy
she bronzely smiles
tasting freedoms outside the turn of the century
striding above the restrictions of a cast iron world, she
steps lightly into a starry night

and she
she heaves illusions into incredulous faces
cross armed
she is a dancer at rest
she is elegance
her tango not for sale
downstairs she frowns
glassed away from the moon

and what brilliance this Cuban moon
shining in colores caribeños
fighting cocks and guajira breasts
amidst festivals of the dead
she lays blue haired on the backs of crocodiles
horizontal goddess of the exiled
hands tracing lines in water
writing stories with azure endings

-Brandon Lacy Campos
-January 16, 2009
-Oakland, CA