I-70

#8

Chasing Kansas twisters, I interrupt
The moon floating above a thunderhead,
God pondering his coffee cup.
The locust lullaby in the trees
Is a song to stars, or to the dead:
Fireflies die where I cannot see.
Above the hood, the shuffling storm
Is a man on his knees, slobbering,
Roaring for his severed arm.
Behind, the sky is empty and clear.
The earth recedes quickly, quivering:
Ground heat cracks the icy air.
The radio reports a sighting—
Funnels by flash of lightning.

Another World (M. C. Escher)

#7

At the cold core of a molecule
Something sentient ratiocinates
In mathematical ridicule
Of everything that loves or hates.
It has one goal, one idea,
Which is for the molecule to be a
Functioning integer in a sum
For articulation of a vacuum.
I have seen molecules with faces
Posed in momentary stasis.
How they smile. Knowing, simply,
But in fact, that they are in control,
They smile and stare unblinkingly
Beyond the nucleus of my soul.

HELL

#6

Not chaos, because each moment is real,
Here is where you learn to learn.
Instruments, musical and scientific,
Tools, the blade in particular, reveal
There is no progress, only return
To the moment, each moment horrific.
Fires illuminate. No passion or fury
Drives your jailers, only the calm stare
Of the man made of egg and tree
With feet of boats, whose inside is air.
Eaten and shat, pierced and hanged
By creatures cobbled from your fears,
You'll endure, pipes blown, drum banged,
Harp rasped, without your ears.

(The right panel of Hieronymus Bosch's
famous triptych, "The Garden of Earthly Delights".)

To view the entire work on a single page, click here.

THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS

#5

Here there is no thing I cannot kiss,
No texture or form I cannot caress.
We've learned how to smile from birds,
From beasts the uselessness of words.
I've spent my hours in the glass globe,
In bubbles of wood, shell, and rind.
I have ridden the pard and the antelope
(And, in secret, the female of my kind).
We do what we're meant to do, it seems.
Why else stroke fish, feed apples to owls,
Perform handstands in midstream,
Or let birds nest on our bowels?
Childless, we treat bloated fruit like toys.
We enjoy it all, of course, but without joy.

(The middle panel of Hieronymus Bosch's
famous triptych, "The Garden of Earthly Delights".)

To view the entire work on a single page, click here.

PARADISE

#4

How many eyes have seen the sun?
In the beginning, there were only four
That, commanded by an invisible power,
Could see nothing not part of a One.
Yes, it was beautiful and safe, though strange.
So much, like the sun, meant to be liked,
But not touched, seductive but spiked --
That terrifying fountain and mountain range.
They should not grasp what they couldn't use
When creatures went by in ones, not twos.
After a leopard dragged off and ate its prey,
They began to think, to create. When the Lord
Appeared to explain the snake, they ran away.
What was said no painting could record.

(Panel One from Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights".)

To view the entire work on a single page, click here.

The Mediterranean Cat

#3

The rainbow rises from the churning bay,
Colors cleaving into sea bass and mullet
Flung down upon the cat man's plate.
Bread, a lemon and a pale rose'
Will soon course down his gullet.
(The monstrous boiled lobster can wait.)
Is it only food that cheers him? Triumphant,
That grin, rapacious and tense,
Could rival the glower of an elephant
For anthropomorphic confidence.
And what of the little girl in her canoe
Waving goodbye, or is it hello?
She doesn't smile. She hasn't a clue
How to ride that storm-born rainbow.

The Art of Painting

The Art of Painting (Johannes Vermeer) Sonnet #1

He draws aside the brocaded curtain

As if to reveal an intimacy

Tantamount to an indiscretion,

Though it is just to allow us to see

A portrait painter paused at his easel,

And his model, a young woman demure

Beyond conceiving, who, a tease, will

Smile, eyes closed, supremely sure

The man has never seen a lovelier.

Perhaps the painter never has either,

And though he has a warm affection

For searing late afternoon sunlight,

For stillness rendered into perfection,

It is all a blind for sexual delight.