Engaging with the Abstract

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

I have really never understood abstract art, but always been fascinated by it without knowing why. One day, at a Picasso exhibition, I commented as much to the person (a total stranger) standing next to me. “It’s not about making sense as we know it,” the woman said, “but letting it take us on a journey, wherever our senses choose to take us; it is the journey that counts, and at the same time completes the artwork. There's nothing like abstract art for giving the alter ego a wake-up call." She had moved on before I could quite digest this, but digest it I did, and have enjoyed taking more such journeys since. The mind operates along lines of its having to make sense of things' the heart, on the other hand, accepts that we don't.

Every time I engage with abstract art, it feels like it is taking me on a magical mystery tour around my inner self ...

I like to think at least some of my poems have much the same effect on those who engage with them, but maybe that's just wishful thinking ...

This poem is a kenning.

ENGAGING WITH THE ABSTRACT

I lead the mind a merry dance

across lesser known parameters

simply for their being red lines

drawn across localised elements

of human nature by ‘betters’

intent on feeding their own egos

(under the heading ‘Education’)

inviting any free, independent thought

to engage, comment, pass on

I invite the body to fly all time

and space, consort with pterodactyls

regenerating through time-space

to give poor history a pat on the back

for lending a poorer humanity

its spectrum of lost opportunities,

not only excused but redeemed

by all socio-cultural-religious dogma

ever written on tablets of stone

My task, to let the human spirit

enter into a global self-consciousness,

no matter its sensibilities fear

to see-hear-feel whatever hurt inflicted

on its own and natural worlds

by way of posing as a superior species

for its strength, intelligence,

or cunning wherever pure self-interest

put down to native ingenuity

Mind-body-spirit, actively taking part

in all that comprises abstract art

 Copyright R. N. Taber 2019