Recently Unearthed From an Archive of 'Lost Papers' of the Painter R.A. Blakelock (1847-1919), by Dave Shortt

An Indian Encampment, by Ralph Albert Blakelock (USA), ca. 1880–1900.

Recently Unearthed From an Archive of 'Lost Papers' of the Painter R.A. Blakelock (1847-1919)

Platte, Medicine Bow, Cheyenne, (invisible) Snake,
Pawnee, Shoshone, (root) diggers

riding out on a horse-
hair discipline,
if not art then the curiosity
of migration, hunting
camps under the moon, Man-
nahatta 60 guilder
will get you many fakes,
many cities, empire lying there
in childbirth, debtor
masses crazy for space,
where subject & object
are drawn forces seeking a mutual home

why hang on
to faithless physical
portrayals?  sordid
trails of royalties?

schooners leave, gorged
with families:
steer clear father
of all but harvest's pictured fatter moons
& suns, luminous
west of East
Orange where
look, untouched by wars of whites,
avoided like coyotes' eyes hidden
away in animistic thickets
(never met that vision, never even sketched
on the outskirts of Lincoln)

without reservations, there shall be no trespass,
the creation in front of you
seen as form of homage,
the worthless land was an indigenous palette
not yet cut or built up, 
in the style of indigence

every baby was stuffed with flesh,
any home about to feel the governing force
of electromagnetism
would later be swindled
by sunset's relativity

arriving at another undated title
layered into future whistle stops
& bids on estates of Spirit

(withal) a vanishing point of children
which all the zodiac provides for

cowpunchers sodbusters bison hunters
forge Eden with their snake oil

'& the leaf thereof for medicine'

the living, the living
forests starting to accumulate a wealth of
meanings more & more private (the wind owns)

no one takes his colors to represent
salient, or sales, or sage

how hard must one work
to be rewarded beyond the poverty?  9 ways
to Sunday, to infancy & infamy
of nymphless groves without morals Cora,
hideouts where no victim of dusk
was to be recognized

(the great necklace orbiting the big picture
of which the moon is a tiny jewel
was dropped around our childhood
by red giants)

the horse becoming one with the individual
on its back, one
with an accelerating freedom
to exploit the landscape:
make your way old paints,
by this hand, or where you will,
& guide
whatever's expressible in western

hanging on for dear life to

Dave Shortt
​
Dave Shortt is a longtime writer from the USA whose work has appeared over the years in numerous print and online literary-type venues, including Mesechabe, Nedge, S/WORD, Astropoetica, andVerse Wisconsin.  Three of his poems are scheduled for publication sometime this summer/fall in Poetry Salzburg Review, The Journal  and Molly Bloom.

Watch a short doc about the artist below.