Memory (Magritte)

#143

The old bell of memory has never been tuned,
Won't sound unless rattled or rolled
Across table or floor. It's not a bell to be tolled,
But when rung blood seeps from an invisible wound.
Memory is a bust without shoulders or breasts,
Beauty the rubbing of thought once ruined.
(A sere rose (and brittle stem, one green leaf plucked) rests,
Exhausted by its perfume, relieved to be pruned.)
Memory's eyes are always closed, as though she dreams
To forget dark clouds, cold seas, and a sickle moon.
Dreams are harder to remember, it seems,
When tomorrow always arrives so close and soon.
I tend to her wound and kiss her cold lips,
One eye open for the lunar eclipse.

The Beekeepers and the Birdnester (Breughel)

#142

A bee once flew in my mouth and stung my tongue.
I ran home, had to be told to spit it out
(We all act inexplicably when we're young);
Even at three, fear and pain scar us with doubt.
Years later, in a fountain, I found a dead bee.
I squeezed it with my fingers and it stung me.
Even dead things, I saw, can act vengefully.

The faceless Beekeepers care nothing for insects.
They revere the hive, barely tolerate the queen,
Fear only the mystery that often infects
The males with a fury that can pierce the face screens
They reweave nightly, tighter, tighter, in their dreams.
The godlike man in the tree, stealing eggs from nests,
Ignores the fears of bird and bee, and never rests.

The Cyclops (Odilon Redon)

#141

The nymph drowses, doped in a bed of wildflowers,
Swats a mosquito from her neck without waking.
(Insects adore her liquid breath and pollen skin.)
Polyphemus has been watching her sleep for hours,
His great limbs grown stiff, his heart a small earth quaking.
A thousand desires blast his brain, not one a sin,
Which is unknown to him: hold her body captive
(He knows to love her as a man would destroy her),
Roast and swallow her whole, or he might even give
Her to his fellows, a joyful alms of murder.
But he'll do none of these things because of his eye.
He sees less than senses -- all is apparition
A second sight would shape to vivid perception.
She might be less than she seems, he thinks. Let her lie.

The Menaced Assassin (Magritte)

#140

The job is done, the murder weapon stashed;
A beautiful young woman bashed or slashed.
Wait! What was the victrola playing all along?
The killer and his captors listen intently,
Moved to inaction by a simple song
A woman sings with soft intensity,
As if her passion could efface a wrong
Perpetrated with mountainous cruelty.
Will a club and a net be sufficient
To subdue the heartless secret agent?
The song is over, yet they hesitate.
Three observers, representing the State,
All alike, unblinkingly accuse us
Of the action's interminable caesuras.
There is nothing for us to do but wait.

Wing Song (Alice Guerin)

#139

The sand wasp and the cecropia moth
Pray to the ruby-throated hummingbird.
Each thrums its own avian oath.
It's flight they worship, swift and blurred
Almost wingless, their supreme art.
They envy throwing one's self like a dart.
The sand wasps stun cicadas and bury
Them deep in nests for their larvae to eat.
The mouthless cecropia must hurry
To mate, or their larvae become parasite meat.
But the hummingbird need only sip sweets
And build a nest with the first mate it meets,
Or, having some objection, speed away --
Freedom for which the wasp and the moth pray.

The Ruler Tree (Julia Guerin)

#138

Rulers, like any tool of measurement,
Define the point of stoppage at each end
Of a thing, not the distance in between.
The moon and earth limit the firmament.
The lunar clock compresses each second.
Our sight stops the seen short with the unseen.
I greedily pluck from the ruler tree
The limitations that will set me free.
Someone has marked the bole. I must hurry
To get back and pluck all I can carry.
Evil men will soon come to cut it down;
Perhaps they watch from that darkened prison.
I'll have enough to build an entire town
If I stay unblinded by my vision.

The Plagiarism (Magritte)

#137

This poem plagiarizes this image.
Its wooden table supports an egg nest,
Which doesn't belong with the rest --
Potentiality versus our alleged
Natural world, real or perceived.
A vase, quite solid, planted with a cut-
Out of arranged flowers and leaves, but
Not to be seen or smelled -- to be believed
As a frame (inside framing curtains framed
By the painting's frame): a mountain meadow
With a tree with leaves whiter than snow.
Not everything we can think of can be named.
The mind steals what we can hear, smell and see
To crack the secrets of eternity.