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The Sleeping Gypsy |
HENRI ROUSSEAU’S
“THE SLEEPING GYPSY,” 1897
“THE SLEEPING GYPSY,” 1897
The moon's a witness,
with a scattering of stars
like beads from an abacus,
to this desert scene
fantastic and yet familiar
as a recurring dream
of vague menace where a
beast
like angst stands over us.
And like this sleeper,
though we wear cheery
colors,
carry a jug and our art
about
and trust in the guarantees
of ancient sands and
mountains,
will we, too, wake
to find the fierce, fixed
eye
of our own lion?
THE MELANCHOLY OF DEPARTURE
“Gare Montparnasse,” Giorgio
de Chirico, 1914
that train wailed its
departure
but now a deep hush
over the mustard yellow
street
a hush over the drab olive
walls
of the massive terminal
where no passenger stepped
out
where no cargo was
unloaded,
a scene as gleamless as
death,
not the worst of
desertions.
“Don’t leave without
me. Take
my hand. I’ll leave when you do,”
cried my mother, tied to a
chair
in the nursing home. What can
we ever keep but regrets?
A train steams off into the
radiance
of distance while in the
foreground
green fruit rots under a
gangrene sun.
painters and poets
ekphrastic
painters and poets
ekphrastic
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