Matthew Woodman

Academic Painting

      –after Rufino Tamayo’s Pintura académica, 1935

Lightning strikes yes sometimes
the artist catches burnt
without scarring but sometimes
high tides with rocks pocket
full of ovens in the head
or bridges to fall what
I mean to say electricity
can surrogate Venus no
but half shell yes and away
I pen I palette the tickled
pink of slipping and standing
still bringing down to earth still
light touch as vulnerable
in one’s disarray juggled
step stumbled right up
release the sprung glimmer
desire sometimes mismatched
collaborate mind could be all

Matthew Woodman teaches writing at California State University, Bakersfield and is the founding editor of Rabid Oak. His poems appear in recent issues of Sonora Review, Oxidant/Engine, S/WORD, Sierra Nevada Review, and The Meadow, and more of his work can be found at www.matthewwoodman.com.