Another Dante’s Dreams
To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god ~ J.L. Borges
[1] One dreams of what is Unattainable. The rain Outside spurns light. And inside, sleep feeds On memory’s slights.
[2] You surface again, my Severe Beatrice, in your Griffin drawn chariot, Eyes fixed heavenward, A lampshade of flame,
And demand I confess The sin of putting reason Above faith. I groan as I have done every time You passed by my side,
In the street, in the market, Neck craning in the direction Of your musk, eyes eagerly Scanning the gleeful mob For your damasked gait.
[3] I have been eating from Damnation’s plate, and the city is A river full of raving monsters In whose company you appear. Don’t take this as proof that my
Love for God is greater than my Love for art that is greater than My cursed love for you, for all These three remain indivisible even As they appear to stand separate.
[4] Beatrice, we will meet again And always, in the continuum Of life, which holds the words I write down on paper, which Holds the rain trickling down
The nape of your neck, That tree of salvation, That resurrection of time.
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Notes at The Met, NYC
Georges de La Tour, The Penitent Magdalene
Magdalene, you lived a life Of flesh, desire, and want.
Yet you are easier to embrace Than the one they call Messiah.
I recognize myself in your face, Turned away, the skull you hold
In your porcelain fingers, and The candle flame you gaze at,
Against which I too desire to hurl My body, walking in from the dark
El Greco, View of Toledo
The raven city perches above The ravines, placid and watchful,
Waiting for innocents to be burnt At stake and drive away its darkness.
Zurbarain, Virgin Mary As A Child
Master, I just wanted to point Out that all children, naturally Have halos around their heads.
Velazquez, The Supper at Emmaus
These three could be bohemians Dressed in funky clothes, seated
At a table in a Starbucks around The corner, arguing about something,
Till you eye is invariably led to That delicate gash on his hand
From which a nail had Been freshly removed.
Lotto, Venus and Cupid
Voluptuous Venus, bride to be, Reclines on her thick creamy Haunches, and little Cupid, That imp, as if to demonstrate His jouissance at her naivety, Urinates over her desirable body.
Solario, Salome with the head of John the Baptist
Salome gingerly receives The freshly chopped cabbage Top of Grim John. And yet, You can’t help wonder, why is she Not grinning with satisfaction?
Holbein ~ Herman Wedish
Contemporary political truth Stares at you from a three Hundred years old canvas:
Veritas odium parit, i.e., Truth breeds hatred.
Lewis Carroll ~ A Photo of Alice
Uncle Lewis, when did you Get out the Wonderland tunnel To be stalking Alice Liddell, Seven years old, dressed as A beggar maid, with your Bulbous glass eye?
Rodin – Madame X
Madame, since you didn’t like The nose the master gave you
We are forced to examine It very, very carefully.
Rodin ~ She who was once the helmet maker’s beautiful wife
Title of a Chinese hermit poem.
Few jottings made at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the world's greatest, if not the greatest musuem, before art fatigue set in.
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Carlita’s Subway Tune
Carlita, traveling in these tunnels
Beneath the behemoth city I think
Of the simplicity of those summers
Where in the magnolia shade you Constantly hummed these tunes heard First, by your granite faced ancestor in
Those hills filled with rhododendron Hells. Carlita, how did I come upon You, under which overturned rock
Did I find you, Carlita, Carlita? The birds here are all strange even If they are called by familiar names,
And I am a costumed stranger playing Fiddle tunes for bits they fling into my Upturned hat. The heart, what can I say
Of the heart, Carlita? That it is an empty Hat which always stays bare, bereft of any Emotion, going through deadened motions?
Carlita, your name is the only tune my bow Draws from strings, your name is the groan Of steel wheels on steel rails. Carlita, you Are the ache whose rumble keeps me awake, A ghost living in this endless subway dark.
Thoughts of New York City, interlaced with thoughts of Appalachian hikes and fiddle tunes.
My Poems
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