1.

A blue pyramid.

Moon and stars.

Silence.

Multi-colored spectators.

Sand.

---

2.

Blue roof,
orange moon.
Invention:
with the Eagle.

Below:
Bird Drama.

Several
multi-eyed,
winged creatures
sprouting teats
discuss Godot
and look askance.

---

3.

Drawing for Plants:

a proposal.

Perhaps you'd like to look like this.

---

4.

Twittering Machine.

A wheat-straw roach,

4 birds' mouths
a crank.

Turn it and hear them twitter.

---

5.

A man with insect eyes
wears a coolie hat.

The bull looks like a piano.

It is a 6 step mountain
but he floats above it
and seems to be plucking his ribs
as if they were strings.

Goodbye,
at Bull Mountain.

---

6.

A little girl with curly hair,
her torso shaped like a heart,
drawn on a blackboard with colored
chalk
waves hello.

Puppet Show.

---

7.

Hello,
hello.
I am a pink cubist pig
full of birds
and frogs
and fish.

My mouthpiece,
an eel,
swims beside
the crooked board
on which I float

away.

---

8.

The Seafarer.
A hearty soul.

A hump-backed fish;
one impaled already
on his spear;
another,
seal-like,
waits patiently.

His helmet has fallen over his eyes.

What a courageous man!

Upon the sea
in his blue cathedral.

---

9.

Fish Magic!

Ah, you cunning devil,
you have not bewitched
the man with the heart-shaped mouth.

He indicates the blue vase
with an upraised,
pink-gloved hand.

Though you smile,
fat red one,
you are premature
with your smugness.

You should have patience;
it takes time
for fish magic
to work.

---

10.

Moons and ferns,
moons and ferns,
a sitting for a self-portrait;
pines.

Do not be deceived;
he sees you well,
even though your face is misshapen.

---

11.

Designs for a city
within walls.

Floor plans
for 4 different houses.

Automobiles pass through
leaving no mark.

It is too vacuous!
Substance,
we crave substance!

Give us a barbecue pit!

Give us

3 words.
3 words.
That's all we need.
Any 3.

With them we will build a logic
of symbols;
an unspoken language.

With it
I restructure your thinking
so that you know what I want
before I do

and have it ready.

How thoughtful of me
to have made you
that way,
and with such economy.

Of course, I do not speak
of you.
I refer to you
as mine.

I confess,
I do think
I'm above you.

---

12.

You!
Strange bird
in the red swamp,
get out of the sun!

That yellow sky
will put both your eyes
on the same side of your head.

Alas,
I see it has
already happened.

---

13.

Old one,

I sympathize with your lines,

but I can't stand your hat.

---

14.

Clown,
your displaced,
chartreuse hat
saddens me.

Your fractured face
with two profiles,
one pink,
one brown,
brings me near tears.

Yet you are not the typical "sad clown".

You are
watchful.

---

15.

You don't expect me to
believe these hieroglyphs
do you?

I'm sorry,
I speak to no one
until they have given me
their code.

I have already given you mine:
a few fish,
a smiling white man,
the piano music of Erik Satie,
a few lines
and plenty of arrows.

If I made it clearer
would you find it more interesting?

I have blue, alarazin crimson,
yellow ochre, and cadmium red;
perhaps they'll help.

Violet sunflowers,
moons and ferns,
a red sun:
stick figures
awaiting Godot.

Only the most intense take shape.

The others, pastel,
disappear
into the smog.

---

16.

I felt as if
my hair
had turned to
words.

My eyes,
my ears:
words
poured from them.

I
dissolved
into words.

But
only for a moment.

I had them
all at hand;
they were all
available to me.

This is called:
"Having the
Gift of the
Word".

But only
for a moment.

---

17.

I would make you see a new possibility.

All I offer are
various ways.

As Don Juan says,
They all lead nowhere.

However,
it is necessary to be on one.

Only you can decide
that your path has heart.

Have you considered this one:

"Klee's art was so closely bound up
with his everyday life and reality
that he could dare to search for
their ultimate meaning."

John Ezra Fowler was born in Florence, Missouri in 1938. Ever since he has been an admirer of Paul Klee.

These poems were composed in 1969 in Lawrence, Kansas where Mr. Fowler, and his wife, Sara, owned and operated the Abington Book Shop and published GRIST magazine.

He is now a resident of New York City.

The composition of these poems was inspired by the reading of Jerome Rothenberg's "Gorky Poems".