Perseus and Andromeda

Nude

in chains

on the rocks

she’s picture-perfect.

Titian’s Andromeda displayed

for us mortals, for hungry beasts, and for Perseus

who dives seaward dressed-to-kill in pink and gold robes to slaughter the slavering monster.

He’s a boy-hero, pointing his scimitar, playing the man-of-action awed by the glamour of a damsel’s distress – he needs to impress.

Her life depends on this handsome man so she exhibits herself in a table-dance

wearing fettish limb-fetters and a dangling earring

she guarantees love at first sight.

In moments of stress

decorum

learns how

to

flirt.

Colin Bell 29/9/2020

I was inspired by the much-praised Titian exhibition, Love Death and Desire, at London’s National Gallery this summer, during the infamous Covid-19 pandemic – so much so that I decided to write a set of Fibonacci poems about them. Poetry based on specific works of art are known as Ekphrastic – my four new poems, Four Ekphrastic Fibs are the result and they have just been published in The Fib Review, that impressive Fibonacci specialist journal. http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/

I thought I would reproduce them here along with the original paintings by Titian, maybe the greatest painter of the nude, known appropriately enough as the Poesie – or Poems. If you want to know more about these paintings read about them on my previous blog Titian Reunited: https://wolfiewolfgang.com/?p=19989

My four new Titian poems join a fifth, Diana and Actaeon, that was already published in a previous issue of the Fib Review in a set of poems inspired, like all of these paintings, by stories from the Roman poet Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I have printed it again here below.

I write these poems using the Fibonacci mathematical number sequence for each line’s syllable count….and now having had 104 of them published by The Fib Review, I guess you could say that I’m hooked as you will probably see if you look back on some of my previous blogs on the subject of Fibonacci and the Fib. https://wolfiewolfgang.com/?p=19

My thanks, yet again, to The Fib Review for continuing to publish my work.

Venus and Adonis

Stay

moans

Venus

love’s goddess

Titian’s writhing nude.

Adonis springs hot from her bed

his blushes define the child out-grown by his body.

He is dressed for hunting, she’s undressed for him, helpless love personified by its queen

who is now tasting the pain she inflicts on us all.

His dogs salivate sensing blood,

the boy is confused:

why this fuss?

Venus sees

the death

of

youth.

Colin Bell 29/9/2020

Diana and Callisto

Chaste

queens

turn mean

at bath time

in Titian’s paintings –

he likes women out of their clothes.

Virgin goddess Diana is nasty when she’s nude

she’s addicted to alfresco ablutions in the woods with her handmaidens naked.

Useful for Titian but bad for the nymph Callisto

pregnant by the king of the gods

strip-searched found guilty

shaming us

who stand

and

stare.

Colin Bell 30/9/2020

Actaeon

Don’t

look,

he thought,

but he did,

fearing what he saw,

alert to the change in himself.

Until now he’d been just a lad hunting with hound dogs.

Eyes know your desires before you do, he discovered in that surprised unblinking glance.

Arousal felt bestial to this embarrassed young man.

The transformation was instant

and the first horn grew.

Love’s not blind,

he thought,

for

stags.

Colin Bell 05/10/2017

The post Titian’s Nudes are the subject of my new Fibonacci poems. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

It has been an interesting month for my Fibonacci poetry – first, I’ve had three new poems published in the Fib Review, see yesterday’s post, and now I have seen the splendid animated film that Joseph Nussbaum has made of one of these poems, Alcyon and Ceyx.  Joseph has made a number of films around my poetry in the past and I’m really happy that he has done this new one. It has been entered for an award in Australia and I hope it does well.  This is not only an interesting way of making movies but it’s a great way to get poetry out there to people who may not make a habit of reading poetry. whether you like poetry or not,  I hope you will like Joseph’s film about the young couple, from the Roman poet Ovid’s The Metamorphoses, whose love in anticipation of Wagner, survives beyond death.

The post First the Fibonacci Poem and then the Movie appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.

Diana and Actaeon (1556 – 1559)  by Titian

Titian’s great painting of Diana and Actaeon has been one of my favourite paintings ever since I went to the great Titian exhibition at London’s National Gallery. It tells the story of how the young man Actaeon, who is out hunting stags, stumbles upon the goddess Diana at her secret bathing pool. She is outraged to have her nakedness on display and in her anger turns Actaeon into a stag with unfortunate consequences. It is, of course, one of the most famous stories from the Roman poet’s collection of stories gathered from Greek legends and known as The Metamorphoses. I decided to write a set of three Fibonacci poems on this and two other stories from Ovid and they have just been published in that excellent poetry journal The Fib Review.

Other stories in Ovid’s work are also very well known, maybe none more than Narcissus, the handsome young man who is loved by all you see him but who can’t return offered love. He is cursed by the gods to fall in love with his own reflected image. This has become the second of my three Ovid poems.

Narcissus (c.1597 – 1598) by Caravaggio

The third is Alcyon and Ceyx, the dramatic story of how Ceyx, Alcyon’s young husband is shipwrecked by the angry god Jupiter, and his drowned body floats close to shore where his wife sees it and rushes to save him. The god relents and turns them both into immortal birds. I hope you enjoy the metamorphosis of these great stories into my humble Fibs.

Ceyx and Alcyone (1768) by Richard Wilson

You can read all three Fibonacci poems and poems by many other Fibonacci poets in thie new issue of The Fib Review http://www.musepiepress.com/fibreview/colin_bell1.html

You can also see the brilliant animated film of the last of my three poems made by Joseph Nussbaum – here it is:

The post My 3 latest Fibonacci Poems are Tales from Ovid’s The Metamorphoses. appeared first on Wolfie Wolfgang.