Gateway to September (Charles Burchfield)

#64

A javelin of sunlight shivers into earth
After piercing the shoulder of a dancer's
Outline writhing among ecstatic flowers.
Here is not a spring of the usual rebirth,
And there is not the autumnal answer,
But a simultaneity of light and hours.
The moth and the wildflower endure,
Since nothing is meaningless or impure.
The mother dances and her vibrations
Modulate the chaotic song of creation.
"In my beginning is my end," Eliot says;
A comforting notion, and frightening.
Sunlight yields to darkness and lightning.
"Make September wait," the mantis prays.

That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (Ivan Albright)

#63

Or, to say, we most regret the undone thing.
The outer door and not the inner going out,
Closes off all we might hide within ourselves,
What is dust, what is old beyond enduring,
What we know too well and know nothing about,
Rooms full of stripped beds and empty shelves.
We opened this door at least ten thousand times
And only once return to find a funeral wreath.
A lady's little finger holds a purple handkerchief,
As she presses the button to silenced door chimes.
Our desires, like roses, still retain a hint of red,
Memories, like lilies, are blown, sapped, and gray.
The lady beseeches, "It's not too late. Come away!"
The door says do not die before you're dead.

At The Moulin Rouge (Toulouse-Lautrec)

#62

Lautrec depicts himself disappearing
Into a taller man, but what is seen
By the canvas is from the eye of a giant
Looking down, unseen by walls mirroring
A room dimly lit, tinted brown and green,
A perspective superior and defiant.
Gentlemen wear top hats indoors;
A woman's dress is meant to mimic or
Obliterate her intimate contours --
All defenses evaporated in liquor.
He knows this world and loves its heat,
Texture, and voice, the loveliness of a face
Upturned to his own, green too, but sweet,
With a smile to make his mad heart race.

Sunset (Paul Klee)

#61

The day has taken a billion ages to die.
No more than mathematical points, infinite
In any space defined or without compass,
We, our thoughts, motes in a god's eye,
God's tearful eye, are not (at least) indefinite.
We are both dark energy and dark mass.
Something beyond the sun points to us.
A light beyond any spectrum we know,
Like a thought, but even more like a reason,
An unimaginable generator of purposes,
Flies at us, at our minds, not like an arrow,
To pierce, but with a kiss's intent, a frisson.
It takes only a day for all our suns to set.
Sadly, that light is what we'll least regret.

The Philosopher's Conquest (De Chirico)

#60

Some of us still live in Plato's cave.
We watch shadows of banners on the ground,
Think the wind blows because they wave.
The clock strikes 1:28 without a sound.
The white sails and smoke from schooners
And passenger trains stop us in our tracks,
Deliver us from all evil two minutes sooner.
What's more ethical, smoke from a stack?
We must beat cannonballs into artichokes
If our will to power be apotropaic.
I think, therefore I am a brainy bloke,
Make skies green with my mental voltaic.
The real world is both sweet and absurd.
Philosophers are only made of words.

Cupid Chastised (Bartolomeo Manfredi)

#59

Of course, Mars is angry. That's his nature.
And Venus should divert his anger with love.
Poor Cupid was only doing his job, to move
Desire; mischievous, but not misbehavior.
Consider, the boy inflames the God of War
Towards the Goddess of Love, his mother.
Yes, some uproar among the gods ensues.
Venus and Mars are derided, labeled fools.
Did Cupid intend another sister or brother,
Or to soften the eternal wrath of Mars
By ambush, with a lover's show of arms?
He didn't count on being struck to the floor,
Or a Mars invulnerable to a Venus' alarm.
Each god must despise the thing he stands for.

The Adoration of the Kings (Jan Gossaert, "Mabuse")

#58

A convention of Renaissance nativity scenes:
The ruined stone architecture, as though Christ
Could not be born in a hovel, nor in a palace
Of new magnificence, befitting the King of Kings.
The crumbling pretensions, the unearned rights
And privileges of men, of good will or malice,
Who take or inherit power, surround the Child.
Then who are these kings to show adoration,
Who offer gold while angels gather overhead?
What is being redeemed, what evil exiled?
Will each king, restored, return to his nation,
Resurrect the rights of the living? Of the dead?
A dog tears at a scrap in the foreground,
A perfect imitation of a hungry hound.