Italian Landscape with View
of Glistening Firehouse
Beyond the ruined
arbor,
ancient portals formed
from
marble toppled upon
cracked
mosaic floors,
aqueducts
overgrown with vines,
wisteria
tendrils, stunted bushes,
berries
and brambles amid gnarled
root
clusters, wild flowers,
reeds;
beyond the unexcavated
ruins,
centuries deep in neglect, at
the
winding edge of disused
paths,
incongruous as crop circles
are left
by unidentifiable flying
objects
something manmade,
something
housing relics of a new age,
air raid
and fire sirens set for
pre-emptive
warnings that never
came.
Voices from the Garden
(Paris, July 1750)
after art by Cristina
Vergano
speak through the third
eye
in the center of the young
black
man's head. What he is able
to
relay is something like a
language
of birds, a knowledge all the
books
at his disposal are incapable
of
framing into a coherent
philosophy,
one that might explain how
the skull
of one species resting on a
Natural
History of the Animal
Kingdom,
may be exactly replicated in
that
of a living species perched
in
the form of a bird on the
raised hand,
pointing figure, of this
extraordinary
scholar whose every thought
is
a hypnogogic spelling, a
transmission
of the spirit world from well
beyond
ordinary knowing to lesser
creatures
whose thoughts, once
divined,
are of no practical
use.
Their Voices ( Lisbon, July
1652)
after art by Cristina
Vergano
can only be deciphered
by
one born deaf and made
holy
for his uncanny ability to
be
transformed in the image
of
those who speak in ways
only
audible to him. Observers
may
see him as a pale, naked
youth
perched on a plush red arm
chair
staring at onlookers with
what
could be thought of as
serious
intent but is actually
supreme
indifference to this
mundane
world of merest mortals
so
constrained by fixed times,
set
landscapes and three
dimensional
space, a world so unlike his
own,
he is compelled to
constantly
rearrange his own in the
manner
of his companions, colorful
tropical
birds and then himself,
growing
claws where his hands should
be,
gripping talons for feet to
scuttle
about on as he learns the
awful
secrets of
flight.
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