Guggenheim and Pollock

[RiverNotch]

Guggenheim and Pollock


Born into Midcentury Modern,
Danish furniture and art covered walls,
weekend family pass to the city’s
Museum of Modern Art.

I'd prefer a fuller sentence for this, just to be clearer:

(I) born into Midcentury Modern,
Danish furniture and art covered walls
with a weekend pass to the city's
Museum of Modern Art.

Giftshop colorwheels spinners

swirled layers of primaries shifted
endlessly, caught and released,
headwaters and destinations
blurred and fluid.
Only Pollock kept his distance.

Lovely image, senseless sentence. Unsure how to correct---the earlier version is definitely too mechanical. Maybe:

(A) spinner of gift shop color wheels,
swirling layers of primaries that shifted
endlessly, I caught and released
headwaters and destinations
blurred and fluid,
only Pollock kept his distance.

A sunlit focaccia breakfast
in Peggy’s breezy sculpture garden
is a prelude to her palazzo
on Venice's Grand Canal. Kinda prefer the narrative clarity of the previous version, at least for this passage's start.

Then I visited Peggy, what she left,
a sunlit focaccia breakfast (surrounded by statues)
the prelude to her palazzo on the Canal---

Guggenheim’s New York ramps and open air
left me unprepared for Peggy’s focus. Maybe a little confusing, since Peggy's also a Guggenheim.

New York's ramps and open air
had left me unprepared.

Strolling the remnants of a life of choice,
the bric and brac of a well-loved home,
I pause and pause and pause,
at home with the crowded walls, Comma here.
allowing them to imprint.

Then ahead of me a long narrow
high-ceilinged room, one side hung
with a stretched row of huge canvasses.
As I walk the line I'm swimming
as everything I’ve ever felt surfaces, The two "as"s are a little clumsy.
a crest and dive from piece to piece,
at the end a life exhausted.

Maybe:

As I walk the line, I'm swimming,
and everything I've ever felt
crests and dives from piece to piece,
at the end a life exhausted.

The last two stanzas, though, they're a definite improvement from the earlier version.