Dark Light (Matta)

#69

This desert's a blanket of earth's exhaustion,
Where all that remains of life is on the surface.
Each creature, like the sun, is a dying furnace,
Slowly fusing bone, sinew, muscle, intestine.
The old structures melt away into essence,
Bypassing decay, desiccation, and putrescence,
Stopping short of the irreducibility of sand.
New life emerges, sparked by a decaying sun,
Ectoplasmic shapes a god wouldn't understand,
Creatures without breath or senses or reason.
If all worlds are possible, billions like this exist,
Simply because you or I can always imagine it.
We think, therefore, perhaps, we should resist
Creating a world we would never wish to visit.

The Eternal City (Peter Blume)

#68

The jack-in-the-box dictator dominates,
Green scowl squeezing envy into hate.
Sinners pray to Jesus in the store window.
Draped in gold chains, clutching His scepter,
He laughs at their ruler's show of temper.
Henchmen wait for new orders from below.
Eternal cities outlive their architecture.
Columns collapse, statuary crumbles,
"Return my youth," a lame crone mumbles.
Speeches, even sermons, become lectures,
Endless repetitions, what everybody knows.
When the militia gathers, the catacombs
Fill with refugees and would-be deserters.
No murderers here, we are only torturers.

Attirement Of The Bride (Ernst)

#67

The crane groom points the broken spear
At what many deem a virgin womb
In defense or bitter accusation?
Her gravid green imp wipes a tear.
Her gown was woven on a feather loom.
Not every wedding is an initiation
Or means the end to previous lovers.
The bride's searching hand hovers
Beneath the breast of her maid-in-waiting,
Who stares behind her at a painting
Of her princess half sheathed in stone
And wonders if they'll ever be alone
Again. The bride's raptor headdress
Devours the crane's bill when they kiss.

Drawing Hands (Escher)

#66

...and again how all there is is image.
There's immense detail in blank paper,
Diminishing as the writer fills the page
With lines and spots of merest vapor.
We do not exist even in outline until . . .
Until the drawing of our lives is complete.
This sketch (or sonnet), sad, not subtle,
Depicts endeavor as circular defeat.
Look closely. Escher has the right hand
Drawing the left hand drawing the right.
Had he shown both as left, he might
Have broken life's monotonous band.
Yet, he knows how each one holds a pen,
How it is again and again and again

In The Magic Mirror (Klee)

#65

The wan shock, not that rare, when the face
Is strange to us, the look of a mirror race,
Lasts only a moment and then dissolves;
Not memory, but confusion soon resolves.
We know the mask of lips and framing hair,
The skin stretched tight from ear to ear.
What startles is that persistent stare
We cannot blink away, but do not fear.
We feel foolish and fooled when it's over,
Both slightly empty and totally alone,
As though the soul has flown its cover,
Uncertain it will ever find another one.
Even that passes. We're ourselves again.
A mirror is mere glass with silver stain.

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.