The sonnet sequence, "My Human Disguise," of 600 ekphrastic poems, was begun February 2011 and completed January 15, 2022. It can be found beginning with the January 20, 2022 post and working backwards. Going forward are 20 poems called "Terzata," beginning on January 27, 2022. Thirty more Terzata can be found among the links on the right. A new series of dramatic monologues follows on the blog roll, followed by a series of formal poems, each based on a single word.
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Wednesday, July 27, 2011
The Great Wave Off Kanagawa (Hokusai) and Sinbad The Sailor (Klee)
#23
There is nothing to fear in these cartoons.
A wave poised forever and never crashing.
Red ink dripping from a crooked harpoon.
Each a vision unreal, a pictorial fashion.
Then why so much improbable danger,
The depiction of moments of great crisis
In a style so unlike the camera's iris --
To make what we'll never know even stranger?
The artists have painted man against the elements
Or mythological beasts, both mere figments
Of extreme but fake, unnatural commotion,
Riots of color to create a chaos of emotion.
I have killed many such monsters of the deep,
And ridden up and over fatal crests asleep.