He strums
strings taut and tuned,
to coax crestfallen cries
from deep inside this box where they've
lain trapped.
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Author Notes
If you google Picasso's Old Guitarist, the very first entry will quickly take you to a picture of this painting from Picasso's blue period of 1901-1904. I have mentioned this painting before in a memory poem about an encyclopedia my father gave me when I was nine that introduced me to it.
I first fell in love with and identified with it the year after my mother died - I knew this tragic old man, bent over his guitar, felt the same mourning loss I did. I am writing about it today because a fellow writer and I were talking about using art as inspiration for poetry this morning, which has motivated me to start a series of cinquains about art meaningful to me. Not just any art, but art that speaks to me and my experience. I hope it speaks to readers also.
Adelaide Crapsey, the originator of the cinquain, used titles as a significant "sixth line" in her poems, and this is written in that spirit.
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