The Rainbow Woman~An Ekphrastic Poem
Marieta Maglas is a co-author in some anthologies published by Ardus Publications, Sybaritic Press, Prolific Press, and Silver Birch Press.
Pablo Picasso, "Femme au béret rouge-orange"
The Rainbow Woman Poem by Marieta Maglas
The blue woman~alive
knows the meaning of things
and the hue of His visions.
Thinks to survive.
Absently slipping her sight at the edge
of the reality~
ruins, cracked mountains, and
rolling rocky rains
when the divine penetrates her within.
Her womb grows
to hide a new symphony of feelings.
She tries to face with death and sin.
Bluish face for a falling tear
that becomes a magnifying glass.
Ear to hear the rhythm of the seconds as they pass.
Orange, red beret to pulse
in the hard, violet air.
Winds whispering old songs
in her summery, green hair.
This woman is questioning herself
if love can disfigure,
can play havoc with, can vitiate, or can torpedo her essence.
She learned not to trust,
but to think and to keep it for herself
because she knows that, in the missing Light,
the words can become
silvery dust for a fight~
while shooting and jeering.
On her lips, the silence waits to explode.
Has a flamed, red shine.
There is nothing to destroy.
” Tis only a tomography of the spirit ~
her innocent jealousy and passion.
An Ekphrastic poem is a description of a painting. My poem is a written analysis of the artwork entitled "Femme au béret rouge-orange" belonging to the cubist painter Pablo Picasso, who was a Spanish painter and a sculptor during the 20th century. His paintings are famous in the world. His work has been influenced by the Blue and the Rose period, and then by the Cubist period. The first teacher of Pablo Picasso was his father, but he continued to study in Barcelona and in Paris, where some important contemporary painters became his friends. After going to Italy, in 1917, he started to paint in a neoclassical and a surrealist style. After reaching the number of 50,000 works, Pablo Picasso died in France, in 1973.
Picasso saw Marie-Thérèse leaving the Metro and invited this 17-year-old woman at his studio a few days later. Her visit gave way to a deep love affair which would last ten years. At that time, Picasso was married Olga Khokhlova and had a son, Paul. Even separated in 1935, he remained legally married for 20 years, until Olga died. Marie-Thérèse gave birth to their child Maya, in late 1935.
Femme au béret rouge-orange was painted in January 1938.” She has no inconvenient reality; she was a reflection of the cosmos. If it was a beautiful day, the clear blue sky reminded him of her eyes. The flight of a bird symbolized for him the freedom of their relationship. And over a period of eight or nine years, her image found its way into a great body of his work in painting, drawing, sculpture and engraving” (Françoise Gilot about the painting of Picasso in The Artist and his Muses (exhibition catalogue), Vancouver, Vancouver Art Gallery, 2016, pp. 60-61).
