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.

The Entry of the Animals into Noah's Ark (Breughel)

#136

I

The Sunday school story as we remember it.
A pastoral scene, the pairing of animals,
Lions and leopards side by side with sheep and foals,
Without a hint of predatory lust or shit.
The gawky ostriches, porcupines, and camels,
Docile, climb ramps and enter the great Ark's dark holds.
The man, his wife, their sons and their young wives
Will follow God's bizarre orders to save their lives.
Imagine the storm. Forty days and nights of fury,
The terrors of dumb animals and humans tossed
On an ocean that crowned every inch of the earth.
And when it was over, God was in no hurry
To drain the land to reveal what his vengeance cost.
Instead, we are to praise humanity's rebirth.

II

The dove returned with an olive leaf in his beak,
A pretty metaphor for a new world of peace.
Even on Ararat, they found corpses, bloated,
Hanging from trees, clutching bindles, all rot and reek.
Seeking a last refuge before the flood's surcease,
Perhaps, drowning, they saw only the Ark floated.
Looking upon them, God acknowledged the shoah,
And in his guilt formed a covenant with Noah.
Had He meant to kill evil with greater evil,
His favorite son wondered, but couldn't question,
As he burnt offerings and bid his children mate.
A rainbow would remind God to control His will.
The dead land slowly began regeneration,
Though man's corruption would remain his fate.

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters (Goya)

#135

A compelling thought -- though owls, cats, and bats?
Hardly horrific. So, why should we be afraid?
We dream nonsensical sequences and shifty
Machinations of strangers with their brutal acts,
While mirrors try to remember all that was said,
Before we wake to dull, half-lit reality.
The real monsters are familiars, the mundane beasts
That could turn on us in uncountable numbers,
Always there and ready to amass and devour,
But forbear vengeance as long as we do not cease
To recognize, analyze, judge, and remember.
"Return our stares -- we will always flee and cower,
But abandon yourselves, fail to think and do well,
Our minions will claw out your heart, swallow your will."

The Ghost Kohada Koheiji (Hokusai), Departure of the Ghost (Klee)

#134

Ghosts are the human form of angels and devils.
Depicted as remnants of flesh, or foggy wisps,
They're barred alike from prayers, embrace, and revels.
They're cursed with loneliness and lacerated wrists.
It's said pain lingers, unresolved -- hence their visits.
If devils and angels are the minions of God,
Maybe ghosts are legions we send to the same plain
Of battle, to wander, Cain in the land of Nod,
Between both armies, to prove we've not lived in vain,
If we could but convince them their war is insane.
When they appear before men their message is clear.
Silent and staring, they accuse, or plead, or frown,
And when we try to speak to them, they disappear.
The only ghost I will believe in is my own.

The Taking of Christ (Caravaggio)

#133

A man who betrays another may have
Many motives, but the sin is the same.

Rationalizing, the sinner will salve
His conscience, oblivious to his shame.

Betrayal is an ambiguous crime,
A "virtuous" act muddied with a kiss.

He says, "Doesn't my judgement demand this,
That I expose this man while there's still time?"

Judas's silver wasn't his motive.
He resented and would never forgive

The burden of his Rabbi's instruction --
Far better to live with His destruction.

A traitor won't betray a lesser knave.
His hanged honor rots in an unmarked grave.

The Nightmare (John Henry Fuseli), Sonnet #132

Nightmares are death undergoing animation,
A stiffening fog of imagery shot through
With replete hues and stagey illumination,
Shifting floors and infinitely receding views.
They rarely project what we deeply fear
(Which I won't begin to name even here;
I don't tempt the fates crouching inside me),
Yet made real they would scream insanity.
Nightmares climb over the lip of the ego-well
To give flesh to creatures in my personal hell.
The woman's are not just imps with accusing grins.
Her blinded horse looms with a seeming friendly face.
The humped incubus pins her with her fleshly sins.
That equine smile makes a mocking promise of grace.

Carnival In The Mountains (Klee)

#131

The pale, blind lady with the veiny cheeks
Keeps her apples from the reach of the boy
Who's sporting a blue man's grinning death mask.
A fire-breasted chicken watches for geeks,
Extrudes an egg here and there, a decoy.
No head-biter shies from his sanguinary task.
We are in the green mountains where the air
Is green as moss and moss is black as tar.
Clouds droop between the peaks like suckled breasts
And every home is home to nameless beasts.
The Carnival King is a mechanical man,
With lightning brains and an eye for a hand.
The revelers kill him with a handful of sand,
And dump the apples into his belly trash can.