Winter (Giuseppe Arcimboldo), Sonnet #440

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My Human Disguise.

I am old and my blood won’t thaw.

I am the end. My lips are mold.

As if I execute some law,

I imprison all with the cold,

The icy and the bitter winds,

Punish spring’s, fall’s, and summer’s sins.

My eyes, nose and cheeks rot and cake.

A few green leaves cling to me still —

My young branches refuse to die.

It’s time to summon the first flake —

My sole star only time can kill —

And then to open up the sky.

When all is buried I will sleep

A tearless world that will not weep.

The Punishment of Luxury (Giovanni Segantini), Sonnet #439

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My Human Disguise.

Inured to wind or rain, the women rest

On a bed of air, draped in silken sheets,

Sated on honeyed wine and creamy sweets,

Their flaxen tresses framing each bared breast.

Though their eyes are closed, we can’t be sure

They’re sleeping, if they are dreamt or dreaming.

They throw dim shadows from a star beaming

Dimly distant and reluctantly pure.

It’s late winter and the snow starts to thin.

Even the mountains’ snowcap is shrinking.

We can’t know what the women are thinking.

Perhaps they hope that spring vanquishes sin.

Dear ones, where are the men? They sin as well.

Is your punishment their heaven or hell?

Pallas and the Centaur (Botticelli), Sonnet #438

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My Human Disguise.

The centaur, about to loose an arrow,

As he often did, just to kill a thing,

Without a reason he would ever know,

Loved to hear the snapping of his bow string.

There was no party he wouldn’t disrupt,

No innocent love he didn’t corrupt.

We have men, part ass, just like him today

Who do even more harm with what they say.

The beast had his Pallas to grab his hair

And yank it hard to arrest his error.

Who’ll be our goddess of right and reason,

To fight, for us, the centaurs of treason —

Those not-even-half-men who live to steal

The meals and drink of the commonweal?

Howling Dog (Paul Klee), Sonnet #437

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My Human Disguise.









It’s a dog howling at a moose,

Said her daughter, or at the moon.

To her it was a mind set loose.

It will be time to go home soon,

She said, and took the child’s hand.

Let me stay for one more minute.

She simply did not understand.

There is nothing of art in it,

Just some color daubs and scribbling,

A little malicious ribbing

Meant to make me look like a fool.

Her daughter said, It’s beautiful!

If you think so dear, you’re the boss.

She felt the slightest sense of loss.

Trojan Horse (Pompeii Fresco), Sonnet #436

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My Human Disguise.







Why did the ancient deities foul things so much?

They’re like the bully who kicks a crippled child’s crutch,

Then helps him up only to knock him down again,

And so the war dragged on for not one year, but ten.

Because of gods, we can’t know what really happened.

Did an arrow in a heel really spur Troy’s end?

Could one adulteress’s Aphroditic beauty

Destroy a nation’s sense of honor and duty?

The wooden horse was a tribute to Athena,

That two headed she-serpent, that amphisbaena,

Whose fangs struck brave men down each day, score upon score,

Who loved neither enemy much, only the war.

Now no one interferes with man’s love of bloodshed.

We’re on our own. Athena, Aphrodite? Dead.

January (Grant Wood), Sonnet #435

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My Human Disguise.

The storm over, the rabbit’s tracks

Leave ghost faces in sifted snow.

The moon is neither old nor new,

Though enough to light the hayricks.

All white-capped, they lean, row on row,

Bowing at time’s ceremony 

In welcome of the end of now —

The beginning of memory —

Like old men who left October

To youths and welcomed December.

Oh,Tomorrow! Don’t come too soon!

The night has so much dark to live

Before it’s savaged by the sun,

That jealous spoiler high above. 

Boar Hound (Alice Bea Guerin), Sonnet #434

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My Human Disguise.

No one knows the golden boar hound's mother,

If she’s boar or hound, or mythic Other.

He was found scratching at our farmhouse door

And though quick to accept a wooden cage,

Was soon released, being more hound than boar,

Nothing to fear, with his eyes of great age.

His eight fleecy legs (some seemed more like arms)

Caused him to stumble and sometimes crawl,

A monster, yes, though not without his charms.

His tusks could draw images, like an awl,

Scrapping planks or smooth stone, which he would hide

(Though we could always find them when we tried)

About the farm — scenes from the past, our past.

The day he left we feared would be our last.