Ptazynski: First Day

He is shorter than
the cool-eyed
deer.

He speaks the language
of poets.

He orders new students:
draw, make no lines
on paper.

Put one point on top
and move down
through space.

To the right eye the
palm is flat.
To the left eye
the back is flat.
Three-dimensionality
is a construct of the mind.

We stretch our eyes
without knowing.
Without moving
we have circled
the waiting hand.

My mind eye
moves out as thought
to formcaress
that which I seek
to know.

And I seek to know
he who with eye contact
brings lightning bolts
to the heart.

And I seek to know he
who extends himself
as electrical radius
of form and curve of mind.

Best not to stand too close
to learn the things he knows.



I wrote this poem the first week of art school at UCSB after my first drawing class with Bill Ptazynski. After I moved to Reston it was published in an anthology of local writing, Dirty Laundry. UCSB added the poem to Ptazynski's obituary after he died.