EMPTY BOAT TUGGING AT TOMORROW
after Boat and Clouds 1967, by Elmer Bischoff
the sky flexes a muscled light
a few stray clouds are flushed with blue---
hot flames in the cool mouth of evening
the sea still fuming puts on a face
the score is almost settled off shore
a boat has survived all this again
little boat full of emptiness---
longing lies down in that space
as Bischoff offers himself and us
a tomorrow quite as an old friend would
a day to confront the rest of your life---
sky smiles quietly now at twilight
in the reflection of a boat
(be quick then while there is light)
you find a dark a liquid void
a place for the heart to reach straight in
Monet chased it like a sorcerer
bottomless promises rippled apart
sky on water looks back at you as well
a boat lives on this sliding window
double vision into light and shadow
opaque and surreal conspire with logic
because bookends claim us... caution and flair
tame and wild in each holy trail
the boat not less a gift than the wheel
and sturdy crafts appear like wild flowerings
the ancient mathematics of prow and keel
seem as effortless as branch from tree
a wise smirk is little boat’s blue stripe
gnarled young old-timers wrestle the weather
fickle wind and tantrum lurk
in ocean’s ominous slap but seams
are caulked with spit and wanderlust they
have learned to borrow the fish to earn the sea
their desperation invented the boat
but the boat invented horizons
after Boat and Clouds 1967, by Elmer Bischoff
the sky flexes a muscled light
a few stray clouds are flushed with blue---
hot flames in the cool mouth of evening
the sea still fuming puts on a face
the score is almost settled off shore
a boat has survived all this again
little boat full of emptiness---
longing lies down in that space
as Bischoff offers himself and us
a tomorrow quite as an old friend would
a day to confront the rest of your life---
sky smiles quietly now at twilight
in the reflection of a boat
(be quick then while there is light)
you find a dark a liquid void
a place for the heart to reach straight in
Monet chased it like a sorcerer
bottomless promises rippled apart
sky on water looks back at you as well
a boat lives on this sliding window
double vision into light and shadow
opaque and surreal conspire with logic
because bookends claim us... caution and flair
tame and wild in each holy trail
the boat not less a gift than the wheel
and sturdy crafts appear like wild flowerings
the ancient mathematics of prow and keel
seem as effortless as branch from tree
a wise smirk is little boat’s blue stripe
gnarled young old-timers wrestle the weather
fickle wind and tantrum lurk
in ocean’s ominous slap but seams
are caulked with spit and wanderlust they
have learned to borrow the fish to earn the sea
their desperation invented the boat
but the boat invented horizons
ECHO
after Echo, a painting by René Magritte
in spite of space/time and all that cutting edge vagueness
a tree and a sun dialogue
through a crack in the sky
it's a private conversation but you hear it
a nymph of sound mind and mythic determination
Echo in love with young Narcissus
pined away and pined away until (so it is said)
only her voice remained
we sometimes catch an echo from the future
as if a circle really exists
like a smile telegraphed from a child’s eerie wisdom
or a set of stubborn initials
blazed into the sincerity of a tree
because love is a scar a scented omen
of tears and laughter an echo half-requited
within this longing we call the present
and one day the way the day starts out
you sense the crash before it happens
tagging disaster in advance
it dogs you just out of reach
or the way a loved one’s memory
keeps looking back (keeps looking back)
over the shoulder of
what has not yet taken place
future and past want to finger the same dust
a table in the hall by a mirror
an inquisition like a border crossing
or a print in wet sand where you are about
…..to step
even on a train platform passing slow
strangers with eyes you have seen before
memory inside out receding repetitions
flexing the now and the never
.
.
.
THE SON OF MAN IN A NEAT RED TIE
Le Fils de l’homme by René Magritte
Le Fils de l’homme by René Magritte
Magritte floats that green apple
where a face wants to be
it's always annoyed me
where a face wants to be
it's always annoyed me
the Garden of Eden
has long legs
and bears the blame
titled Son of Man
he peeks out in North Sea light
in its wattage of reluctant disclosure
like a sly worm
on the horizon of apple
revealing just the tip of enigma
waiting to relish the gap
between obscure
and profound
apple leaves intact
like literary garnish
like a book jacket winking
with the venom of polite
and exacting premises
a myth in a neat red tie
this deacon this burgher
decked out in trim grim
an apple as absolute morality
the cost of knowledge
the loss of innocence
the loss of innocence
the coin of the realm is guilt
how to walk it
how to calibrate a life
with no wiggle room
