“Grape Arbor at Neukastel” by Max Slevogt
summer grapes
sweet and firm
with the wealth
ripe of season
days folded
in birdsong and
suncast notions
of dignity
living arbors lend
afternoon shade
self-reflection in
winetasting chairs
fine al fresco
experience dear
to esthetic
sensibilities
minding valleys
whose slopes
bear wan ghosts
of good men
moral vintages
grown from the
garden of seeds
before sin
From my book Pieces of Wine
“Conversation” by Engelina Zandstra
I once shared a bottle
with old Aristotle
philosopher’s wine
from a curious vine
grown in rational ground
where the logic was sound
we tore into those views
Nicomachus would use
to guide men to create
a harmonious state
we argued and fought
about ethics that taught
different means to same ends
that make enemies friends
till we found quite chagrined
when three sheets to the wind
we had cured all the ills
that had plagued these good hills
the thing about wine
it lays truth on the line
Painting by Marlina Vera
pressing of the grape
ancestral imperative
yielding hospitality
lifeblood of family
immortal elixir
congenial of body
with the last vivid
personal label affixed
a season of bottles
lay corked in their racks
who will be honored
with first ruby glass
only a priest of the
purple hand brotherhood
From my book Range of Motion
“A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat
punting the Seine
languid sun painting green island picnics
baguettes roughly burrowed with brie
dewy succulent grapes
pinot noir sipped from crockery cups
passing flashes
of what might have been
a gentleman’s life
never lived
cherry pie afternoons
top hat strolls on rive gauche
placid fin de siècle scenes
breathing only on canvases
hung in my lilac wood mind
too old by two centuries
too far removed
by an ocean twice crossed
ungently with bloodlines of peasants
“Cubist Wine” by Marlina Vera
decant old wine
slowly and gently
to crystal carafes
let it breathe
interact with free
freshening air
give it time to
encounter itself
to remember its
succulent vintage
allow it to gather
its long sleeping
color from
ambient light
nothing fine
comes in haste
but in patience
will every
fruition of life
yield reward
of its very
particular savor
“Toast of Wine” by Robert Smith
salubrious nectar
borrowed from gods
mortal palates enrapt
by intoxicant opulent
flavors diverse as the
fruits of the earth and
the inklings of tongues
it cultivates taste
ennobling man’s meal
improves his society
for he failed of friends
it enriches his solitude
dangers lie not in the
grape but arithmetic
sensible minds know
too much of a good is
a bad and that’s twice
true for red wine whose
hangover quotient runs
off the distress scale a
fact Italians learn young
From my book Onionskin
“Red Wine Harvest”
Painting by Claire Bull
From fineartamerica.com
bring me wine
deep with dark
heady fruit of
my fathers the
cellars of evening
producing this
homemade elixir
of ancestry jugs
set by feet of the
chairs at the tables
of family and
feasting no glass
left unfilled and
no heart left
unwarmed
bring me wine
of new vines
from old roots
of the piedmont
sweet ancient
abundance not
given to fancy
an everyday
blue collar red
for an immigrant
palate a body
that stands
a firm finish
delivering bold
taste of history
* * *
“…and the wine is bottled poetry.”
– Robert Louis Stevenson
“Neo-Cubism”
Tile Painting by Robert Lyn Nelson
From pacificatileart.com
a deep swimming sense
of belonging to culture
to history cleanses me
Mediterranean
empire and renaissance
father and mother
the martial red grape
the esthetic green globe
twin vines of my blood
vital vintages yield
the spine and the soul
of a civilized west
rich in letters and arts
liquescent science slakes
intellectual thirst
faiths practiced in goblets
grace pagan and Christian
altarcloth meals
stains drift from the past
come to rest upon tongues
that tincture the future
ideas formed in fragments
assemble themselves into
savory ancestries
liquid stitches of time
binding Caesars to Medici
ferment my history
leaving me merely a swatch
at the edge of a quilt set with
cups of tradition
“Vineyard in Spring”
Painted by Kay Geiss
From fineartamerica.com
sullen skies shadow vineyards
rain the lone blandishment
grapes fend without sun
draw sweetness from memory
“Chianti Bottles”
Painting by Anke Wheeler
At fineartamerica.com
Full Title: Sunday Dinner at an Italian-American Household
Subtitle: Lessons in Rhetoric – A Window on My 1950s Youth
sit down to table at noon
say grace and open the wine
open more wine
put records on the victrola
open more wine
spare the neighbors, shut the windows
open more wine
spare the little ones, shoo them outdoors
open more wine
save the crystal, switch to plastic
open the grappa, sambuca, anisette, limoncello, lacryma christi, amaretto
serve coffee, espresso
open the brandy
bring out mandolins and guitars
stand up at nine
kiss everyone goodnight
Writer Lynne Sargent
Poetry Puttering by Pax & Company
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I am where the valleys are deep, the mountains are high, and the wind moans through trees...
