JEAN HELION

Your figurative paintings
drawn by way of Normandy
in lines of accented features
captured early as a boy
by poetry, rapt in astrology
taken in combat by the Nazis
yet not giving up a life's mission
with your poised colorful energy
in a cultural language to be set free,
amid canvas in your Paris studio
doing portraits of your art friends
Balthus, Mondrian, Giacometti,
poets, Char, Ponge, Bonnefoy,
and les etat-unis d'Amerique
John Ashbery.