Rhapsody in Gray, by Lidia Chiarelli

Rhapsody in Gray
 
to Tamara de Lempicka
 
… I mark
On the horizon walking like the trees
The wordy shapes of women
Dylan Thomas
 
Beverly Hills, California, 1939
 
Lightly the paintbrush slips
on the canvas caressing
elongated sinuous bodies
women behind steering wheels 
  an enigma inside
  melancholy and distracted eyes.

Soaring skyscrapers 
take form
in bold vertical lines.
 
Reflections of alabaster
flood
a road in the night
interlocking games
and new geometries.
 
The modulated sounds of a saxophone
come from afar
while in the light
of street lamps
shadows descend in
long variegated spirals
of iridescent gray.

Lidia Chiarelli

This poem and the accompanying image were previously published in Lidia Chiarelli's Slants of Light, Cross-Cultural Communications, New York,  2019.

Lidia Chiarelli (Torino, Italy). Artist and poet, co-founder, with Aeronwy Thomas, of the art-literary Movement Imagine & Poesia (2007). Her writing has been translated into several languages. Award-winning poet since 2011. Six Pushcart Prize Nominations.