Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1 (James Whistler), Sonnet #573

 

There’s expectation in her face

Even though she’s dressed in mourning,

But for a bonnet of white lace

And white cuffs and a wedding ring

Half-hidden by a kerchief gripped

So tightly it might have ripped.

Her straight chair sits on a gray rug,

Shoes on a padded wooden rest.

Silver threaded curtains hug

Gray walls as if they hid a guest

Once welcomed and now departed.

I wonder how her son started —

Arranging the grays and blacks square

Or with his mother’s haunting stare.

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Rose Bushes Under The Trees (Gustav Klimt), Sonnet #572

 

For Ruth

We are two rose bushes

Growing beneath the elms.

We bloom at the same time,

Daubed by two paint brushes,

Yet outside human realms,

Even the gasps of rhyme.

We stand slightly apart,

Touching, turning petals —

Untouchable to art.

The odd leaf falls, settles,

Not a thing we miss,

The swooning of a kiss.

The elms embrace, hover

Above — sweet shade, my love.

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My Human Disguise.

Deer in the Forest (Franz Marc), Sonnet #571

The woods that spring were misty and the birds

Rarely came near, though we walked many miles.

We saw few wildflowers, many mushrooms —

More than ever, nature seemed absurd.

Foxes trotted with us, bereft of wiles.

Leafless red maples were upside down brooms.

We found hundreds of deer in the forest,

Dozing, dreaming, at rest in makeshift nests.

None awoke as we passed. We petted them.

They sighed as if grateful for our kind touch,

Though, as we thought of it, it wasn’t much,

Akin to repeating, “Amen. Amen.”

The day was not, in a common word, “Nice.”

We were, like every day, in Paradise. 

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Inventions (Michael Antman), Sonnet #570

 

We live where light and rust

Mount in measured layers

Like lovers without lust,

Or gods without prayers.

Who invented the bridge,

That fluvial sacrilege,

Or endless skyscrapers

Assailed by old newspapers?

They can’t blot out the sky

Or dry up the rivers —

Just twist the eye awry

Till the brainstem quivers.

Throw light on slabs of glass

And vertigoes will pass.

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My Human Disguise.

The Kiss (Francisco Hayez), Sonnet #569

 

A critic said what poets write about

Is rubbish, it’s how they write that matters — 

And that no one can write well about love.

The nonsense of a literary tout,

Who delights in poetry he shatters

With a crippling whip in a satin glove.

I don’t remember our first kiss, the kite

She’d made was loose and sailing out of sight.

It was probably then, on our first date,

When the only thing to do was to wait

For the kite’s return, like a falcon called —

Embracing, we felt tongues and lips scald.

The moisture and heat since then are the same,

Without diminution, beyond a name.

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My Human Disguise.

The Gate of the Night (Paul Klee), Sonnet #568

 

The vagaries of thought,

Less what is than is not,

Impossible windows,

Into, out, no wind blows,

And no light pierces lights,

But open gates of nights

Where, like a crystal jar,

Spins only one bright star

Placing all in its place

In emptiness of space,

(I am a meadowlark —

I don’t sing in the dark),

Where all’s in good order

Outside my own border.

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My Human Disguise.

Entity (Michael Antman), Sonnet #567

 

It’s too soon to write about it.

I prefer Spinoza’s spirit,

Its embodiment of rainbows,

No holier than house sparrows.

It’s all perhaps a point of view,

Nothing is preternatural,

Just perpetually new,

A pride before there is no fall.

I stand inside an open door.

Indirect sunlight suffuses

The hallway with its sweet odor —

Even motes of dust have uses.

Outside a statue of mother

Asks, “Are you you, or some other?”

My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase at Amazon. Click here:

My Human Disguise.