Still Life, 2016
My existence:
not a van Boeckel peach,
vermilion and aureate
but a Rembrandt tulip
madder striæ on ivory
whose fixity
unlike that of the fruit
speaks not to the
immortality of its
own resplendence
but to its hollowness
as a paean to a man
who never painted
a single petal
Transmutations
Glissando into silence:
Turntabled
flapper jazz
diminishes to a
turning of tables
in my pointed impervium
to the metered offerings
of my pestering muse
Contingency
was the road
both taken and not
was the road
both taken and not
when
I prattled on
about the inanities
of my own existence
instead
of articulating
the first thought that
your inquiry
as
to how I was
instantaneously
evoked:
that in the wake
that in the wake
of
the irredeemable
your family
your family
however
loss-wracked
remained
remained
in
Fortune’s graces
your presence in their lives
your presence in their lives
an
immutable given