Shawl (Ruth Diamond-Guerin), Ad Parnassum (Klee)

#98

Though there's no such thing, a perfected fate
Would lie in details, not some pinnacle.
Our occluded sun irradiates
Each imagined fleck and bright circle
Scarcely noticed in the mounting moments
Among our numberless joys and torments.
If we fail to see the thread in the weave,
The speck of blue gold in a lover's eye,
Look closer and ignore all reasons why.
It's more important to see than believe.
Don't wait, for in the accumulation
And remembrance of every colors' rhyme,
Each patterned and cascading emotion,
There is a pyramid worthy to climb. 

Dream City (Klee)

#97

I've lived in nine cities, but dream of only five.
Perhaps where I lived as a child were all dreamed out
In anxious ecstasies, like a bee's in its hive.
I've remapped the five over the years with new routes
Through collapsed avenues to ruined homes
And maze-like schools, to workplaces with all doors locked,
Churches painted green inside and out, and bedrooms
Where the rain leaks through cracks that won't be caulked.
I often dream the same city night after night,
Which then fades for a time from hypnogogic blight.
I run and walk and crawl these streets, and sometimes fly,
So often cityscape replaces memory,
And new rooftops erase the blackboard of the sky.
At least the me who lives these dreams is always me.

View of Fuji From the Rice Fields in Owari Province (Hokusai), Sonnet #96

The craftsman cuts the rough edges from the circle
With a curved blade and pure disregard for mistakes.
He makes none -- his ring of space rounder than the sun.
To make a thing from nothing is no miracle.
It's what his brain does each day, sleeping or awake.
He knows nothing of quantum dream stuff or neuron.
He once travelled to Mt. Fuji and walked its paths.
He admired the trees; they would make good laths.
The crater's unevenness irritated him,
And the view toward his province was nice, but dim.
Looking through a finger-thumb circle, he found
Sharpened sight. He spent hours, thus, looking around.
When he died the universe collapsed to a quark,
Even when his son took up his father's work.

Day and Night (Escher)

#95

Geese land in the pond like hours in time,
Unconsciously tuck wings under and glide
In sequential and unwavering lines.
After flying day and night they've arrived,
With a few turning back along the way,
Only to reach the same pond the same day.
Each bird starts a ripple in the water
((They're not quite aware of at that moment))
That wind nor rain but only shore can stop,
Though each ripple will each ripple alter.
Each perturbation of the pond is spent
In the moment one goose flaps wing and hops
Toward the sky, frantically seconded
By the flock, as though all futures beckoned.

The Scoop Tree (Julia Guerin)

#94

Each bare tree is all that's left of today
And those with leaves will vanish soon enough.
My daughter paints what we call the Scoop Tree,
Home of a squirrel who never ran away
When nuts could be scooped up, frantically stuffed
In his cheeks, ignoring my child and me.
I wrote a story about the squirrel,
Read it to her often when she was young.
Now that she's no longer a little girl,
She's painted what the tree's been all along.
There is as much of life in line and ink
As in the existence of tree or tale.
Fail to see or to concentrate (don't blink!),
And what counts will dull, memory will fail.

Note: The day before I posted this sonnet, my daughter Julia
posted the following on Facebook. Her timing couldn't
have been better:

What a great day! I love days with little moments of awesome in them. All of my moments involved people, food or lights. First moment of the day was meeting a woman who seemed so sweet, loving, and wonderful that I couldn't help but smile. She has taken on 3 kids as their new foster mom. As she walked out of school, she swung the little girl that was with her over her shoulder and the girl looked at me with the biggest, most true smile, and waved as they walked away. What a difference this woman is making. 

The food was ice cream brought to me by one of my trouble students and sushi given to me by a customer at my other job. The lights were when the legs of the reindeer lights on Bluffton Road matched up with the beat in my music, and when I was dancing in my car at a stopped train, the car in front of me pumped their break lights in time with me dancing. Fun moment between me and a faceless stranger.
The best moment of the day, however, was when the chef at the restaurant came out and sang for the birthday girl. He belted out happy birthday in his language but in opera style. I didn't expect that at all. His voice was so beautiful and the gesture was so genuine that I almost cried. I love it when people surprise or wow me. Today was filled with moments that make me love humanity.

Melencolia (Durer)

#93

An artwork is passage of time temporarily arrested.
Melancholy inevitably ensues, new effort wasted.
My world is not impossible, but imaginary,
A natural and a mechanistic menagerie:
The nodding babe and the slumbering hound,
The skull dreaming in the polyhedron,
The ladder to rainbow and splintered sun.
I must unbalance scales, ignore the bell,
And drain the hourglass sand out of its shell.
The nails and the knife both shorn of evil,
The age's golden sphere now leaden still,
My calipers measure a pointless spell.
Despondently, I await the next alchemy of duration.
I'll concentrate forever, then begin my final creation.

Note: In Durer's time, melancholy was associated with the imagination
and artistic creativity. Click on the image to see it in great detail.

Rue De Paris, Rainy Day (Gustave Caillebotte)

 #92

Walking the streets of Paris with my wife,
Feeling her heart through her hand on my arm
(It is April and we're here for a week),
We celebrate twenty five years, a life
Of mutual shelter beneath the storm,
Sharing a blue umbrella as we seek
Out the old soul behind the city's charms,
What we've found in each other countless times
When the sun has broken through and we shine.
She gasped when she saw the Eiffel Tower,
Her wonder more thrilling than its power,
While the Winged Victory's arms were not missed,
Because she sought to entwine hers with mine,
And in front of Rodin's The Kiss, we kissed.

A Sunday on La Grande Jatte (Seurat)

#91

Look long enough and Seurat's pointillism
Seems letters and punctuation, not dots,
Becomes a narrative, a verbal prism,
Written in a language that can't be taught.
The hook of cane, umbrella, monkey's tail,
A stone with a white and orange bonnet,
The pinch of waists and a billowing sail,
All forestall the waning of the day.
Only a running girl, a blown trumpet,
A leaping pup, having anything to say.
The rest is stillness, and while the shadows
Avoid the giantess, elsewhere they grow.
Emotion is atoms frozen and bound,
Letters to paper, and can't make a sound.

The Flammarion engraving (artist unknown)

#90

The Milky Way is stone and silent fire,
Flying ice and dust, and expanding gas,
But what we find within the heliosphere
Suggests a whilom laboratory
Where the essential elements were cast
And the residues made preparatory
For the distillation that's planet Earth:
Europa's water, Io's sulfur,
Gases from Saturn and Jupiter,
Engineered for the terrestrial birth.
The traveler sees, beyond a starry veil,
Cosmic clockwork, eternal music.
Kneeling, he lifts a hand as if to hail
His Maker, the tinkering mechanic.

Jacob Wrestling With The Angel (Rembrandt)

#89

In my blindness after midnight I could not see
If the shade I wrestled was a man or woman.
I say shade but it was not without its own light,
Or shades of a color, like the edge of the sea
Is a million greens and the sand a million tans.
I wouldn't let go; you wouldn't call it a fight.
Our muscles were a conflict between oak and wind,
My hold was firm and unyielding, its holy grip
Gave but held; impatient, it wrenched my hip.
Was the pain meant to test the firmness of my mind?
As the sun rose, I said, "Bless me and I'll let go."
"I can," it said, "Now you know what you know."
I did not overcome God, as the angel said,
But myself. He knows me now. I am not afraid.

Road With Cypress And Star (Van Gogh)

#88

Why is everything about distance, not place?
A star isn't just light years away -- it is fire.
The moon we traveled to no longer had a face.
The Milky Way is largely tar, with a little briar.
Leave the universe be. Space is only backdrop,
Incommensurable, a dim futility,
A perfect but incomprehensible beauty.
Suspend exertion and let all wondering stop.
Don't even follow the road to the cypress tree.
Go straight through mown grass and harvested fields,
Until the cypress is the only thing you see,
Until its scent is the only light its leaves yield.
What is will then displace all distances
And take away from time all instances.

Four Riffs on "Three Musicians" (Picasso)

#87

A tune is the ultimate abstraction,
An emotion expressed as a fraction.
Some notes invariably repeated
Become a cold emotion reheated.

Not all musicians are made of music.
Some are talent, some mere facility.
The best I've known live a necessity,
Like physicists slave to mathematics.

Picasso's clowns can only make us dance,
Twist our senses into a whirling trance.

I've wept at the silence a conductor
Held at the end of the Ninth of Mahler,
As if to say, "Behold what's gone before --
Anguish, redemption, hope -- and don't despair."

Autumnal Fantasy (Charles Burchfield)

#86

We could see each moment as a story,
Murmurs of focused imagination --
Illustrated by the moon or the sun --
From the collected works of satori.
We're told that such enlightenment is rare,
Or as ever-present as the air,
Though only if we take the time to breathe.
The nuthatch can ignore the withered leaves
And be ignored by the leaves in their turn,
But each day we fail to irradiate
The forest with our consciousness we burn
It down. We all have stories to relate;
Some we've been shown, but most we must create.
It's the easiest thing, to be. Don't wait.

The Local Group (Hubble)

#85

Andromeda and the Milky Way collide
In the next few billion years, or so:
Not why Frost said, "provide, provide,"
Though it's not a bad way to go.
With some two trillion stars at risk
In the melding of galactic discs,
Odds of stars clashing are rather low.
Consider, the star nearest the sun:
Proxima Centauri; a distant son,
Unlikely to visit anytime soon.
Perhaps a stray Andromedan moon
Might sail our way. With some delay,
The Local Group will join the fray
And bring an end to night and day.

The Sacrifice of Isaac (Rembrandt)

#84

Abraham's great hand covers the mouth and eyes
Of his son; the thrust of the knife so imminent
The angel's grip must knock it from his hand.
"Burnt offering," he was told, so meant to slice
The throat as he would a ram's. God is silent.
The angel, we assume at his Master's command,
Points to Heaven and explains away the slaughter.
Abraham has proven his fear of God, which is all
That's required. In reward, his sons and daughters
Will multiply like stars; his enemies' gates will fall,
And his seed will bless all the nations of the earth.
To the old man it must feel like his own rebirth.
Though his face shows neither terror nor relief,
There is bafflement at the grim power of his belief.

Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory (Dali)

#83

There is no time. There's only memory,
Rows of sodden boxes beneath a sea
So pure that even the sardines have dreams
Of swimming through the sun's occluded beams.
A bullet from the brain becomes a memory box,
Transfigured by the melting of the clocks.
Floating mountains and rootless trees in pieces
Will linger, so, until duration ceases.
These aren't headstones of recollection.
Impervious to breath and desiccation,
They can become too numerous to count.
I, for one, would like to know the amount.
Each box retains its substance, color, and shape,
But when it's opened nothing can escape.

Natural Sculpture

#82

The sphere predominates the Milky Way,
As gravity shapes the interstellar clay.
But on the earth it's relatively rare:
Birds' eye, the water droplet in mid air,
Eggs, scat, and pebbles on the beach,
All oblate; less so the orange and the peach.
But what to make of these sculpted stones?
Sentiently, Noguchi could have carved each one.
I found them, years apart, on the Michigan shore.
In summer I waste hours looking for more.
What two hands with a few tools could create,
Took wind, fire, earth, and water to generate.

Fish Magic (Klee)

#81

Is the sky to fish what the celestial is to men?
Do their eyes, being lidless, see more clearly
The dimming when moon eclipses the sun?
Do they wish as they die to swim above the sea?
Bonefish, flounder, barracuda, and drum,
Chaunt spells and curses from within a cauldron,
To tauten the cord and raise the draped muslin
Unveiling the face of the ancient clock tower,
While a three-eyed girl grabs at potted flowers,
And in a corner a boy in a dunce cap cowers.
The gods send down chum and baited hooks,
Dangling constellations and spiral galaxies,
Daring us to hope, to aspire, daring us to look
Past transparent and unfathomable seas.

Tasso's Oak (Peter Blume)

#80

We watched transformers spewing sparks
As a freak derecho blew through our town
And cut twenty thousand trees down,
All soon stacked and chipped in our parks.
Centuries old, Tasso's oak still stands,
Buttressed with steel cable and iron bands.
Encased in red brick and mortar, its roots
Send forth a sucker, a lone, seeking shoot,
While beneath no one looks at tree or Rome,
But stick to knitting, play, pray, or make love.
Did the old poet, writing, let his eyes roam
From words to the leaf-tattered skies above?
Trees will outlive us, or not. Let them die.
Only, choose one that we will know you by.

Knight, Death, and the Devil (Durer)

#79

The Knight and his Death ride horses bridled;
One with studded leather, the Other twisted hemp.
The Devil walks. Having nothing hasty to attempt,
He's happiest when men, actively morally idle,
March, run, ride, or fly toward anything Ideal.
Plodding along, He's never too far behind.
The Devil and Death have nothing to conceal
From a Knight known to be uncommonly kind;
To the men who've just been maimed by his sword,
He's always spared a righteous, comforting word.
They show themselves: anthropomorphic Fates
The Knight, smiling to himself, politely ignores.
A running dog briefly disrupts the stalemate
Only one of the three has the power to restore.

Relativity (Escher)

#78

I once stood staring down a long staircase,
Then stood up having fallen all the way down.
The time between appeared to have erased
Both itself and the memory of what I'd done.
Unhurt, staring up at the staircase, terrified
Of forms and forces I now understood, I cried.
There are many steps, floors, and bannisters
In this ant people world, but only one sun.
Yet all depends on the attitude of the stairs,
Which share the simultaneity of the boson.
Every direction ends in a shift of perspective,
Hinting that the fifth dimension may be us,
Each riser a mere extension of consciousness,
Until, falling down the stairs, we no longer live.

Untitled (Alice Guerin)

#77

We should all live in homes on stilts,
As I did once (and now again).
Officer's quarters in the Philippines
Like godown barns, were built
On cement pillars typhoon rains
Relentlessly surged between.
My daughter depicts our home
High above the ocean, a rowboat
Tied close to negotiate the moat,
Barely visible through foggy foam.
Will all be well when the storms
Blow in and the waves swarm?
She holds the image in her hands,
Raising her home above dry land.


Note: This stunning and unusual artwork, by my daughter Alice,
is composed of a drawing photoprinted on silk, then covered with
another layer of silk, which lends the work an ethereal atmosphere,
as if the house (which is our house) is visible only through rolling fog.

Secretarybird, Sagittarius serpentarius (Julia Guerin)

#76

Called the "archer" for his quiver-like crest,
He's a snake stomper, earth-bound hunter,
Stalking the edge of brush fires, gobbling
Reptiles and rodents fleeing their nests.
Like all raptors, he has no eye but hunger,
No thought that doesn't lead to swallowing.
He has the selfish absorption of an artist.
The world disappears, leaving him to create
A bitter order composed of what he ate.
Though he is never satisfied, never at rest,
He glides in flight like a dream of sleep.
His crane legs forgotten, his wings sweep
Away the wind. Soon, he'll wonder why he flew,
Flying just to fly -- something we can never do.

Container for Stars (Klee)

#75

We thought, when we were the heart of the universe,
The constellations accumulate the divine.
We chanted as we watched the gods slowly disperse,
Replaced by single stars and Albert Einstein.
A star can fall. There's too much of velocity,
Distance, and duration in our current science,
Because there's no such thing as specificity.
Even if we could fly a billion light years hence,
What we want to see would be just as far away.
We might find a planet where men would want to stay.
Life could be altered. The sky would remain the same,
New constellations we'd have to give new names.
The discovered universe is not what we sought.
The only container of the stars is a thought.

Interior of a Forest (Cezanne)

#74

The forest waits each time we go away

And knows itself again when we return.

Each branch on every tree has either died

Or grown new leaves or limbs, as if to stay

The same, above the ground grown wild with ferns,

Was once considered, but never once tried.

The pileated woodpecker's square holes

Have gone dark gray; his maniac laughter

Fades into the leaf rustle and only after

We leave returns to the silence we stole.

The river's deep and can be treacherous.

Its trout will not be caught, its otter trapped.

Its odd meanderings cannot be mapped.

The river forest waits, but not for us.

SEASCAPE AT SAINTES MARIES DE LA MER (VAN GOGH)

#73

The ocean is the solution of time
And for a billion years it has dissolved
Itself into itself, into hours so fine
Eternity is perfectly resolved.
The sea reflects a sky the sky can't be,
A version of a face we recognize,
Inverted, what a broken mirror sees,
A lovely woman without any eyes.
The sails of fishing craft traverse the sun
And leave some wind to calibrate the waves.
As men haul nets over the horizon,
The day dives slowly into its deep grave.
We stand and watch it all from sea-wracked beach,
A universe that's ours, beyond our reach.

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

In The Magic Mirror (Klee)

#65

The wan shock, not that rare, when the face
Is strange to us, the look of a mirror race,
Lasts only a moment and then dissolves;
Not memory, but confusion soon resolves.
We know the mask of lips and framing hair,
The skin stretched tight from ear to ear.
What startles is that persistent stare
We cannot blink away, but do not fear.
We feel foolish and fooled when it's over,
Both slightly empty and totally alone,
As though the soul has flown its cover,
Uncertain it will ever find another one.
Even that passes. We're ourselves again.
A mirror is mere glass with silver stain.

Gateway to September (Charles Burchfield)

#64

A javelin of sunlight shivers into earth
After piercing the shoulder of a dancer's
Outline writhing among ecstatic flowers.
Here is not a spring of the usual rebirth,
And there is not the autumnal answer,
But a simultaneity of light and hours.
The moth and the wildflower endure,
Since nothing is meaningless or impure.
The mother dances and her vibrations
Modulate the chaotic song of creation.
"In my beginning is my end," Eliot says;
A comforting notion, and frightening.
Sunlight yields to darkness and lightning.
"Make September wait," the mantis prays.

That Which I Should Have Done I Did Not Do (Ivan Albright)

#63

Or, to say, we most regret the undone thing.
The outer door and not the inner going out,
Closes off all we might hide within ourselves,
What is dust, what is old beyond enduring,
What we know too well and know nothing about,
Rooms full of stripped beds and empty shelves.
We opened this door at least ten thousand times
And only once return to find a funeral wreath.
A lady's little finger holds a purple handkerchief,
As she presses the button to silenced door chimes.
Our desires, like roses, still retain a hint of red,
Memories, like lilies, are blown, sapped, and gray.
The lady beseeches, "It's not too late. Come away!"
The door says do not die before you're dead.

At The Moulin Rouge (Toulouse-Lautrec)

#62

Lautrec depicts himself disappearing
Into a taller man, but what is seen
By the canvas is from the eye of a giant
Looking down, unseen by walls mirroring
A room dimly lit, tinted brown and green,
A perspective superior and defiant.
Gentlemen wear top hats indoors;
A woman's dress is meant to mimic or
Obliterate her intimate contours --
All defenses evaporated in liquor.
He knows this world and loves its heat,
Texture, and voice, the loveliness of a face
Upturned to his own, green too, but sweet,
With a smile to make his mad heart race.

Sunset (Paul Klee)

#61

The day has taken a billion ages to die.
No more than mathematical points, infinite
In any space defined or without compass,
We, our thoughts, motes in a god's eye,
God's tearful eye, are not (at least) indefinite.
We are both dark energy and dark mass.
Something beyond the sun points to us.
A light beyond any spectrum we know,
Like a thought, but even more like a reason,
An unimaginable generator of purposes,
Flies at us, at our minds, not like an arrow,
To pierce, but with a kiss's intent, a frisson.
It takes only a day for all our suns to set.
Sadly, that light is what we'll least regret.

The Philosopher's Conquest (De Chirico)

#60

Some of us still live in Plato's cave.
We watch shadows of banners on the ground,
Think the wind blows because they wave.
The clock strikes 1:28 without a sound.
The white sails and smoke from schooners
And passenger trains stop us in our tracks,
Deliver us from all evil two minutes sooner.
What's more ethical, smoke from a stack?
We must beat cannonballs into artichokes
If our will to power be apotropaic.
I think, therefore I am a brainy bloke,
Make skies green with my mental voltaic.
The real world is both sweet and absurd.
Philosophers are only made of words.

Cupid Chastised (Bartolomeo Manfredi)

#59

Of course, Mars is angry. That's his nature.
And Venus should divert his anger with love.
Poor Cupid was only doing his job, to move
Desire; mischievous, but not misbehavior.
Consider, the boy inflames the God of War
Towards the Goddess of Love, his mother.
Yes, some uproar among the gods ensues.
Venus and Mars are derided, labeled fools.
Did Cupid intend another sister or brother,
Or to soften the eternal wrath of Mars
By ambush, with a lover's show of arms?
He didn't count on being struck to the floor,
Or a Mars invulnerable to a Venus' alarm.
Each god must despise the thing he stands for.

The Adoration of the Kings (Jan Gossaert, "Mabuse")

#58

A convention of Renaissance nativity scenes:
The ruined stone architecture, as though Christ
Could not be born in a hovel, nor in a palace
Of new magnificence, befitting the King of Kings.
The crumbling pretensions, the unearned rights
And privileges of men, of good will or malice,
Who take or inherit power, surround the Child.
Then who are these kings to show adoration,
Who offer gold while angels gather overhead?
What is being redeemed, what evil exiled?
Will each king, restored, return to his nation,
Resurrect the rights of the living? Of the dead?
A dog tears at a scrap in the foreground,
A perfect imitation of a hungry hound.

The Poor Fisherman (Pierre Puvis De Chavannes)

#57

The man's greatest weapon is patience.
He can stand and wait, perfectly still,
As long as the elements don't interfere.
He doesn't believe in anything but chance.
Though he cannot eat what he cannot kill,
An empty net is not his deepest fear.
The boy is still healthy, but he worries Aimee
Has become pale and her milk is gone.
She gathers useless flowers and sings,
"They are not for me, but for my family."
He thinks the same of the sea and sun.
At times, when the bay is full of nothing,
Exhausted by his empty regrets,
He dreams himself diving into the net.

The Fishbowl Fantasy (Edward Goodes)

#56

Through the window, two ladies promenade
Under blue sky in bonnets with white plumes.
This is the room they'll return to at six
When all flowers and reflections fade.
The pointing of the mauve glove assumes
There is significance in the crucifix.
One goldfish appears to be frightened,
The other dull-witted, perhaps just bored.
They are on the edge of being enlightened,
Their faith in something soon to be restored.
For years they've watched the golden doves
Kissing, envied the drooping of their wings.
There is perfection when nothing moves,
When the gold light dies with the evening.

Note: The first lines refer to reflections in the
fishbowl. Click on the image to enlarge it,
which will make the reflected images more
visible.

Golconda (Magritte)

#55

The rain of men is no accident,
Nor this particular universe.
In another there are schools
Of big blondes made of cement,
Each clutching a scaly purse.
The multiverse has so few rules.
Consider the raincoat and bowler,
The antitheses of all things solar.
They multiply in certain states
Like nuclear missiles and hate.
Here they are blessedly frozen
In space, equidistant but fixed.
In another time or dimension,
They might drop like pick-up sticks.

In this world there are no tricks.
Only rain falls, sometimes bombs,
Or the odd, suicidal accountant.
Scientists insist the quantum mix
Is inconceivably random,
Cosmologically inconstant.
(Wait, just like that rain of men!)
J. S. Bach has not just walked
Into this room, whirling a grogger.
All who agree on reality say, "Amen."
The windows have all been caulked,
Whatever rains. Let science augur
Eleven dimensions and uncertainty,
I'll join these gents for a cup of tea.

Time Transfixed (Magritte)

#54

It is seventeen minutes to one.
The candlesticks are all empty
As they've been for all eternity,
Because of a window and a sun.
The mirror reflects the back of things
We see first hand. There is no second.
The train appears as though beckoned,
Flies on smoke and shadow wings.
No fire has ever burned in the fireplace,
No sign of ash, no sooty smudges.
Only the mind fixing this room budges,
Urging us deeper into interior space.
Look away, it's twelve forty-four.
The minute lost is yours no more.

Evening Landscape With Rising Moon (Van Gogh)

#53

Some painters depict. Some painters see.
It is unclear if Van Gogh even wanted us
To view his world of vibrating color
Moving faster than light, his string theory.
Each brushstroke is abstract, fibrous,
A strict, short thread, a measure
As fixed as E in a cosmic equation.
Unclear, because we sense a desperation,
A mania to eject onto space within a frame
A vision too intense for his soul to contain
(Not the insular effusion of the insane).
The painting contains things we can name:
Moon, hills, clouds, sky, hay,
But nothing we can see any other way.

Primavera (Botticelli)

#52

It's Spring and Goddesses are with child:
Queen, handmaidens, sisters, all,
Though one may have been defiled.
Not by Cupid, who gets away with Murder,
His arrows inflicting Lover's Pall.
Nor young Mercury with his caduceus
Resisting threats to the Natural Order.
No, suspicion falls on Zephyrus,
Whose puffed cheeks and pallor
Terrify Flora and draw a flower
From her mouth, in mockery of birth.
Venus looks upon us, the Human Races,
With envy, ignored by oblivious Graces.
Primavera drops dry petals to the Earth.

The Concert Singer (Eakins)

#51
For Renee Fleming

Some singers are made of music,
As though there exists a music gene.
For some, even great artists, it's a trick,
The benefit of exquisite training.
You feel the absence of a votive force.
The notes, even the shaping of line,
Are pleasing, like a poem's off-rhyme,
But talent, not music, is their source.
Some singers make of breath a force
That governs the fluidity of time.
The best understand that beauty is fleeting,
That this song, now, is their only chance,
That perfection knows no repeating,
And thrust at our hearts like a lance.