Art as Intercourse

“People limp to the shrine of St. Georgia and then fly away on the wings of the libido.” This is from The New Yorker, a review of one of Georgia O’Keeffe’s early exhibitions.“Art is a means of intercourse. . . causing the receiver to enter into a certain kind of relationship with him who produced or is producing the art, and with all those who, simultaneously, previously, or subsequently, receive the same artistic impression.” –Tolstoy.My friend, the marvelous writer and actor Dinah Lenney, and I are giving a talk about writing and art at our MFA program (Rainier Writing Workshop, in Tacoma) this August. Since we’re preparing for that, I’m turning back to my series of poems on O’Keeffe from my first book, Fishing With Blood (Purdue University Press, 1988). In these poems, I’m not only responding to her paintings, but incorporating her biography, which adds a certain other dimension. With characteristic modesty, I quote from a cover blurb on the book, from Dave Smith: “No one to my knowledge has written better about Georgia O’Keeffe, and many have tried.”I include here two poems from the series (the raciest one since I gave this blog a seductive title),  and the last one:O’Keeffe A New Yorker Visits Her Exhibition A man in a brown vestobserves jack-in-the-pulpits, paintedover and over, closer andcloser to the swelledspike, the slitof light. The trumpet flowerpillowed white toward its yawningshaft. The sunflower spreadlike a whore for the bees.Georgia sits bolt upright inthe corner, enduring hisplod and gawk. Her hands locktheir secrets aroundeach other. She turnsher flowers loose. If thisman had been the one who stuck their seedsinto the soil, they would go onwithout him, or dieof weeds, no matter, growingagain in wilder transformations. Hestands before Georgia’s monstrouscalla lilies, handsin his pockets. Perhaps he has almostdiscovered his smallimportance in this process, and hasbegun to look into his heart foranother point of view. She watchesthe symmetryof his hands as they turn andreturn almost against their will tothe same vaginal tease: a star, a bell-shaped cry, “Come in, come in!”  An Expert Explains Her WorkAnything pared to the boneneeds interpretation, sono one will be bored. You can’tsay look there, and there. Onlyhere, like a devotional.Once, Georgia O’Keeffe stolean immaculate black river-stonefrom a friend’s table with noexplanation, and sheis well known to have paintedthat same shape in a number ofexcuses: the single alligator pear,the sunflower’s eye,                                                        the obdurate moon,the hole in the pelvis bone. Howfar it is to eternity and howlittle we have to go on! Strippedof flesh, the pelvis boneis capable of flyingopen like camera lens.Then she was foreverpainting, like a curse, versionsof the door in the patio wallat Abiquiu. It took her tenyears to buy that house, thatdoor which had once beensold for two cows, a bushel ofcorn, and a serape. Still, it madeno apologies, a rectangulardoor in a patio wall,sharpened and scrupulous,a place on the wall tolet your eyesstop and collect their forces.If anything went in our out, youcould see, and put a stopto it, or be the only onewaiting, thus, the most beautiful.