Pictures of a Failed Exhibition

Pictures Of A Failed Exhibition

From the days of my religion

when men were gods

and trees were prophets

painted tall and straight

till the  witches'-broom showed,

I took nothing in the end

but the relic in the bone box

framed by black velvet,
lid so carefully carved

with all my fables.

I set it on a scarlet altar

with seven priests and seven 

blessings, where canvas cherubim 

genuflected with a smirk.
In times of great need, I took it out.

I overlooked its sour smell,

its shriveled  form, and

fervently adored it as I

prayed its intercession
in my damnation.

But each year it just

grew blacker, crackled, smaller,

till opening the casket one day

I saw only a brimstone dust.

Then the incubus came

to please and torment me,

the spoiled trees

were felled, the priests

unfrocked and the cherubim fled,
never having truly felt at home

All that was left
hanging in the chiaroscuro
at the alter was a memory-shadow
shape of a severed thing decayed

pointing out the way

to dissolution. From these pictures
I learned two things:

that evil is good's bad dream;

that evil is insane

for it cannot dream at all.

~June 2015

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Fireblossom Friday

The perpetual framer of original challenges, Fireblossom (Shay's Word Garden) asks us to write a poem on any subject, her sole stricture being that the title begin with the words 'Pictures of..." 

Optional Psychedelic Garage Band Accompaniment

Process note: "...witch's broom or witches' broom is a disease or deformity in a woody plant, typically a tree, where the natural structure of the plant is changed. A dense mass of shoots grows from a single point, with the resulting structure resembling a broom or a bird's nest..."~wikipedia

Iamges: The Relic, 18923, by Joaquin Sorolla

Public domain via wikiart.org

Witch's-broom on Birch, via wikimedia commons

Shared under a Creative Commons license 

Epistemology: Prayer

Epistemology: Prayer

  So,

what       do

we      know   of

prayer?  A   hundred

 nights   I've  prayed

let       me    stop

loving      you

  let    me

    stop    

looking   for     you     in    wind's

twisting    of    clouds,  the  dead

face   of    full   moons,   toppling

piles  of  shut  books   in  tumbl'd

rooms.  Let  my  soul  grow  still,

calm,  old   as  it  should.   Let  it

laugh  in    dog's   tongue,   learn

love   with  small  things, dropp'd

stars,   dawnsongs  of   sparrows,

down  of    new    hatched   birds.

But no                   these prayers

like  every   other   I  have   ever

prayed         return  to   me   un-

answered.     Perhaps for prayers

to  work   they  must   know  you

for what  you   are:   a  loss  with

every gain,  a  candle  where   no

flame can be;   perhaps   prayers

are only the   match   we    strike

to light desire;  or  perhaps   you

must not care,      beyond fear,  beyond mind,

 if they come true.   I know nothing about prayer.

~January 2014,

extensively revised, April 2014

Another in a series I've written on  various epistemological conundrums of mine.

posted for    real toads

Sunday Challenge: Shape Poems

Kerry asks us to provide a poem in that form known as a concrete, visual or shape poem--one whose shape on the page reflects or is an important element in its subject matter. I have done my best, but I must say the "new, improved, updated" version of blogger makes it very very difficult. Please excuse any irregularities.

Here, for karin, and any curious others, is the original, unshaped, unrevised version written in January. It is a bit different and more rudimentary, as my finished poems always morph and develop a bit from the drafts, but I think it says much the same thing:

Epistemology: Prayer

What do we know of prayer?

A hundred nights I've prayed

let me stop loving you

let me stop looking for you

in the curl of the clouds

the dead face of the moon

a  toppling pile of books  in a tumbled room.

Let my soul grow old as it should,

let it laugh at dogs and love only

the song of blackbirds,

 the soft skin of a quiet child

but this prayer

like every other I have ever prayed

goes unanswered.

Perhaps for prayers to work

you must know them for what they are

a light where no light can be

a loss with every gain

perhaps prayers

are only the match we strike

to light desire  or perhaps

you must want them

 to come true.  I think

we know nothing about prayer.

~January 2014

I really think the revision is a better poem, so thanks to Kerry for the challenge.

Image: Woman Praying, 1883, by Vincent Van Gogh
Public domain, via wikipaintings.org

Escape from Bugtown

The inimitable Fireblossom has provided a crackling challenge over at Real Toads, and supplied us with a list of words from which we may assemble the title of a poem, which of course, we then have to write--details!. I felt a deep affinity for some of the words, but was also confoundedly attracted to others--the result is a pair of efforts--does this make me a Terrifying Prodigy, or just an Obsessive Docent of the various circles of Hell? Not sure, but here they are, and please don't anyone feel they have to read them both:

The Unexpected Ecclesiastic

(or: Escape from Bugtown)

I thought it odd you

blessed the home

where even a lost dog wouldn’t stay,

where the manger was lined with such nettled hay

no ox could eat, no saviour lay.

I didn't see the wrinkle

of  robe beneath your shell

in the worm holes we crawled

to find the Big Haul

when I was your doll.

I still didn't guess

when tunnel turned catacomb

the clicking wheeze of your true occupation,

the insectile calculation of my twice-damned station

in your holy equation.

When I found my familiar,  

you fought me, of course,

with the bell and the book

the withering look, the Fisherman's hook

the sinkhole, the black hole, the brass cross that shook

till I ran from the grinding

hallelu, from the sermon of you,

your structural integrity beltlessly down

wrapped in noise, blood and crowned

a bug on its back, the Bishop of Bugtown.

~September 2013

This is the poem I feel I was intended to write, so I did:

The Minuscule Incubus

Here inside the lacquered box

of scar and pretend,

only the smallest of devils still fits,

the one with the key,

adroit as a nosetwitch rat

every bit as strong

as a lion till dawn,

tiny as the tip of

a red hot wire

passed with a hiss

through the gray matter

laid over mountains of char.

His muzzle is a mask,

his tail bobbed like a Rott,

his torment an ashen tickle

no longer sweet

not even forbidden,

oblivious

compulsion missing the point.

Somewhere

past this place

where the worst has already happened

and is waiting to happen again,

there's a hole made in a dream

through which I may wiggle,

a worm waiting wings,

if only it were possible

to make myself

smaller than he.

~September 2013

(The other poems in my incubus series are    here )

posted for     real toads

Challenge: Fireblossom Friday

Build A Title

Thanks to all who read  either or both, and apologies for completely giving in to the dark side of my verbose tendencies.

Images: The Reprimand, circa 1890,  by Jehan Georges Vibert, 

Detail from Death and The Miser, 1490, by Heironymous Bosch

Public Domain via wikipaintings.org