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Vincent Berquez
My son, the disco dancer
He flicks movements in squealing happiness
and turns and falls over, laughs and squeaks,
squawks, stands and sits and strains and rolls,
and moves his little baby legs accidentally
as he leans into his bouncy, bendy self.
My infant son, the disco dancing prancer
parades and shifts his squidgy frame frantically
like a jaunty spring-loaded jittery jumping bean
and lands on his bum again.
And his happy head swigs the air and eyes dart
around his spinning frame, as he jigs for joy
and bounds, fly-falling onto his rump again,
quickly bouncing to stomp the beat of sound
looking up to me he demands more music.
22.01.11
vincent berquez poetry
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Vincent Berquez
Forgiveness
In the darkness my son is the object.
In his sleep we ponder ourselves
and glimpse eternity,
his communicating will go
further than we shall ever travel.
In this great silence he is monumental
and we see the future beyond ourselves.
Asleep there are always hidden secrets
from the banality of our self-importance
that only he can deconstruct and give meaning to.
We ask who we are. But he cannot answer yet.
It will be a wonderment to hear his voice,
will he understand as we become different with time,
will he forgive us if forgiveness is necessary?
13.12.10
vincent berquez poetry
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Vincent Berquez© painting:
Cathedral of trees
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Vincent Berquez© painting:
Bulldog morning (2011)
Vincent Berquez Biography
Vincent Berquez is a London–based artist and poet. He has published in Britain, Europe, America and New Zealand. His work is in many anthologies, collections and magazine worldwide. Vincent Berquez was requested to write a Tribute as part of ‘Poems to the American People’ for the Hastings International Poetry Festival for 9/11, read by the mayor of New York at the podium. He has also been commissioned to write a eulogy by the son of Chief Albert Nwanzi Okoluko, the Ogimma Obi of Ogwashi-Uku to commemorate the death of his father. Berquez has been a judge many times, including for Manifold Magazine and had work read as part of Manifold Voices at Waltham Abbey. He has recited many times, including at The Troubadour and the Pitshanger Poets, in London. In 2006 his name was put forward with the Forward Prize for Literature. He recently was awarded a prize with Decanto Magazine. Berquez is now a member of London Voices who meet monthly in London, United Kingdom.
Vincent Berquez has also been collaborating in 07/08 with a Scottish composer and US film maker to produce a song-cycle of seven of his poems for mezzo-soprano and solo piano. These are being recorded at the Royal College of Music under the directorship of the concert pianist, Julian Jacobson. In 2009 he will be contributing 5 poems for the latest edition of A Generation Defining Itself, as well as 3 poems for Eleftheria Lialios’s forthcoming book on wax dolls published in Chicago. He also made poetry films that have been shown at various venues, including a Polish/British festival in London, Jan 07.
As an artist Vincent Berquez has exhibited world wide, winning prizes, such as at the Novum Comum 88’ Competition in Como, Italy. He has worked with an art’s group, called Eins von Hundert, from Cologne, Germany for over 16 years. He has shown his work at the Institute of Art in Chicago, US, as well as many galleries and institutions worldwide. Berquez recently showed his paintings at the Lambs Conduit Festival, took part in a group show called Gazing on Salvation, reciting his poetry for Lent and exhibiting paintings/collages. In October he had a one-man show at Sacred Spaces Gallery with his Christian collages in 2007. In 2008 Vincent Berquez had a solo show of paintings at The Foundlings Museum and in 2011 an exposition with new work in Langham Gallery London.
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Vincent Berquez© painting:
My son the musician
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vincent berquez
this
this is the vessel
this is the child
the spontaneous
sparks into action
this is central
this is who we are
this is the treasure
and the bud opens.
this is you and me
in our ideal form,
we have blended
and here before us
is unrefined love
that is a smile
and we praise this
through him, with him.
29.09.10
Vincent Berquez Biography
Vincent Berquez is a London–based artist and poet. He has published in Britain, Europe, America and New Zealand. His work is in many anthologies, collections and magazine worldwide. Vincent Berquez was requested to write a Tribute as part of ‘Poems to the American People’ for the Hastings International Poetry Festival for 9/11, read by the mayor of New York at the podium. He has also been commissioned to write a eulogy by the son of Chief Albert Nwanzi Okoluko, the Ogimma Obi of Ogwashi-Uku to commemorate the death of his father. Berquez has been a judge many times, including for Manifold Magazine and had work read as part of Manifold Voices at Waltham Abbey. He has recited many times, including at The Troubadour and the Pitshanger Poets, in London. In 2006 his name was put forward with the Forward Prize for Literature. He recently was awarded a prize with Decanto Magazine. Berquez is now a member of London Voices who meet monthly in London, United Kingdom.
Vincent Berquez has also been collaborating in 07/08 with a Scottish composer and US film maker to produce a song-cycle of seven of his poems for mezzo-soprano and solo piano. These are being recorded at the Royal College of Music under the directorship of the concert pianist, Julian Jacobson. In 2009 he will be contributing 5 poems for the latest edition of A Generation Defining Itself, as well as 3 poems for Eleftheria Lialios’s forthcoming book on wax dolls published in Chicago. He also made poetry films that have been shown at various venues, including a Polish/British festival in London, Jan 07.
As an artist Vincent Berquez has exhibited world wide, winning prizes, such as at the Novum Comum 88’ Competition in Como, Italy. He has worked with an art’s group, called Eins von Hundert, from Cologne, Germany for over 16 years. He has shown his work at the Institute of Art in Chicago, US, as well as many galleries and institutions worldwide. Berquez recently showed his paintings at the Lambs Conduit Festival, took part in a group show called Gazing on Salvation, reciting his poetry for Lent and exhibiting paintings/collages. In October he had a one-man show at Sacred Spaces Gallery with his Christian collages in 2007. In 2008 Vincent Berquez had a solo show of paintings at The Foundlings Museum and in 2011 an exposition with new work in Langham Gallery London.
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Exposition Vincent Berquez in Langham Gallery London
VINCENT BERQUEZ
NEW WORKS
7-20 February 2011
Langham Gallery
34 Lamb’s Conduit Street, London, WC1N 3LE
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V i n c e n t B e r q u e z
T w o P o e m s
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P o r c e l a i n
You wait for me patiently
for my events to happen
for my heart to meet yours.
Sliding fingers into fingers
we canter through the busy city
I brush you off gently –
like dusting precious porcelain.
I still want the proposal offered
but slowly, in measured footsteps,
in calm, tame light,
within my heart’s capacity.
You wait patiently.
Seeds will be sown as plants push
through the soil, appearing like a miracle.
Porcelain flowers you and I.
T h e v i t a l o r e
I have planted my flag deep in your territory
in fantastical realms unknown to me for so long,
in the greater mystery of life my strong sail skitted
and skimmed me towards the shore of your heart.
The clauses within craziness and controlled chaos
that can be this existence often spiralling, imposed
in the blind roots as the route was broken through
and you appeared on a lighter horizon in loving glow.
My flag flies passionately in the hardy swirling air
and sparkles in the whooshing breeze of my vital nature
and in the height of the azure sky, embedded, pushed in
I embellish and decorate my thoughts into the earth,
into the crust of clay, deep into vital ore, and there I find you.
Vincent Berquez: Two Poems
VINCENT BERQUEZ: THE THREE MALE GRACES 2006
27cm x 59cm, wood based, plastered and plated in aluminium
Vincent Berquez: “The Christian equivalent of the Three Graces of antiquity could be said to be Faith, Hope and Charity. These represent the embodiment of womanhood and the better nature of an ideal, always entwined and gathered together in unity. In my work I thought that man could be represented in a similar way and why had he not been in this way in the first place? Was it that the male could only be perceived in strength and the warring attributes? My male Three Graces are also entwined as a unity. They blend and meld within each other. I have envisaged that they represent Courage, Integrity and Honesty. That these virtues in our world are important, that as a man the combination would be the best way we could be with Faith, Hope and Charity, we could make a better, safer world.”
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V i n c e n t B e r q u e z
F o u r P o e m s
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Dancing into the cream of the night
You said take me dancing
in the cream of the night
like we did that time
when the music was jasper Spanish.
The seated flamenco women clapped
out the velocity of chattering rhythms
pushing the black and scarlet music
to the edge of our half-conscious world,
exciting the bloody pump with the drum
of temptation that agitated our lustiness.
The partnership of limbs tangled
loquacious, heady, demanding.
We took to the slippery dance floor
where I held the spine of your wet skin
in the stretch of my flexed palm –
you said your heart needed to dance with me
until the silver slit cracked into the shock
of the smoky grey marbled morning.
In charged anarchy we succumbed
to fog drunkenly and lost ourselves till then.
Bombing the Plain English Society
I shall keep you here in the electrons of my mind,
the swirling passages of these unending nerve ends.
I will be the bristling brush on the flesh of a rapid red fox,
the squaring of roots drowning in complex mathematics,
the astro-lunacy of a blinking boffin’s crazed chalk jottings
scratched frantically on a worn-out university blackboard.
I would be a Fascist treading in the shine of marching jackboots
towards the blinding zealous pursuit of your affections,
the deepest diver plunging for shellfish in dangerous waters,
the oxygen breathing spaceman sucked into the inky darkness
of twinkling night in the want of the unknown knowledge of you.
I shall be the unfettered wild horse galloping far and wide
towards you, towards the savage and the need beyond exhaustion.
I would bomb the Plain English Society in search of obscure words
to cover you, plundering rich language I would describe abundantly.
I would forfeit rich chocolate and red wine to taste you instead,
sleep on stones of fire nightly for a chance to lie next to you,
with my flame burning brightly I will illuminate you in my heat.
Writing words of love to the sea
I write words of love to the sea
my mistress so far from me here
in the grey light and night of the city.
I write words of passion for the waves
that lap my skin when close
that makes me come alive when I think
of her and take a path to her blanket.
I write a passion for the great emptiness
of my desire when away
for the solitude of when we are together,
when I glide deep inside her
and only come up for air when it is almost too late.
Sleep touching
Enchanted, our mime snake-like,
entwined, wrapped in each other,
a limbed garland, a drowsy choice
where no obvious choice is made.
Our sighing bodies entranced,
meshing, threading smoothly,
covering velvet soft, satin warm.
We touch without touching,
no fingers or lips or eyes
come into knowing contact –
We purr a murmur and our skin
dusts the other’s skin gently.
We are languid as we wake
again to the light of the world,
to the animation of the day.
And in our strokes we begin
to touch differently
realising each other is near.
Vincent Berquez Biography
Vincent Berquez is a London–based artist and poet. He has published in Britain, Europe, America and New Zealand. His work is in many anthologies, collections and magazine worldwide. Vincent Berquez was requested to write a Tribute as part of ‘Poems to the American People’ for the Hastings International Poetry Festival for 9/11, read by the mayor of New York at the podium. He has also been commissioned to write a eulogy by the son of Chief Albert Nwanzi Okoluko, the Ogimma Obi of Ogwashi-Uku to commemorate the death of his father. Berquez has been a judge many times, including for Manifold Magazine and had work read as part of Manifold Voices at Waltham Abbey. He has recited many times, including at The Troubadour and the Pitshanger Poets, in London. In 2006 his name was put forward with the Forward Prize for Literature. He recently was awarded a prize with Decanto Magazine. Berquez is now a member of London Voices who meet monthly in London, United Kingdom.
Vincent Berquez has also been collaborating in 07/08 with a Scottish composer and US film maker to produce a song-cycle of seven of his poems for mezzo-soprano and solo piano. These are being recorded at the Royal College of Music under the directorship of the concert pianist, Julian Jacobson. In 2009 he will be contributing 5 poems for the latest edition of A Generation Defining Itself, as well as 3 poems for Eleftheria Lialios’s forthcoming book on wax dolls published in Chicago. He also made poetry films that have been shown at various venues, including a Polish/British festival in London, Jan 07.
As an artist Vincent Berquez has exhibited world wide, winning prizes, such as at the Novum Comum 88’ Competition in Como, Italy. He has worked with an art’s group, called Eins von Hundert, from Cologne, Germany for over 16 years. He has shown his work at the Institute of Art in Chicago, US, as well as many galleries and institutions worldwide. Berquez recently showed his paintings at the Lambs Conduit Festival, took part in a group show called Gazing on Salvation, reciting his poetry for Lent and exhibiting paintings/collages. In October he had a one-man show at Sacred Spaces Gallery with his Christian collages in 2007. In 2008 Vincent Berquez also had a solo show of paintings at The Foundlings Museum. His artwork is permanently on view at the Enid Lawson Gallery in London.
KEMP=MAG poetry magazine – magazine for art & literature
© vincent berquez
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