Margot Rudell: Featured Poet on San Francisco Open Mic Poetry TV, co-directed by John Rhodes and Clara Hsu

2027. Alive

I'm three inches tall.
I can feel your fingertip
On my midriff.
Your hand is far bigger
Than my wall.
How did I get inside
Something so small?
I am an image
Inside your phone.
If you delete me
I will die.
I am alive.

2076. Note

Poems
May be
Out of
Order

2006. A Singing Heart

Classical music

Makes my

Heart sing

As my soul

Swings

With the ebb

And flow

Of flute,

Violin,

And cello

Art

1990. Left Sided

I must be

In my creative

Mind

Because now

I always

First stretch

The left side.

Art

1988. Why Pink Tights

Why

Pink tights

Instead

Of black ones?

The line

Shines

More divinely

In the mirror.

Art

1987. Pirouettes

What is it

When your

Pirouettes

Just work

Like magic?

A fine feeling

Of flying

For a moment...

Whirling...

With purpose,

Control,

Clarity,

And vision...

Landing....

In the air,

Suspended

By perfection.

Art

1972. Becoming

Today

I became

A German

Teenager

In summertime

And a matador's

Spanish wife,

Next, a cygnet

And then

A fairy

Taking flight.

How can

One woman

Be

All these

In a single life?

See you in ballet

Class tonight.

Art in San Francisco

1880. A Story for All People, All Times

When my eyes
Brim and overflow
With tears
As I watch
Mimi and Rodolfo's
Tragic love story
In the opera
La Boheme
Do I cry for me
Or for them?


Art

1876. Must This Always Be the Consequence?

In Handel's opera
The fair Semele
Knows
The man she loves
To be her god
And in truth
He is the mighty
Jove
She makes him
Swear
To grant her wish
To see him
In all his glory
He afflicted
Realizes
Too late
The consequence
The instant
She, a mortal,
Sees him, Zeus,
Jove, Jupiter
As he really is
She dies
Must this be
What happens
In real life?


The opera's libretto: http://opera.stanford.edu/iu/libretti/semele.htm

Thank you to Alek Shrader and Ji Young Yang for their great Adler Fellows performance tonight.
http://sfopera.com/p/?mID=49&edID=347&eventtypeid=


Art, Life in San Francisco

1760. Appreciating Modern Ballet

Modern ballet
Is the dance
Equivalent
Of sea
Urchin
Served
In a coctail
Glass
At a trendy
Sushi
Restaurant
The music
Is screetchy
Scenery
Is non-existent
Costuming
Is stark
The movement
Though
Sometimes
Beautiful
Can also be
Ugly
If someone
Can appreciate
It
They have
A taste
For raw
Art


Art

1752. Auguste Rodin's View of Genesis

A woman
And man
Kiss
Naked
And
Passionate
In G-d's
Hand
Their
Intimacy
Is sacred


Art

1751. Auguste Rodin's Hand of G-d

Rodin's
Hand
Of G-d
Forms
A cradle
For a man's
And woman's
Passionate
Embrace
Safe
Within
The palm
Of divine
Invention


Art

1708. Georgia O'Keefe's Lake George

Go to see
Georgia O'Keefe's
Reflection Seascape
At SFMOMA
And flip
The painting
Mentally
On its side
You'll see
The view a lover
Named George
May have enjoyed


Art

1707. Memory Pricked

George Braque's
Painting
Violin and Candlestick
Pricks
My memory
Of childhood forays
To see museum art
And especially
Cubist Picasso
Exhibits
With my mother
In New York


Art

231. Ballerina

A girl of thirteen
Finishes a performance
Of astounding virtuosity
A star among adults
On the ballet stage
Afterwards, she's
A child in jeans
When praised for her
Extraordinary talent
She looks inward
And says quietly
It's G-d
Who moves through me


Art

230. Classical Ballet

Dance of the skeletons
Girls and women
Unearthly thin
Visions of beauty and grace
Except the hollows
Where the eyes
Should have been
Macabre sound
As the music plays
A dance of self-starvation


Art

174. Making Art Personal

Striped
Objects
Make me
Dizzy
They always
Have
Do designers
Do it
On purpose
To make
Their art
A deeper
Part
Of each
Helpless
Victim
Passerby?


Art

166. Locked

Photographs are real
Maybe that is why
They scare me
Black and white
Stark reality ...truth
Preserved forever
Unchangeable with time
You can never go back
And change the past


Art

159. Femme au Chapeau

Matisse's green lady love
Staring at all of us
Daring us to object
Her husband's view of her:
Sometimes rosy
More often taciturn
Very frequently jealous
And generally irritated
With having to sit still
Her eyes contain no love
Neither does her frown
She's putting up with his folly
That the rest of us adore


Art