Saint George Killing The Dragon (Bernat Martorell)

#72

Expect a grimace of mercy from a saint,
When he thrusts a spear into a dragon's jaw.
The beast won't easily die; he'll cringe and feint
(Unlike the knight, he knows only natural law,
Which teaches treachery and ruthlessness),
And try to take the horse down before the rider.
Both are images of murderous righteousness,
Doomed, the dying serpent and the future martyr,
With only a hammered and honed sliver of iron
Hovering between the dragon and the paragon.
The villagers offered the princess as a sacrifice.
To double his armor the wise knight prayed,
Or was it to erase the vision of her perfect face?
It isn't clear, who is slayer and who is slayed.

Still Life (Pieter Claesz)

#71

Claesz paints no still life that is not about remorse.
(A double negative, much like any single life.)
Life without movement? We've no other recourse
Than contemplation of arrangements of food and knife.
Dried figs and bread, spilt olives, discolored fruit,
The waste of bounty for the sake of observation:
Grasp and consume images that we can't intuit?
The pie spills out the remains of a life's desecration.
And I do not mean regret, for things undone or done.
That is sin enough, a false darkness that frames us.
(Some nuts remain uncracked and meaty. Try just one.)
No, it is our perfect crime, unknown and blameless.
It is without taste or texture, without color or smell,
Old and faint, a fading song, but alive, a living hell.

The Yerres, Effect of Rain (Caillebotte)

#70

The river accepts a drop of rain with a ring
Of vanishing consequence, time into time,
Like a memory, a dilution of old yearning.
The river accepts the reflection of trees
With lack of precision, like a slant rhyme,
Like a memory we see but cannot seize.
I know this river. I once stood in this rain.
It told me that insight is not a reflection,
But the tree itself, which can only be known
If we remember it and then see it again.
The river accepts the rain without question,
Like a hand shaking hands with a koan.
The river accepts the trees without seeing.
It's to us to see such beauty here and fleeting.

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