Help Me Win Please / THANKS I WON!

THIS IS HOW THE BLOG POST BEGAN ... "I need your Vote. I entered a Painting into a Contest with some of Canada’s best artists. There is an important sequence to vote. If enough people Vote for my painting then I may well win."

NOW I AM ANNOUNCING THAT I WON, THAT IS ONE OF THREE PEOPLE WHO WON.

Press the link (url) and go to the ART in Canada Facebook page,
then on that page at the Upper Right press LIKE the Art Page site,
and then you are permitted to scroll down until you find my painting - to Vote or like my work.
I need your Vote.

The painting that I submitted for this contest is this one.

THE COLOSSEUM

The Colosseum

In my life a second time I have walked here trouble free,

A spectator unlike those who populated benches

When once luckless creatures died.

A skeleton almost, imposing still with ancient strength,

Noiseless now but for the clicks of shutters, thousands daily,

Where once voices brashly cried.

Images of early stone for the people back at home.

Imagining the macabre carnage in the name of Rome.

A reformist culture, progressive we presume to be.

We wince that a society could delight in death as sport

Amusement at little cost.

Globally our race still honours those who contest to win

Risking injury and inflicting pain, applauding them,

Savagery - little is lost.

Images in high def and digitally screened at home.

Diffident revisions of first century sport in Rome.

Written by Ron Unruh, October 18, 2012 reflecting upon a visit to historic Amphitheatre of Rome.

SEA TOWN

SEA TOWN

Overcast day – overnight rain
Most pleasure crafts moored.
Marina life slow but for sailboats heading out to catch the wind,
Crews of eight.

Trawlers dockside on Saturday,
A work day still, not on the waves but in port,
Repairing nets and ropes, scrubbing, maintaining,
A steady pace, some heavy but untiring, efficient
With animated Italiano, strong-voiced conversation
Through lips tightly holding cigarettes, always.

Ready for a new week here in Fiumicino,
Home for fisherman, out early each morning
Returning at 1800 hours to waiting locals and merchants
Eager for the day’s catch,
Transferred to patrons in Rome and nearby ristorantes.
The fragrance of sea mingles with the smell of diesel and tobacco.

Shortly it looks like a rain again, announced by sizzling lightning,
Crashing clamor and rain storms like a veil dropping
Moving shoreward, and the sailboats turn and head for home.
Waiting, all of us, long enough and the sun appears once more.




Written by Ron Unruh, October 13, 2012 watching from a Fiumicino window on a typical day in the Italian port.

ME

ME

Where did I go, the Me I remember?

That Me with his slender and sinewy torso,

Legs like mainsprings could spring and sprint;

Hair thick, hardened to shape and cool.

Where did Me go?

She whimsically asked me one morning

Eyeing me closely

Was I still in there?

By which she meant beneath the folds and lines

Was her young man present?

Did he still exist?

Charming but painful the question,

That it could be asked is life

As it happens

To celebrities and everyone and Me.

written by Ron Unruh

October 15, 2012