Père-Lachaise
Stunned by the cemetery's growth,
you trip over small stones searching
Stein's large bones. The slopes
settle down into Romantic exuberance:
the vines stream from the tall trees,
the small crypts crack open,
the dead candles litter the path
to Jim Morrison's grave.
The nights hang in the daylight,
a dream that probably no one believes.
Paris stands as an idol to memory.
The past is scrolled and encrusted
into the boulevards, cafés, waiters
who never age; a government waiting
for another revolution and the boys un-
approachable, derisive. Pulling back.
Not pulling back. Alone.
You pass by the Zenith, the hanger
hovers in the air.
You are ready for the creation of a whole
new set of pretensions. Lightly you touch
the air with your tongue. The future
recedes across the other side of the
Pont-Neuf. It remains forever wrapped
in memory and desire, in the sheets of Christo.
It's time to rebuild its image in another's
mind. Instead you search for a past.
"You walk past a café but you don't eat
when you've lived too long."
His cheeks are sharp as ice.
¤ ¤ ¤
MÉTROPOLITAIN
"To ruin the naked face that rises in the marble."--Yves Bonnefoy
Objects tarnish under my glare.
Why can't we go back the way
which we once knew and which
saw us through a point in time
and back again to a gull or two
or three or anger over a plan?
The spun green cannot enclose
my thoughts as I step into,
or onto, a speeding train that
takes me nearly out of the city.
The clamoring of a face, a
young man, his face white
and dry, looks across the track
before an incoming train.
I cut myself some slack with
this one. I render myself lost,
pretending not to know, confused
in all but way, but not in means.
I know how to do it. How to
bring him to my thighs. How
to keep my eyes forever in
his glance. He'll want to know.
His flat stare will die and all
that's left is an atmosphere
of fume and dust and haze.
¤ ¤ ¤
EARLY RENAISSANCE PAINTERS
One painted bodies like columns,
usually red, or brown barrels
if the figures were merely men.
One always painted Christ
with Adam's skull and a bird.
He wanted you to remember time.
In another, small angels
buzz like flies. The goldleaf stars'
rumpled shine underscores
the composition's beauty.
The eye is directed down
from the active to the supine
body of Christ. Sometimes,
a saint with twisted torso and a face
of stern pain stares directly at you.
In one, a rich man offers a miniature church.
He is dressed in contemporary clothes
but fashion is not eternal
as this artist suggests
awkward invention gropes toward something
neither in this world nor another.
¤ ¤ ¤
SERIOUS ABSTRACTION
Not green against yellow but yellow beside blue.
Seeing this I see the artist's specific abstraction.
The size in this program is not the size on the wall
and you beside me is not someone else
though the wall behind the painting becomes
the room that becomes the next room with a purpose.
This is how we provide shelter and this is how
we provide procession. And what is left out makes us accept the rest:
the arch of your foot, the bay of your stomach,
the dome of your hand at rest. Your hand that I touch
becomes not all hands that are touched but a hand touched
for all to know. This is how we provide pleasure.
This is how we provide belief. The quest for flatness
in this painting may be the perfect square
but the squares are not squares and the colors
are not colors. What this painting is not, is stunning.
