Textual Integration

On March 14, these poets read their odes to nine paintings. The poems will be attached to the painting that inspired it.

Here is the poem by George Yatchisin, Santa Barbara Poet Laureate and who organized this event.

Polished at the Player Piano

after Leave With a Smile by Kathy Leader

Let’s excuse the weary musician from needing

to plink the keyboard - what’s meant to sound

will sharp and flat into chords as time unrolls.

Of course everything is impression, a breeze’s

excuse for a brush of lingering touch. Our spirits

so much desire out of the body that we make up

a heaven after death so there’s hope we can

one day be home. Even the suggestion

of such sentiment makes on turn away, amidst

whispering neutrals with precise if passe names

like ecru and loden. Alas, a descriptive trap

like that rings of twee, just as suggesting

palimpsest does of poesy, or that the figure

in a work has to be its focus, be in focus.

“Smile a with me leave, dear,” I swear I heard

you say over your exiting shoulder. And then,

“The items are part of the historical record.”

I’m okay with that. I’ve come to know

each absence suggests a song, one

that calls the crooners round,

haggardly harmonizing for all they're worth.

Above detail: from Wall Street by Salvatore Matteo