Beauty’s Gravity, Gratitude, and Grace

 

The meaning of much, if not of all 

that transpires in life, is revealed 

only long after or even only 

after death—postmortem, so to speak.

“How brilliantly has the Fall painted itself!”

were some of my Grandma’ climactic words,

the last of hers for me I’ll always remember.

She uttered them rising up on her terminal bed,

two days before passing on in the Ostrov hospital.

And, indeed, following her awestruck grazing gaze,

I too turned and looked and saw the autumn dyes

of the countless leaves—eyes of as many sunsets

set aglow by the parting time by nighly closing in 

on the edge or point where time itself is no more.

In November she was born, in November did she

go—just a day after her last birthday while the Fall

doled-up itself for her as best it could as if she too,

after all, was to follow into the house of Agathon—

The Economy of Desires’ Sights Granted and Denied (On an August Rococo Mannerist Painting)

 

On a famous rococo canvas, a pretty lady swings 

in a Cupid’s roll that drives her through the air high

between a plentitude and feast of splendid shades 

and a plethora of lifts through the garden’s lights.

Oh, isn’t love made of light and dark like a page,

speaking black on white through its coils and curls

when aptly spread—just as off her revealed toes

flies her slipper cast and diced to try this one hap

between feathers of a dizzy flight and the fetters

that seek to catch and fetch her merry coasting hind

while the chosen lover gulps the privilege of sight 

that sways and slings over him ajar as he lies down

on the ground in the bushes of her purlieu’s privet

where aglow the saluted lark coos and bills in turn?

Les pommes de l'amour et de l'âme

 

Just as apples collect sunshine

both within the flesh and round

that glossy skin, those two eyes,

the tendered lips, have gathered it

and even made it sweetly speak

and live and tremble with a cry

that glistens across concerto violins.

Likewise, the white and rubicund 

and pink of hers blush and breathe 

love’s growing tug and biting flames

and what caress furrowed, ruffled,

brushed or rent and knit way down

to the fruit and its crumpling gravity

and the poem-pursed and purchased lips.

Of How Many Kinds of Rendezvous You Know, She Asked

 

Deep teal waters of the morn 

full of repose, balmy hush, 

are so good at taking in

the forms of the trees above

they right away then simplify

and lift as a gift to our eyes

to the level of an arabesque,

on to a heaven of grand art

in which all is found and unified

in the selfsame green and blue.

And thus, before the sun is up,

wonder comes—to meet us 

in turn with its own eyes

with a gaze that dusts my heart.

On the Truth of the State of the Union—Death’s Universal Homogenous State

                      

                              Whether the epiphany came in a ward or on a NYC street,

Ginsberg grasped and said out loud what everyone knows but could never

Cough it up—that the Prince of this World, the God of the Western faith, 

Jesus’ Dad, and Adon of the Vatican is Moloch, the polymorphic Beast,

who commands infant sacrifice and for who human death and blood 

is his life and infernal Grail—but not only Ginsberg meant it the end

as a profession of his own piety, febrile love, and deepest exultation,

but, on hearing the prophet, all but shucked and jived in playing dumb.

The Tale of Two Anhydrous Bohemian Trees

 

North and south of Ostrov,

My old native town,

Trunks of two trees

Used to grow horizontally.

But now both of them are gone.

One, the one in the north,

Was an apple, already dead

And dry when I was but a boy.

The other, some exotic plant, 

Was in the Chateau Park

Just behind its gate

Close to a waterless fountain.

Somehow everyone knew the first,

While her noble twin stayed unmarked.

A Woman Lost, Lost by a Window In Passing a Deciduous Moment

By a window taking a rapt stance, 

In a bedsheet loosely wrapped,

She casts her silhouettes

On the benumbed space

Not much far from a petite plate

That hosts a crop of ungrazed grapes,

A pear cupped in burnished curves

With fullness that is closely matched

By a rotund apple’s swooning white

All the while a glass of wine

Keeps its spark and fill intact.

Yet all is composed, serene, fine,

As something distant winged her smile

While the fingers mime her unseen knees.