RAY PARKER'S ART
(1933-1990)

Out of South Dakota
Ray Parker's art
moved me in his day
and gave me the forms
of a dotty peace like no other
at a clever sample showing
from a color fields
at the Washburn gallery
I myself could learn from
in the Big Apple
he who like me
admired Matisse
in a shielded pastiche
of geometric shapes
in his "Simple Paintings"
with his poetic lozenges
tried to make his art last
who loved riffs of jazz
unhinged to the bona fide past
as an eccentric minimalist
when he cast his abstracts
in a lot of expressionists
for Ray Parker is not forgotten.