Poet Barbara Ungar on Cherubs, Daggers, and the Milky Way

Venus with a Mirror

                                      after Titian

Titian, Venus with a Mirror, c. 1555

Love expects her own radiance to last

forever.

              Her large soft body,

doughy belly and arms

no woman today would want,

                                               but the face—

supermodel gorgeous,            

                                   glorious

in golden curls braided with pearls—

looks over her shoulder.

                                       Behind her

a cherub’s about to bonk her over the head

with a wreath.

                        Beside her

another sturdy cherub holds up

the heavy mirror.

                           Between them           

                                               

                                                   the vertical

slice of her 

                  framed by the mirror

                                                    doesn’t match

one large dark eye

                              spooked

like a horse

                    the flesh beneath it sags

                                                            She sees

what any woman sees

                                   in a mirror                                                   

her worst

                 The old woman

                                           rising toward her

a goblin shark

                        The dark wood frame

                                                            closing

a coffin lid.

Rembrandt’s Lucretia *

Rembrandt van Rijn, Lucretia, 1666

Look at her mouth,

crumpling like a child’s about to cry.

Her half-shadowed face

haloed in lush hair and subtle gems.

Her gold robes spread like a bell

around her, white chemise

open from breastbone to belly,

echoing the slit, the cureless

wound she’s carved on her

house fortress mansion temple tree.

The loving dagger still

clutched in her right hand,

she’s painted the unseen

on her side in good red blood—

Vagina: Latin for scabbard.

In Tintoretto’s Origin of the Milky Way **

Jupiter coasts in, thrusting

baby Hercules at

Juno’s breast. She sprawls

Tintoretto,  ca.1575–1580

naked, her luxe Venetian bed

entangled in cloud. Four

cherubim zoom in with bow

and arrows; her peacocks

watch. Shining rays

spray from her nipples:

the right streaming down to plant

lilies in earth; the left shooting

up—past the bastard

infant’s head and her bangled

arm upflung into sky­—

to flower in ten golden stars.

All the faces, even her mask

of perfection, gaze

at that miracle of milk. Startled

awake, she leans back,

bare foot treading

thundercloud, one hand open

above all their heads,

as if she, goddess of childbirth,

had just flung new-

born stars. The astonishment

of milk arcing out

into space, her stranger body

showering in spontaneous creation.

The Brank * 

                        Lithograph, 1984, by Leon Golub, Am. b. 1922

In the museum of beautiful nudes,

why do I choose the most hideous?

I wanted those etchings

of women growing out of trees,

the lines of their bodies mirroring

hills, or boughs, or pears . . .

But this—shit brown, red

smeared like blood—this ugliness

won’t shut up. Did they really

have those bunny ears, like some jokey

S & M costume, or Madonna’s next tour?

Brank, [etymology unknown. from Ir. brancas, halter?]          

           vb. (obs.) To prance; to hold up and toss the head;

                  applied to horses as spurning the bit. [Scot. & Prov. Eng.]

               gossip’s bridle

                 dame’s bridle

                   hag’s harness

                      witch’s bridle

                        scold’s helm

            a Brydle for a curste queane

In a vast profusion of fantastical and sometimes artistic styles

                                                                                  

A locking iron muzzle, metal mask, or cage,

 hinged to enclose the head

  often of great weight

The victim’s mouth was clamped shut

 by an iron band under the chin

  a flat piece of iron forced

inside her mouth, sometimes sharpened

 to a point, or studded with spikes,

  spurs, or a rowel

                            The whole contraption

fastened round the neck with a heavy padlock

                                                                  

The designs were left up to the imagination

 of the blacksmith

                                 Some shaped like pigs’ heads

Some had asses’ ears

                                and huge spectacles

                                                                      Some,

a bell on a spring to draw jeers

                                                       Some, a chain—

Ancient houses had a hook fixed beside the fireplace

 if she nagged too much the town

  gaoler would bring the community bridle

Every respectable settlement in England or Scotland had one 

                                                                               

Sometimes she was drawn around town on a cart

 in the ‘gagging chair’ or ‘tewe’

Sometimes the bit forced blood out

 at the slightest movement

  of the head or twitch of the halter

Sometimes she was led on a rope like a pack animal

Sometimes she was chained to the market-cross

 in the town square

Sometimes she was smeared with feces and urine

Sometimes wounded fatally,

 especially her breasts and between her legs

And padlocked on women convicted of witchcraft

 so they could not scream their horrible curses

  while burning at the stake—

All the nudes are speechless.

* from Charlotte Brontë, You Ruined My Life, The Word Works, 2011

** From The Origin of the Milky Way, Gival Press, 2007

Barbara Ungar has published four books of poetry. Her most recent, Immortal Medusa, was chosen as one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Indie Poetry Books of 2015. Prior books include Charlotte Brontë, You Ruined My Life and The Origin of the Milky Way, which won the Gival Prize, an Independent Publishers Silver Medal, the Adirondack Center for Writing Poetry Award, and a Hoffer award. Ungar is professor of English at the College of Saint Rose in Albany, New York, where she coordinates the MFA program.